Speakers 10 years old or older that can compete with todays best,

@mijostyn wrote:

And just how are you correcting amplitude 1 Hz at a time? It is not down the road for me. You can do it in an automated fashion or manually including programing delays. I start with automated then fine tune manually. I find it best to program for flat then overlay my own preference target curves which were constructed by ear. 

Depends on what's being addressed. Are we speaking notch placement or PEQ? Notches in the HF-region are located precisely with nearfield measurements, whereas PEQ's can be more of an assessment by ear from the listening position (in addition to measurements), starting out "overshooting" in larger Hz-steps (and gain ditto) to get an overall bearing, and then fine tuning in ever smaller increments and Q-width variations.  

Efficiency is nice if you want to use small amplifiers. Personally, I do not care about it. I prefer to look at the type of loudspeaker.

It's a common misconception I find think to exclusively link up high efficiency with small amps as the preferable scenario. High eff. speakers + high power amps can be great solution as well - why limit yourself to one approach, and from what, experience? I too look a the type of speakers, which is really about what that dictates sonically rather than eff. per se. 

You like horns, I prefer ESLs which admittedly are not efficient @ 86 dB. But, since I remove 100 Hz down from them they go louder than ---- , which is all I really care about, the ability of a system to reach realistic volume levels.

With horns and large displacement dynamic drivers it's about that as well, but then it's about how realistic volume levels are reproduced rather than merely attaining them. 

At any rate with the amps we have today efficiency is not an issue.

If that was the case it's assuming the amp is the only determining factor in achieving realistic volume levels and overall effortless reproduction, which clearly it isn't. Low eff. speakers will eventually compress both as a dynamic phenomena (as in transiently fairly early on, dulling transient behavior) or more outwardly as a macro-thermally induced ditto heating up the voice coil to such a degree that SPL is reduced from an expected value. 

It only determines volume per watt and not sound quality.  

As an outset, yes, but practically it's not that simple. High vs. low efficiency isn't an all things being equal scenario as there are many differing factors at play comparing the two segments of speakers that will shape the outcome one or the other way. For one, with high eff. and maintaining extension into LF-region comes very large size, and controlling directivity into the lower mids will have the same consequence for the horn size here. The dispersive nature makes a big difference sonically, and high eff. + deep extension is a different meal/animal vs. low eff. and the same. A good quality, high eff. large format comp. driver + large horn combo simply steamrolls over a direct radiating low eff. dynamic driver combo in ways that has to be heard to be understood, whereas a large ESL speaker will have other qualities to bring to the table that in some ways exceed horns, while in others they fall short. 

@phusis 

I never said to limit yourself to one approach. But what you hear repeatedly is that people get high efficiency loudspeakers to support low powered amps that are deemed to sound better. That is not my experience, but that is why Howard Johnsons made 28 flavors. Also many classic speakers were very high efficiency because the amps they had back then were not very big. Efficiency was a big deal, back then, unfortunately time alignment was not. Also nobody took sub bass seriously. It was not until the late 70's that subwoofers creeped into the situation and due to the lack of adequate bass management were endlessly belittled to the extent that many audiophiles will not go near them even today.    

As far a digital EQ is concerned, it is not parametric EQ in the traditional sense, you draw target curves on a grid and the computer will apply them assuming the curve does not go outside boundaries. Once the system is flat down to 18 Hz I apply a rather standard target curve that increases bass up to 10 dB at 18 Hz, is back down to 0 dB by 100 Hz then tapers off slowly from 1000 Hz on up to 20 kHz which is down 9 dB. This allows stress free listening at high volumes giving the feeling of a live performance at volumes that are not destructive to iones hearing. I have one curve aside that has a notch filter at 3500 Hz in case I encounter a sibilant female or violin. I have not used it in over a year. It seems that the AtmaSphere MA2s have abolished sibilance in my system.

I still listen to a pair of Vienna Acoustics Mahler which I have since 2001, they sounded great and even better after upgraded crossover caps.

Wow, so many comments.  Both informative and some insulting.  Interesting.

In my opinion, cabinet making has improved greatly over the years.  However, there are some excellent speakers out there 10 years and older that If I could grab (without losing my shirt) I would.

1.  Martin Logan Statement 2.  I've attended many audio shows over the decades and these are still some of the best I've heard.  Good luck finding a set and also good luck getting them into your room.

2.  Many of the speakers mentioned by others in this post are also excellent.

3.  Goldmund Apologues (spelling?).  Heard them at Robertson Audio back in the day in LA.  Oh my word, they were excellent. Never had an artist walk out of the speakers, sit at the piano, bass player and drummer do the same and simply blow me away at the sound.

I forgot the electronics, but keep in mind that you are also listening to the electronics used at the time also, not just the speakers.  Also, the dealer played the album on the stupidly expensive (at the time $35,000) Goldmund turntable.  

Being a retired (recently) Electrical and Electronics Engineer and a current Track and Field Coach, I always tell my student/Athletes that there is always someone out there faster and can jump further or higher than you.  Just be the best you can be is what matters.

There is always a piece of equipment or system out there better that what we have (most of us).  So, a little kindness please.  I've seen equipment designed as one offs by a Manufacturer just for a particular customer that was just too expensive and time consuming to market, that will blow anything out there away.  So, yes, there is always something better.

I still to this day remember the outstanding sound of my Uncle's Thiel Type A speakers.  I bet they still would sound outstanding.

enjoy

Looking at this question, I am realizing how hard it is. In order to answer it, you must be familiar with a number of speakers brands… say five and what they sounded like ten years ago and now. More would be better. It would be really hard to compare random ten year old speakers with different speakers, since there are so many different flavors and each person has such particular tastes and listening abilities.

So ten years typically makes an important difference. Brands that I have known in the comparison include Sonus Faber, B&W, DynAudio, Kef and a couple more. Each maintained their house sound while making overall improvements.

So, the final part of the question… what does compete mean? I guess it means that in side by side test there is no competition… the newer is better, easy call. Or does it mean a notable improvement that most folks would recognize regardless of their overall liking of the house sound? So in the former case no and the later case yes.

I’m just not sure what to do with the dredged up two or three speakers that became ledgendary like Quad and never go out of favor… these are outliers. The vast majority of speaker companies that have remained in business continue to make significant improvements over time, decade by decade.