Sound quality of Newer versus Older speakers

@alexberger,

Hi,

I think one early sign of compression is when you start to crank up the volume but the sound doesn't get much get louder.


@speakermaster,

Have a look at the Quad 63s, Tannoy Berkeley's/Arden's, JBL l100s, Spendor BC1s, vintage Celestion's, Wharfedale's, Harbeth's etc.

What about the old Sonus Faber's? Weren't they always beautiful?

Are modern designs really that better looking?

The fact that the classic rectangular box is so familiar and still liked by so many people means it's very difficult for any speaker design to get away from it - despite its obvious sonic shortcomings.

It's certainly a good thing that modern speakers tend to be offered in a greater range of finishes these days. Nowadays I tend to prefer speakers that colour match the wall behind, so I'd much prefer it if different grille colours were offered as a choice.

Anyway, I think audiophile fashions can change dramatically over the years. Some of those old backlit Japanese amps and receivers from the 70s/80s are now suddenly starting to look extremely stylish to me.

Will put my aging BIC venturi V-830’s against a lot of speakers.    They have been my go to since the early mid 90’s. Even the little brother V-630’s are sublime. 
I swear by these speakers.  Even the new reincarnation of BIC are just ok, but, nothing like the 90’s BIC, or those BIC Realta speakers, almost bought them, but at the time, didn’t have the scratch.
I kick myself!

too many variables to make sweeping statements.  with respect to walking the fine line between detail and forgiveness I would say speakers of today tend to be more over the line towards detail and speakers of previous eras tended to be under the line and closer to forgiving.  

@avanti1960 ,

"I would say speakers of today tend to be more over the line towards detail and speakers of previous eras tended to be under the line and closer to forgiving."


Isn't this the dreaded upwards tilting of the high frequencies that many loudspeaker manufacturers are still tempted to introduce for the sole effect of being more impressive in the show room?

This practice (along with tipping of the bass - the so called smiley EQ) seems to be even more common in the world of headphones where a design with a flat response is almost unheard of.

No wonder most engineers still prefer to mix on professional monitors.

I have a pair of new dynaudio contour 60. My fathers 35 years old crappy bose 505 sound more natural as my contour 60. I previously owned the Dynaudio contour 3.3 from the late 90’ which sounded far more natural as the contour 60. I believe there are a lot of modern speakers which sound more natural and balanced as the dynaudio 3.3 but i did the wrong choice.
What i’m sure is that at parity of investment you will get a better sound by buying older speakers. You find very good, top of the line speakers from 20 years ago for 1500 euro....to match the quality of those speakers with a new product you probably have to spent 10 or even 15.000 Euro. The contour 3.3 i owned costed me 1200 euro and they sounded ubelivably better (from every point of view) as the 10.000 Euro Contour 60. Speakers have a very long lifecycle.