Your Side by Side Experience With Best Vintage vs Newer Expensive Hi Tech Speakers

Since this is all opinion anyway, I have not done direct comparison of the particular speakers and manufacturers you listed. I enjoy listening to the vintage speakers and I still have old Klipsch, JBL, etc. I also enjoy listening to more modern speakers, so I also have B&W, Magnepan, etc. It seems to me that the vintage speakers, when designed, may have focused on different attributes than the modern speakers.  Back in the day, the major concerns seemed to be reducing distortion, creating large amounts of bass, and clear high frequencies, etc. Today it seems to have shifted to transparency, imaging, etc. This may just be my perception, but this is what it looks like when comparing old vs. new product literature, and that's what it sounds like also. The old speakers I have sound good to me, but they may not have the transparency or resolution of the modern speakers.

@j_stereo ,
You make some good points. I remember hifi mags in the 70-80's were always focused on distortion figures, and that high fidelity meant reproducing sound without artifacts or coloration of the signal.
B

I work with the most modern of transducer I design loudspeakers have been doing so for over 25 years. I sort out designs for other manufacturers as well as design transducers. Many products on the market have a bit of me in them. I also collect and restore vintage. I became interested in vintage designs as my knowledge of loudspeaker design grew and I read researched much of what the talented designers of the past wrote or created again much of this is still in use in audiophile products. When I started collecting vintage designs I looked for the best of what the past offered never expecting much beyond that it was cool and interesting expecting that it could never be a equal to my audiophile systems. But I found the opposite many of the best loudspeaker designs of the past were better or equal to modern offering and some with just  a few modern upgrades are SOTA today. Some offer levels of performance unavailable to audiophiles buying only new designs. Sure if wanting a bookshelf sized loudspeaker you may not find what you like in vintage but if you can handle 12-15 inch woofers than give it a try buy right and if you dont like you can break even or even profit on resale. Still its not all vintage is great its some vintage is and honestly most all will need a few modern updates if expecting SOTA.

Michael

i would read it :-)