Vintage vs New


My children growing older and leaving home has allowed me to get back into our common interest. I find myself wanting a new pair of speakers and I’m torn between some vintage models that interested me in easier times, but were not obtainable due to budgetary limitations, and current models with their state of the art drivers.  Case in point: B&W 801 Matrix Anniversary vs. anything in the 702/703.
I would like to hear people’s thoughts.  
mjjw
My amplifier is vintage and is more than good...

First it is the controls of embeddings working dimension of a system that matter most....Not boasting about branded name....




Second it is the ratio Sound quality versus price that count.... You can look for the best at the least price, and most of us did that without thinking that their choice of gear is the best there is or ever will be, and in this search, some vintage are IMPOSSIBLE to beat in this scale ratio Sound quality/price....

My Sansui AU 7700 for example has many flexible possibilities and functions with a minimal sound quality IMPOSSIBLE to buy anywhere now...It is not the best in the world of amplifier but ONLY one among many more than good amplifiers ; and an amplifier that can beat it today soundwise, and there exist many of them, will be a very much MORE costly one than it with NONE of his multi functionalities tough....

Read the description of his functions on the internet...

It is creativity that gives us Hi-FI experience, not a branded name linked to any piece of gear by itself over other piece of gear in the same quality class which is  not necessarily sometimes in the same price class, being it  vintage or not....

And many costly "tweaks" also could be replicated at peanuts costs.... It is the same thing here...



Creativity is the queen and any branded name piece of gear is only one of the working dwarves....Yes some old dwarves are better workers on some counts than some others younger one, so what?


For speakers, no speakers even mechanically controlled one against vibrations, can beat the acoustic of the room where they work....My now vintage speakers are not the best there is at all.... But in an optimal room they rival even in the ratio Sound Quality / price anything that exist.... I pay them 30 us bucks or 50 canadian bucks....There exist plenty of speakers better than my own here but most of the times in an uncontrolled environment especially on the acoustical dimension and sometimes  uncontrolled in the others dimensions.... Then what is important the name of the product, so good it is or the controls over his embedding process?

In general rule sound quality most of the times is linked to embeddings controls of the mechanical,electrical and acoustical working dimensions way more than to a chosen piece of costly gear by itself  for most of us...

And anyway the choice of speakers is too much specifically linked to specific use and needs to be generalized... Acoustic controls is the KEY if your speakers are MINIMALLY good one any way....





if you are going wide band, go new have you EVEN considered wide band?
Guess not
Depends what you mean by vintage. If ten years old is vintage then okay, there are some things from a decade ago that are still pretty good. Ten years to me is used, not vintage. Go back 30 years to the 1990's, now it gets a lot harder. Maybe a few things from the 1990's would still be considered good by today's standards. But the 90's is old, still not vintage.   

Vintage to me is the 1970's and earlier. Maybe stretch to the 80's, but that's about it. And no, there is no speaker from the 1970's that can hold a candle to DI. Nostalgia, and wishful thinking, notwithstanding.  

The situation with wire is even worse. Maybe someone so sure there was great wire back then can name me the 1970's era power cord they would put up against a circa 1990's Synergistic Research Master Coupler? This should be good...
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