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Old vs. New

I see a lot of threads on various audiophile forums that basically go like this: I sold my 5-6-10 year old speakers, amp etc. and bought new this or that and it kills the old stuff and sounds so much better.

I have listened to a lot of classic hi-end speakers, amps and preamps and also listen to a lot of FOTM stuff and to my ears a lot of the "old junk" sounds better, sometimes a lot better. Don't get me wrong a lot of the new gear on the market sounds very good.

So let me ask a question, why do so may people automatically assume that older gear sounds inferior to new stuff? Audio tech did not really changed that much in 10 y. We still have the same two ears now as we did 10 y ago? If something was good 10 years go why is it no good now?
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Showing 3 responses by faust3d

faust3d's avatar
faust3d OP
10 posts
 
"A warmer, romantic sounnd. Not very clear, nor pristine" - this is a very broad generalization. Take something like ProAc Response 2 for example. They are 22 years old now, and still sound good. As any mid-hight price monitor in the market today I would say. There are a lot of examples like this. I feel that this warm, romantic sound idea is a big misconception. I would hardly call TDL Studio 4 warm and romantic sounding ;o)
faust3d's avatar
faust3d OP
10 posts
 
"An interesting proposal is to take the classic old designs and update them with newer (and demonstrably better) parts."

With tube amps, most of the time, this is exactly what is done these days. Old classic designs are made with new TOL parts, funny thing is that times the new TOL parts sound inferior to old TOL parts. There were however a few very well made new amps inspired by classic amps. Take VAC PA90 for example, it's great sounding amp based on a classic old amp.
faust3d's avatar
faust3d OP
10 posts
 
I think a big problem today with many high priced gear is that measurements and computer simulation takes precedences over listening tests and tuning gear by ear. I have heard many new highly regarded speakers with mega $ amps and while technically very good, they just sound dead, boring and unmusical. Yes, some new speakers sound sublime and I would love to get them, but unfortunately the prices are simply ridiculous. What I see is that stuff from mid 90's is dropping in price on the used market and you can get a fantastic bargain on very good sounding speakers, amps etc. What I don't get is why would someone buy 40K new speakers and get rid of wonderful old speakers just because they are not new highly PRed flavor of the month. Also I just can't get my head wrapped around why would new tube amp for 30K be vastly superior to 90's 7K state of the art tube amp. Nothing changed in tube amp design in 10 years in my opinion. Correct me if I am wrong.
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