All Pre 1970 Vintage speakers suck! Prove me wrong

I had Rectilinear5, great open sound then after around 40 years of life, my Acoustat X, today driven by a Soulution 725. As far as I improve my electronics, my Acoustats sound better and better. 

In my first HIFI dreams, after heard them: JBL Paragon and Klipshorn

Low efficiency, direct radiating speakers with voice coil-fitted drivers - as they're mostly represented today - have improved in a range of areas over the last ~50 years. ESL's fundamentally haven't. 

The pro segment of speakers have seen their improvements as well, not least for their intended applications and to accommodate in some cases a smaller size factor in the LF-region via different designs and much more powerful drivers, but as has been pointed to already a selection of vintage pro drivers have a dedicated following due to their sonic characteristics. Their lighter overall moving mass (incl. voice coils) - some of them with field coils and others with Alnico magnets - and lower power handling can lead to a "snappier" presentation as well as a fuller, more organic tone, not least as a distinctive feature at lower SPL's where they seem to come better to life. To me at least, while finding there's definite merit to their popularity, there's also sometimes a particularity to their sound that's not necessarily about "neutrality." Seeing also the prices of such units being often preposterously sized it becomes a niche market to a select, sometimes wealthy following of audiophiles that pursue of specific sonic imprinting. 

In any case I'd take most any of a range of older (or newer), larger pro horn speakers - typically aimed at cinema usage - over modern (or older) day low eff. hifi dittos with their vastly more realistically scaled, effortless and uninhibited presentation. Most domestically aimed horns/horn hybrid speakers fall short here as well being they're size constrained; while it may make them a better fit with the spouse and caters to interior decoration demands, a compressed size factor with this segment of speakers really robs them of their fuller potential. It's not about domestic or pro application here, but simply what serves the design and the physics involved - in a home environment as well. 

And that, physics, is what the pro segment of horn-based speakers got right from the beginning, many decades ago, so even while they were less extended in the frequency extremes they got the important basics right in a way that newer, smaller domestic designs in the same segment can only dream of achieving. And that's not about age, but rather - to reiterate the above - what complies with physics the best way possible. 

@inna ,

“Any vintage speakers that sound as good overall as, say, JM Labs Grand Utopia ?”

ohh hell no! IMHO of course lol. My dream speaker when they promote me to head cheese or I win the lottery. 

Looks like the lion is nothing more than a little pussy   cat.

Where is the lion hiding?

Some think, I heard, that Grand Utopia are one of three-five top speakers. They sound great even on youtube, that I can tell. Yeah, a bit expensive, not too big, though, quite manageable. VAC and Alnic electronics are popular choices with them.