old vs. new , wich one is better?

I agree with many of Stanwal's points, most of all his last one. My story: not ages ago, I bought an SS head amp and SS pre with built-in phono made 30yrs ago. It was not cheap, but was less than a third of original price. My gut is that while I spent about 30% of their original price in local currency terms, it would cost 3-4x original price to get that quality now, if not more (the mfr's repair tech for these pieces says "5x original price for the headamp, 3-4x for the pre"). Is there a better headamp mad now? Maybe. I have not run across one. Is there a better pre+phono made now? Most likely, but I don't want to spend that kind of money. Do I think I got better bang for buck than buying new? Absolutely.

In turntables, I am sure that a few of today's top turntables are among the best turntables ever made. I can't afford those. I can, however, get most of the way there with "old" turntables.

I expect that the quality relationship may break down with "old tube amps" vs "new tube amps." For one, Chinese-manufactured redesigns of classic circuits are good bang for buck. For another, excellent old tube equipment is not cheap.

Great!!! .... thanks to all for your valuable input, looks like we have consensus about that old amps/preamps are not better than new ones but.... what about turntables?, do you consider we saw the best 3 or 4 decades ago?; will be great to know your opinion about this topic.

There are some very fine 30yr old tables. I daresay one can get excellent bang for buck with some of those tables. I certainly enjoy mine. For superbucks, one could purchase a currently-made table which would probably beat any of them, but it would cost many multiples more, perhaps orders of magnitude more.

Thanks T-bone, different from the amp/preamp situation, I consider that in the TT area no important improvements has been made thru all this years: audio companies are selling the same technology with a much higher prices and 21 century designs, but thru the used market we can have today the best of the 60's - 80's period at a very rasonable prices. Same happens -in my opinion- with cartridges.

Stanwal is right. He sums it up quite nicely. I would add that replacing old coupling caps and installing V-Caps in their place can be a huge improvement but they need as much as 300+ hours break in time before you recognize their full potential. I'm not a dealer and have no affiliation with the company that sells V-Caps. The Russian caps on ebay are dirt cheap and the reviews rate them well for their price. V-Caps aren't cheap but they are perhaps the best out there today.