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

I had my beloved Klipschorns for 17 years, and expected to have them for life. Fate intervened and because of a move, I needed to sell them. I spent a full year and travelled hundreds of miles seeking a worthy replacement -- listening to almost everything out there under $4,000. I ended up with Spatial Audio M3s, and haven't looked back. I didn't think I'd ever say this, but the M3s surpass the Khorns in every way, mids, highs, and especially sound stage. They have taken me to an entirely new level of quality and enjoyment. I'm a fan of vintage, and have some vintage pieces in my system, but in this case, the new is a significant improvement over the old. The Khorns ruled in their day, but its a new day. 

@wester17 Updating the khorns, crossover rebuild, upgraded voicecoils, horn damping ( and some other damping ), and of course room corners, with the right equipment, are still hard to beat, for what they do best, but I am prejudiced. Of course, to each his own.

@michaelgreenaudio I want to thank you personally for your contributions to this hobby.

Years ago, component and ancillary changes in my second system yielded much less than the expected impact. After a while and many attempts to rectify the situation, I implemented my own version of your RoomTunes, made with burlap we sewed up stuffed with long-hair carded wool a local mill produced. The effect allowed the sound of the individual components and ancillaries changes to now come forward.

This allowed me to understand why price does not ultimately determine the system success. Folks often stress the importance of synergy in this vein, but the room and system setup therein prove crucial. Every one of us regularly hear systems made up of good components sound much better than systems composed of great (or more often, just more expensive) components set up / integrated less well.

Audiophiles fool themselves believing tone controls no longer exist in this hobby. Consider the countless dollars and discussion threads spent on the hopes for and sonic effect of changing whatever (loudspeaker, power / pre amplifier, tube buffer, CD player, turntable, cartridge) component, resistor / capacitor, vacuum tube, cable, isolation device, tweak, etc. in the quest toward the ultimate destination

If you can afford it and have the room invest in Tannoy Autographs. Best Cabinets ever designed. Could take up to a year to build and tune properly. The music and depth out of those Gold speakers lingers to this day in my mind