Vintage vs New speakers

[paulgyro]

Seeing I'm moving into a new house with a larger semi-detached home theater I've been looking for speaker upgrades.

I keep finding myself 1) Looking at all the new speakers available on the market 2) Scouring the available used speakers to find a diamond in the rough.

This bags the question, can I expect today's quality mid-range to upper mid-range speakers to perform better then 10-25 year old mid-range to flagship speakers?

I've never bought new before.

 

[VMPS-TIII]

My 20 year old VMPS Super tower III's still sound great to me but today's best speakers with BE, aluminum ceramic oxide and RAAL tweeters have a more articulate extended treble range. You notice it when you have them side by side. With the RAAL tweeters I hear percussion and other sounds that come forward in the listening window that are not as obvious with my VMPS towers.

To my ears, 20 year old speakers typically have a different sound than those with the latest tweeter designs. If you are looking for hi definition, silky highs I would listen to some new speakers like the Canton Vento Reference series, Revel BE series, Focal 926, Kanta, Sopra or Ascend Seirra with RAAL 70-20 tweeters. If that doesn't matter to you then a 20 year old flagship speaker in great condition will kick your room just as well.

 

[paulgyro]

Dang those nice new modern tweeters cost a pretty penny don't they? $700 upgrade on the Ascent Sierra!

 

[D Murphy]

Dang those nice new modern tweeters cost a pretty penny don't they? $700 upgrade on the Ascent Sierra!

It's very expensive to manufacture a true ribbon tweeter that can be crossed below 3 kHz. However, the RAAL 64-10x costs about 1/4th as much and does everything the bigger siblings can do above 3700 Hz or so. I, of course, have no idea where you might find 3-way speakers using the 64-10x.

 

[VMPS-TIII]

BMR Monitor $1700

Philharmonic Audio

philharmonicaudio.com

RAAL 64-10x, BMR midrange, 6" woofer
20" H x 8" W x 12-1/2" D - 32lbs

 

[lovinthehd]

Sure there are some vintage speakers (and I'm using vintage in the sense that they are items of an exceptional class among older things, not simply old) that stand up well, but think you have to go on a case-by-case basis. If a driver is blown on an older speaker replacements can be hard, altho replacing surrounds or re-coning drivers is often still possible.

Also depends where you live as to the availability of such on the used market. I live in the boonies where that's somewhat rare altho a guy in the nearest reasonable sized city about 45 minutes away seems to have been squirreling away quite a few and usually has a few pairs at sort of reasonable prices available....but seems his are generally in good condition. I'd have to drive several hours for more choice, tho. I picked up a pair of "vintage" JBLs I'd wanted with a several hour round trip to the second closest city a few years ago but mostly have newer speakers. At least I wouldn't want to buy used speakers without a chance to go listen and inspect first....

Contemporary speaker and crossover designs as well as modern manufacturing of drivers/cabinets can yield very good results, and sometimes at very reasonable price points. In terms of populating a new home theater setup new speakers have the advantage of getting a matched set beyond one pair, i.e. specialized speakers for a full surround setup. As well as warranty and service advantages.