Just curios how a classic 3 way speaker stands up to a modern floor standing speaker? I know that’s a bit broad so feel free to narrow it down a bit, for example Wharfedale Linton vs a similar priced modern floor stander?
Can you give us a link for the Wharfedale Linton that provides some details, photos and/or specs?
Substitute any decent big box 12” woofer 3 way speaker to a similar priced modern floor standing design.
From my own experience, I'd say modern 2-way floor standing speakers that I know in the $2,000+/pair price range do outperform older classic older 3-way speakers that I've known. I emphasize the words "I've known" because there are always exceptions. My go-to example of a classic older 3-way is the JBL L100. I listened to them for many years and am highly familiar with their numerous flaws.
To deal with that, I built new crossovers for them – read the details here. I eventually replaced them with
Salk SongTowers in 2007 and there was no looking back. Three years ago, I replaced the SongTowers with another pair of Salk 2-way floor standers,
the Veracity STs. Both of these modern 2-way floor standers outperform that older "classic" 3-way speaker in all aspects.
Did the engineers of the 70’s and 80’s get it right and were simply trying to reinvent the wheel OR are we making significant improvements in speaker design? Obviously cone, magnet and other materials have improved but has the three way design actually been surpassed?
For the most part speaker designers and engineers didn't get it right in the 70s or 80s. Perhaps some were beginning to get it right by the late 80s, but they were only beginning. Since the 1990s, there have been major improvements in speaker measuring systems and crossover design software that couldn't exist until computers became faster and more potent. By roughly 2000-2005 home computers equipped with speaker measuring rigs (hardware and software) easily outperformed anything available in the 70s and 80s.
The improvements in cones and motors (voice coils and magnets) were largely done to make smaller 6 to7" woofers perform as good as or better than the large 12" drivers of earlier decades. There was a public demand for speakers with smaller foot prints driving all this. It continues today.
