What vintage speaker might you use today

Thank you for your response. I somewhat agree with your last paragraph because like yourself have heard a number of very good bookshelf and monitor speakers on today's market that are under $400.  A few members who responded to this thread have indicated they have Dynaco A-25's and still claim they sound good.  

They probably bought them in the early 90's when you could still find a relatively clean pair for under $150 or less. Check out e-bay today and you will find at least six A-25's supposedly in mint condition in the range from $299.00; $399.00 and one at $449.00. The issue is:... have they been gutted and newer drivers replaced the originals

.Because I am in my late 60's, my gem speakers of audio's golden years are Rectilinear, KLH, AR, ( never a big fan even then)   Dynaco, Infinity  and a few others.  Interestingly., I have updated my nostalgic  search which is mainly fascination not a hobby, for some of JBL's early 1980's and 1990's  classic speakers:  Century L-100; the Jubal L-65,  the Studio 4311; and I think L-930, (unsure of the number) a killer large box speaker, not a floorstander.  My only objections to the above models, they all had calibrated woofer and tweeter control, often on the front baffle. I was too much of a purist then, and even now to accept any shaping of the original signal. Fortunately, we don't see many brands today with tone controls. Vandersteen does and to my great surprise, these control do make a difference in the sound.   BTW, the vintage JBL's I listed are not cheap, even those with scratched cabs, and one or two replacement drivers.    

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Holt goes on to admit that the quality of “presence” which these older system had in spades is now missing in favor of the “smoother, sweeter sound”. So what is presence, anyway, when it comes to sound? It’s the experience of being present when music is being performed. In other words, its truth- to the musical event. What is “smoother, sweeter” sound? It’s sound which has been de-natured of transient response and dynamics through the use of small, inefficient box speakers with solid state amps, all of which can be made to measure better in frequency response and harmonic distortion, but which even 50 years ago were not fooling people who knew better.