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Are modern speakers better than old speakers?

I have a pair of Moraunt Short Signifer speakers, which was their flagship in 1980. Have speakers improved dramtically since then? I would like to know what price bracket one would be in now to outperform these. I like their sound, wonderfull 12inch drivers and a paper mid without surrounds (no rubber/etc) plus a nice ferrofluid filled tweeter, which was relatively new technology at the time I believe. Also I would like to know if it is recommendable to upgrade the crossovers and cabling. Also perhaps bypassing the high frequency level adjustment. Please let me know your thoughts on this.
jaapjess
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
Some progress. Active Speakers without passive crossovers are the biggest change since 1980. These existed before 1980 but have become significantly more popular since then - still a niche. Drivers have improved but only incrementally. The fabric ferro-fluid cooled soft dome tweeters are still fairly dominant despite many attempts to surpass them. Active subwoofers have improved enormously, however, there continue to be large amounts of distortion in the bottom octave.

If they still work well then these might be keepers...
cleaneduphippy
323 posts
 
Jaapjess,

If you like their sound and they're working well, I would keep them "as is". As Shadorne said "some progess" and truth be told, probably not as much as a lot of manufactuers would have you believe.
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
If you like how the speakers sound, nothing else matters. My system is composed of many older components, each picked by me, and for me.

Modern speaker designs, do have the edge over older speaker designs, and for many reasons. However, exactly which modern designs sound "better", than their older opponents, is left for the listener to decide.

You may need to get out for a good listen to some of the newer speaker systems (this will give you an idea regarding replacement cost) VS...what you have now. You may even go home VERY HAPPY!

Dave
shiprepair
16 posts
 
A very good question, I am in the same predicament, wondering if I should replace my 1980 B&W 801 with the 802D as technology has advanced so far, especially with the diamond coatings on the 802 tweeters. The 801 still sound terrific but I have had them for 27 years and wonder if it is just being used to them. To compare properly should entail a home audition which I'm not so sure will be possible.

I'm wondering if the improvement would be worth the price of the new speakers or just purely incremental?

Great thread.
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