What vintage speaker might you use today

Correction to my previous post: I had indicated that the Quad ESL-63 pre-dated 1980. According to various references, though, it was introduced in 1981, although its development had begun in 1963.

Regards,
-- Al

11-19-15: Sunnyjim
By vintage, I am generally referring to speakers from roughly 1965 to 1989. I did not want to use the word "Old" so as not to flush out any speaker. I should have added the word "venerable" to identify for us old timers in the membership, names like Bozak, Advent, AR, KLH, EPI, Rectilinear, JBL, DCM IMF, (Bud) Fried, ESS (pre-AMT tweeter and Dr. Heil).

My perception back in the day was that as a general rule of thumb (there were exceptions, of course), speakers from the 1980s tended to considerably outperform those from the earlier part of the period you cited, particularly in terms of definition, clarity, and imaging. In many cases, I suspect, due more to the cabinet design than to the design of the drivers and crossovers.

Since the original question was phrased as "what vintage speaker might **you** use today," I'll say therefore that the only speakers from prior to ca. 1980 that come to mind as some that I might want to use would be the Quad ESL-57 (of course), probably also the ESL-63, and if I wanted to invest a great deal of money and time, Tannoy or Western Electric drivers from earlier decades mounted in modern custom cabinets.

From the 1980s, though, there are a great many choices I would consider, many of them noted by the others earlier in the thread. Among those that I had occasion to hear extensively, Infinity RS-1B, Acoustat, KEF. And a lesser known one that I owned and which gave me a great deal of pleasure for a couple of decades, the Pentagram P-10 (in one of its later versions, having a different and larger dome midrange than the initial version; no relation, btw, between that speaker and the Bang & Olufsen Penta which was also from the 1980s).

Regards,
-- Al

Excellent comments by Larry, as always.  It's worth noting that many of the Western Electric and Jensen drivers he refers to were introduced in the 1930s!

Regards,
-- Al

Ct0517, I would consider the Quad ESL-57 because of the legendary reputation it has achieved and maintained over the years, particularly with respect to its mid-range transparency. I am familiar with its impedance curve that you linked to. The wide variation from high impedances at low frequencies to low impedances at high frequencies, which is characteristic of many electrostatics, will of course result in its sonics being amplifier-dependent to a greater degree than would otherwise be the case. But as might be expected given that its design pre-dates the introduction of solid state amps, it is considered to be a tube friendly speaker, and tubes are my preference when it comes to power amplification.

Perhaps surprisingly, though, in some cases solid state amplification can also produce good results with that speaker. For example the vintage Mark Levinson ML-2 from the 1970s, which is rated at only around 25 or 30 watts into 8 ohms but can double its maximum power capability into halved load impedances down to 1 ohm, has always been considered to be a synergistic match.

Best regards,
--Al

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Regards,
-- Al