>>Are speakers REALLY that much better than they used to be? How do some of these sub-$1,000 speakers sound to you in comparison to how you remember some of those multi-thousand dollar classics of yesteryear?
I went through the speaker-building phase 25 years ago because at the time it was the only way to afford REALLY good mid-sized speakers. In the late 70s good, reasonably priced small 2-way speakers were just starting to appear (EPI, Advent, early PSB etc...) but larger speakers tended to be either really crappy or really expensive (or, miraculously, both
).
If you wanted a larger, high quality speaker at a reasonable price building with KEF or Philips components was pretty much your only option. The big problem was that nobody outside of the very high end market seemed to have figured out that the cabinet mattered. Walls were thin, bracing was non-existent.
The small British speakers (Rogers etc...) were setting the standard for solid, neutral speakers but from what I remember it was another 15-20 years before the mainstream speakers caught up and started building solid, well engineered cabinets at a reasonable price.
I don't have my old Rogers monitors ($$$) for comparison but I would not be surprised if the M2i's equalled or surpassed them. I just don't remember any speakers at the time which would compete with M60s for value and performance. There were speakers comparable to M60 on the market but they cost waaay over $1000 when a small car only cost $2000 !!
