Let's once again put on our thinking caps for a moment and discuss the merits of modern speakers, todays tendency is speakers first as you probably know by now i'm not in favour of this approach, but this is not my question for discussion.

i want to know your thought on the so called advancement on speaker sound. To my ears todays speakers are only voiced to impressed on quick demos in a shop, in other words a lot of boom and tizz, plus quite a lot of distortion once the level is raised making long term listening very uncomfortable, whereas if you compare the modern sound to the older sound from the likes of Spendor, Harbeth, Kef, Rogers, the sound was far more musical, a warmer more pleasant midband where the sound was thrown in your face.

So are modern speakers really better or is it just more marketing hype?

the boom and tizz thing depends on what you listen to, wrap your ears around some spendors, proac, harbeths, hardly a boom and tizz to be heard.
Part of the problem with a number of the better known brands is that they are engineering speakers with visual acceptability into a house as a major, and sound as a lesser required quality.

Modern speakers are certainly voiced differently in a number of cases, but wrap you ears around other brands and you will find what you want.

sometimes modern is better, sometimes not, you pays your money

Compare older Spendors to the current Spendors, the older SP range are far more enjoyable to listen to, listen the the latest KEFs, would you call them good compared to older Kefs?, same with pro-ac, and B&W, the new B&W speakers are dreadful, the 600 series though slightly better now are really poor with that over exposed treble which is very spitty sounding, the horrendous 700series, they only get decent in the diamond range, by which time they become so much harder to drive and need to be played loud, speaker designers seem to want to make speakers that appeal in the showroom with a quick demo but make them very hard to live with long term.

Ah yes, Dynaudio another boomy sounding speaker, a strange one that as others who use Dynaudio drive units don't suffer this fate.

Its personal taste, I find a lot of older speakers warm sounding, fuzzy and muffled in general presentation. I am not struck on a a lot of modern speakers either. But cherry picking a few better old speakers to compare with new just may be selective memory being made to work in your favour. They made crap then, and they still do, they made good stuff and still do. Its just not always the same badges.

just to back track ....who says it's speakers first today?
I don't know anyone or any dealer who has recommended this approach ?????
Have you been listening to 'non audiophile street talk' MM ??

I listened to a pair od £ 11,000 B&W's last week...loverly big pieces of art they were....Sounded thin and weedy !!
Couldn't believe it ! It weren't as if they needed running in cos I know they have been on shop volume for weeks !

Thin and weedy? I had a pair of 804matrix and they were lovely, really musical, you could listen for hours, plus I had some P6 same drivers but in a more modern cabinet, lovely looks, but what a horrible sound, a very over exposed tweeter, terrible balance, thin in the mids, a completely wrong speaker no wonder it had a short shelf life, I always like the 600 series for the price, the CDM1 was good if a bit temperamental at times, the 700series the less said about these the better, no wonder they made the Zeppelin after those.

Modern speakers are much nicer to look at, older speakers were ugly, big, black, maybe a bit of rose tinted glasses towards the sound they made, anyway didn't most people just plonk them on the floor, one right in the right hand corner of the room and the other at the extreme corner at the other side of the room?

A mate of mine has got some old Heybrook speakers, his old man gave them to him, they are a bitty tatty but they really kick butt, I'd never heard that name before, but really do sound the dogs danglies.

auditioned some brand new mezzo 8's a few weeks ago ... they cost close to £1000

my old B&W DM2 speakers (which I paid £50 for) crap all over them .... and which have the same tweeters and supertweeters as the old spendor BC1's but have better bass as they are transmission designs

there is hardly any bass on the mezzo's IMHO ... even my wife prefered the older B&W's