On of the biggest obstacles that people face when auditioning new equipment after using the same piece of gear for so long is that they use they unconsciously use the sound of their old gear as a reference point instead of live instruments in real space. This causes great frustration because nothing new "sounds" like that old favorite. However, many times that old favorite sounds nothing like real instruments in real space which should be the bench mark of high end audio. In short don't use the sound of 30 year old components as a reference point when auditioning new gear.

An example of this outside audio is vintage sports cars. The British TV show "Top Gear" tested 3 or 4 highly sought after vintage sports cars(Austin Martin DB5 etc) against a modern Toyota Corolla. Those cars sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Corolla SPANKED them on EVERY test.

Obviously with audio that isn't going to happen 100% of the time in audio but there is relatively little vintage gear (20+ years old) that can compete with modern equipment. For example there are probably less than 10 speakers that are over 25 years old that are in modern terms neutral sounding. Most old speakers, even if they were highly regarded in their day are colored-sounding junk by today's standards. Much of the draw in vintage audio gear is the same as vintage cars. It's the romance and the nostalgia of it. One of the only categories to be an exception is vintage analog FM tuners which are far, far superior to todays quartz-lock loop "digital" tuners. I'm sure that there will be some that disagree with me and they are entitled to their opinion.

P.S. Posting the same question in two different sections of the form is frowned upon as it tends to fragment the discussion and add to clutter.

No big deal. It's always good to have new members.