Loudspeakers have we really made that much progress since the 1930s?

Music instruments are pretty much what they have always been. And there’s the Stradivarius (and many other) fetishes for vintage stuff that supposedly was never bested.

In audio, and particularly speakers, many fundamentals are extremely similar since the 70s. Which is not a bad thing at all. It means a technology has reached a level where you may consider yourself served for the longer term. I do think there is genuine innovation, but on the other hand the improvements come down to the diminishing results we’re long used to in audio. My dad had phenomenally sounding speakers in the 70s. It was only in the early 90s that I was able to get -for myself, after I moved out- speakers that sounded equal in quality. And when my Dad died, I would have gladly taken those speakers, only they had been destroyed in a fire a few years before he died.

I think what has *really* changed is the quality of sound in the lower end. You were always able to get great sounding sound if you spent enough. But now you can build a system with a very few $500 components that gives anything a run for its money, and definitely puts still pricey vintage stuff in its place.

The diversity of opinions in this thread demonstrates once again the diversity of viewpoints in audio, which is a good thing in my opinion.  We approach the listening experience with different attitudes, priorities, life experiences, etc. which gives rise to different views on whether a particular speaker (or amplifier or whatever) sounds "good" or not.  I am always surprised by the posted reactions to a different rooms at a hifi show I attended.  Some rooms that I considered very poor are praised by others.  It reminds me of how people can view a work of art and come away with such different reactions to it.

In the case of vintage speakers, the picture is especially cloudy because so few people have actually heard the great sounding speakers from the 1930s and 1940s.  Especially in carefully set up systems.  Too many are making judgments based on what they think old speakers should sound like or what they recall from hearing Altecs or Klipschorns years ago, rather than actual experience. 

For myself I came to the vintage world and to horns in particular quite reluctantly.  For whatever reason I am very sensitive to the "honk" or "shriek" produced by many horns.  For decades each time I heard a horn speaker, I had the same negative reactions and wondered how anyone could tolerate such a colored sound.  Then I had a chance to hear some speakers using Western Electric horns and drivers and discovered how good they could sound.  As noted by several posters in this thread, a really good vintage speaker has a special musicality that modern speakers just don't provide, at least in my opinion.  And certain horns do NOT have the honk or shriek that drives me the wall.  One of those horns is the Western Electric 32A which can blend seamlessly with a large paper cone woofer, and fortunately the Altec version of the 32A is still readily available.  My own speakers use the Altec 32A with compression drivers and woofers that qualify as vintage but not from as far back as the 1930s.  I won't say my speakers can compete with the Shearer speakers described by the OP but they do things for me that are musically satisfying in ways that modern speakers do not.  And that includes modern horn speakers such as the Classic Audio Loudspeakers (heard half a dozen times but only at shows) and Avant Gardes.  Other folks might not react the same, but that just goes back to the diversity in this hobby.  To each his own.

@salectric --which compression driver for the Altec? And if a modern paper cone woofer, which one? And what do you do for a X-over? The WE stuff is too recherché, but doing this with a bit of Frankenstein-ing might be cost-effective. 
TIA,
bill hart

Whart,

I use an Altec 802-8G compression driver on the 32A horn.  Woofer is a Jensen P15LL which is a 15" with paper cone.  Both drivers have Alnico magnets.  The drivers and horn date from the 1970s, I believe, but are still available on Ebay at reasonable prices.  The drivers and horns are just the raw materials, however; the trick to getting them to sound so good is the crossover.  I have spent way too much time getting the crossover just the way I like it, but I am happy to provide details to anyone who is interested.  Just send me a message through the Agon email system.