Quote Originally Posted by Florian
I was refering to speakers in the Ultra High End sector. Nothing happend there, the old speakers like Apogee DIVA, Apogee Grand, Duntech S. 2001, Genesis 1.1 are still the best speaker systems in the world and are quite old. And my speakers actually gained in value I agree a lot has happend in the last 20 years in terms of electronics, but my friends goldmund ref3 TT or Forsel Airtight are still the best TT's in the world. In the Ultra High End, not much changed at all.

-Flo
In YOUR opinion, those are the best in the world. (Can't really make a universal proclamation unless you have actually heard every speaker or TT in the world.) Sure, good components will always be good components. But, at the same time, the level of performance that you can buy for the money has gone up in nearly all facets of consumer electronics.

Remember that the original topic of this thread discussed CD players. And in that category, plenty of "ultra high end" CD players from 20 years ago can't hold a candle to what midlevel CD players will deliver today. Also, in the "ultra high end" category, you now have 384/24 resolution outboard DACs, DVD-A, SACD, and a whole slew of new bass management and room calibration tools that were unavailable to consumers 20 years ago.