vintage versus modern speakers

I'm not sure that modern drivers with their hyped exotic materials are all that much better than the old plain paper, etc. drivers that preceded them, especially when one considers their performance to cost ratios.
IMHO, many of the used late 80's through early 00's speakers from manufactures such as Dunlavy, Magnaplanar, Thiel, Vandersteen, etc., can more than hold their own against comparably priced new options.

If you like the sound of a particular speaker with a particular amp then buy it. Doesn't matter when it was made if in good condition. It doesn't matter how good or not all the rest are.

So let's see. New cars are better than the 30 yr old technology auto. Computers are much better, televisions, washing machines, power tools, battery technology, tennis rackets, jets, and on and on the list goes.

But speakers, they haven't bested those heady days in the 70's/80's/pick your decade. Excuse me for smiling up my sleeve.

It is interesting how technological advances can be more readily applied in certain areas, but, not in others. We now have, and employ, the latest tools to analyze such instruments as the violin and yet, many of the best instruments remain those made from the late 1600's to the early 1700's. There are instruments made of fancy metal alloys and carbon fiber composites, and yet, no one has been able to make consistently superior instruments using modern technology. Why? For one thing, we don't completely understand what makes for good sound reproduction and how to measure those qualities and how to then embody those qualities in the instrument. A lot of that is the "art" of making a good violin or a good speaker.

There are a lot of speaker designers who employ very high tech approaches to reducing cabinet resonance, controlling breakup modes in speaker diaphragms, reducing driver mass, etc., and yet, notwithstanding the same technological goals, the sound of their products is radically different. Clearly, there are things at play that have not been analyzed, measured and accounted for that ultimately matter.

From a perspective of my personal taste, a lot of the high tech speakers are a disappointment. I suspect that, in the pursuit of improving on certain measurable aspects of "performance" something else suffered.

Seconding Larry's characteristically excellent post, there are reasons that Western Electric speaker drivers from the 1930's command astonishing prices these days. And it's not just rarity, although that is certainly a factor. Or that Tannoy speaker drivers from the 1940's, 50's, and 60's can go for the better part of $10K. Or that many present day audiophiles build their systems around the 1950's Quad electrostatic.

It's possible to get both great sound and poor sound with both recent speakers and vintage speakers. My suggestion to the OP, as stated on 2-8-15, was that in his price range the price vs. performance sweet spot, also factoring in condition-related risk, is likely to fall in between.

Regards,
-- Al