[RichardTS]

No loudspeakers get better with time. Once they are made, degradation begins in mechanical and electronic components... glues begin aging and failing, rubber/foam components begin degrading. Electronic components, primarily capacitors in speakers, begin degrading. It's a slow process, but everything that can degrade over time IS degrading over time.

Yes that’s true but experience shows that many very old (50-70 yrs) Klipsch speakers still work fine. Most of them use different component material, I.e. 15” woofers have paper cones and paper surrounds. The very small excursion of the horn loaded speakers means the woofers don’t wear as much as woofers designed for large excursion and smaller diameter. Also the phenolic compounds used in the horn drivers seem to age quite well.

That being said woofers with foam surrounds are junk. Some woofers have butyl surrounds which seems to age well if the glue stays intact.

 

[RichardTS]

I guarantee you that if you had modern measurements of a brand new 60 year old Klipsch (or any other brand) of speaker and compared that with new measurements of a new production version of the same speaker, that the 50 year old version might still make sound that's not obviously terrible. But it is NOT going to be as good as the new version of the same speaker. Hobbyists, on average, aren't the best judges of whether a 50-70 year old speaker is "working fine" or not. I've experienced auditions of brand new $20,000 a pair "single driver-single voice coil" high-efficiency speakers that people were RAVING about. Except applause from a live audience sounded like meat sizzling on a skillet and nobody even NOTICED. Something was fundamentally wrong with the speakers and people were all chatting-up those speakers for how "great" they were when driven by appropriate vacuum tube electronics. I've been given demos of vintage-but-refurbished Klipsch speakers with tweeters that were not even operating and the person thought the sound was "great". And this person had done all the refurb work themselves... re-gluing several areas of the cabinet that had resonances, new electrical parts, re-wiring, new terminal posts. He knew the speakers inside and out... but was not able to tell the tweeters were MIA. That model had a fairly high crossover point to the tweeters, but still...

It’s been my experience that most people do not know what good sound is. Most of our youth thinks what comes out of the free iPhone ear buds is ‘good’. And yes, there are older folks who cannot tell whether they have a tweeter out or not.

There is also a factor that you did not mention-changes in what people call ‘good’. My 2009 LaScalas have updated crossovers (Klipsch calls them ‘revoiced’) and an improvement in the mid range horn that eliminates resonance in the horn itself. These two combine to eliminate a slight ‘chesty’ sound the older ones had. What didn’t change is something no one even talks about. The sound of these speakers is big and they sound noticeably bigger than ‘modern’ towers with a high excursion 5” woofer that only thinks it can reach low frequencies. Never mind the distortion that comes from high excursion.

I read every day on this forum that all modern amps and modern speakers sound basically the same.

I never read about people who have bought brand new speakers that sounded ‘wonderful’ in the store or when they were first set up at home but then sounded awful after about six weeks. Usually this is because the new speakers are fatiguing. But no one ever mentions this phenomenon any more. It’s real and it does indeed exist. And it cannot be measured.

I have just mentioned two audio characteristics that cannot be measured and that do indeed exist.

No one mentions them and most people will try to tell you they don’t exist so I am not real sure that the massive improvement in modern speakers is real either.

The idea that the entire world can be reduced to measurements is absurd. Particularly when there are still things that we don’t know how to measure.

 

[RichardTS]

Oh, but I do know how old equipment sounds and measures. And the new version will sound better because of modern crossover design software, improvements in materials, and better capacitors, inductors, and resistors that are available today that were not available 50 to 70 years ago. I grew up with speakers that ALL SOUNDED DIFFERENT because they didn't have crossover design software... they "tuned" crossovers by ear... and nobody was as good at that as software for optimizing crossovers. I've lived through the decades of speakers that are now 50-70 years old. I know exactly what they sounded like when they were new. So stop defending old equipment inappropriately and get real. 50+ year old paper cones are not as good as new paper cones... PERIOD. And pressed paper is not even close to being a great material for speaker cones. Especially when the crossovers have 50+ year old devices still installed. I am using loudspeakers manufactured in 1992. They have received new crossovers when the design was updated. They have received new tweeters 2 times, a new midrange driver 1 time, and new woofers 1 time... all in the name of keeping these speakers performing as well as possible. Each change made the speaker sound better because the manufacturer sweated the details, using better materials, better driver design, and improved crossover design. The elevation in performance of these speakers has been stunning and they were already among the top performers in their price range when they were new. To be fair, the manufacturer prompted me about when to do updates that were significant and they would specifically tell me to wait if there was nothing that made significant improvements available. And to save money, I installed the updated parts myself to avoid shipping 100 pound speakers repeatedly. People who over-romanticize the merits of older speakers need to get a grip. In the "old days" they knew NOTHING SPECIAL about making speakers. And making all speakers relatively neutral sounding (as you get today) was impossible due to the vagaries of speaker design that have been improved significantly with computer design software. Speakers used to sound like you were cupping your hands over your mouth, or pinching your nose, or had super-zingy sibilants... all things that computer design software has banished from speaker design. 50-70 years ago, the entire field of available speakers might get a "5" or "6" for accurate sound quality. Since computer design software has assisted with design of drivers, crossovers, and enclosures, the speaker industry is performing at about an "8.5" level because so many sound quality defects have been eliminated by using computer design solutions. Yes, the best speaker companies still perform endless hours of listening studies to confirm everything is working properly together.

‘50+ year old paper cones are not as good as new paper cones... PERIOD.’

And by what means do you know this? You also never addressed my comment about cone excursion. Modern crossover design will NOT fix the distortion caused by large non-linear excursions.