Does old-fashioned necessarily mean out of date?

I have a few key pieces to my system that are from different eras. A Thorens 124 turntable designed in the late 50's, a Scott tuner designed in the early 60's, a Revox reel-to-reel tape player from the 70's. It all fits in nicely with contemporary gear that I also enjoy. I found that the turntable and tuner sound better than the more modern designs I was using, so I went to them for an improvement in my musical experience, not nostalgia. 

I also have a 60's Scott 299a integrated amp that I think sounds beautiful, but nowhere near as complete a musical experience as my contemporary Zesto electronics. So I would not say that old is always better than new, or vice-versa.

I'm glad it is all still out there for me to try and decide for myself.

David

A modern SUV can drive circles around a sixties Jaguar E-type, yet the latter provides unmatched, unalloyed driving pleasure (more so if equipped with the early Moss 'box!).

However, and without belaboring the obvious, if your goal is predictable transportation the SUV wins. Yet a good E-type is worth more than a couple new SUVs.

The beauty of the audio world is that not only you can buy 1990-2000's world class gear for a small fraction of the cost of today's best, but depending on what kind of component it is the performance gap may not even be that significant.

It is very easy to become immersed in the idea of equipment and place the Value in the equipment owned and not it’s actual Capability to produce music.

It is also an option to seek out and discover audio equipment that has the attribute that creates a music that is easy to become immersed in.

Equipment capable of immersing one in the music can in my experience be as Old as 70 Years since production.

On my sleeve I wear equipment that creates / produces music that can immerse me in their somewhere.

I really don’t need the latest Fad and Market Speil.

New or vintage gear this dont matter at all ...

Sound is understood by acoustics and we must experiment in a room for a specific speakers pair and specific biased ears...

If you dont use experiments to tune the ears/speakers/ room then you will not reach optimal good sound, nevermind the gear price ...It is my experience...

There is no Bill Gates royal road to S.Q. without acoustics, mechanicals and electricals controls ...Call that "tweaks" if you want but it is a name which reduce what is a fundamental necessity to a secondary commodity  ....I prefer to call them acousticals,mechanicals and electrical embeddings controls devices... It does not necessarily cost much but it ask for experiments...

As is so often the case, the best answer is, "It depends." I am still enjoying my Infinity IRS Beta speaker system - I scrounged up the original receipt today and it's dated 11/30/1990. It has needed a bit of service over the years, including replacing the woofer surrounds and recent repair (and mods) to the xover/servo unit. Given its age, it probably qualifies as "vintage."  But it still sounds fantastic and will embarrass many a modern speaker.

The component with the longest continuous use in my system is my McIntosh MR80 tuner, which I bought back on 11/80. Of course, radio isn't what it used to be so it doesn't get nearly the use it did back then. It has also been serviced a few times over the years, but it still performs superbly and I live in a very difficult FM reception area. It would be difficult to improve upon this with a more modern tuner.