Your Side by Side Experience With Best Vintage vs Newer Expensive Hi Tech Speakers

Yes.  JBL Hartsfields and 4345's.  Both clones.  The Hartsfieds were lovely and the 4345's, brutal.  The 375/2440 driver in the Hartfields is a fine transducer indeed... 

True to form the older boxes packed with underfelt just seem to have that warm sound, I put a pair of qsc/qst main drivers into my ar8's and they sound better than day 0 and handle the output from my HK 5000 with no problems.
Also have a pair of sw T1's, totally amazing, reworked a pair of JBL control 1's and superb, have a pair of 4 way sdat cat leb 404's which have shaming reviews, cost me R400 odd in 2004 as we delt with alpha united Beng ,,Jacky..still one of my favorite pairs...after ripping the carpets out and laminate strip wood look floor, my sound was terrible...the answer was to run 2 pairs of bookshelf..the upgraded AR8 and nsx90 aiwa retro..a total of 14 drivers to cover the spectrum..amazing sound, when i want to make a noise i hook up the leb 404's...mind you its a beautiful balanced noise!
Colin CT SA.

Another point is that I have the pleasure of listening to near every make and model, the older retro amps just have that pure sweet tone, unlike most of the digital systems on the market...most of my customers who had upgraded to digital ran their retro in parallel to sort the sound or just gave the digital to their kid....RETRO Rules unless you are spoilt and can afford REAL HIFI systems of today, like HK, their software engineers have sat for days fixing the sound on such like the mas100, It had to sound like a PM650..of which i have as well as an old Sony and more....at one time i was running the cats with the ar/aiwa..22 drivers and i can power up the sony and have another 4 drivers going...I will leave the Pioneer L7 to run alone...that is in the pioneer museum for a reason...the control 1's are perfect for that baby!

You may have guessed I am not a rich man and have to strive on a limited budget...and i do.
Sound is life!

I'm not a guy of unlimited means by any stretch. My speakers are by far the most expensive things I own. I wouldn't have a Pass amp if I hadn't built the thing transistor by resistor myself. Vintage is a good bargain, but getting my ESS speakers up to par cost almost as much as building the amp. Restoring the Marantz units wasn't exactly cheap or easy either. To get the system I want means a lot more learning and building. WAY cheaper and more effective than buying stuff. I'm thinking my next project will be a raspberry pi based DAC. They've got some nifty tube based hat's for those these days.