Great topic for discussion!

What you can get for under $1,000 these days blows me away.

I used to sell high end gear in the late 80s. With the advantage of dealer cost, I had the pleasure of owning several speakers that, at retail levels, would now be out of my price range. These included Martin Logan Sequel's, Celestion SL600's, Snell CIII's and a pair of humongous Mirage M1's. The Mirage's alone were $5,000 MSRP.

While all of these speakers were incredible in their day and still outperfom most of the junk at your average stereo store of 2006, I think nearly 2 decades of improvements in materials, drivers, cabinet designs, etc. have really improved speaker performance.

I recently updgraded to some nice, but budget-oriented speakers. In terms of their midrange purity, holographic imaging and ability to disappear, my new Quad 11Ls (MSRP approx. $700) perform at a level that, 20 years ago, would have gone for 2-3 times that. For example, I recall my Celestions were $1,600 retail and were oriented toward the same niche as the Quads (small monitors). I am sure the Quads would outclass the Celestions now.

I would love to see how large floorstanders would compare to the stuff I owned 20 years ago. My feeling is that if adjusted for inflation, you would have to compare them to speakers about twice their 80s retail levels. That really opens up a wide field of big buck speakers.

The good news is that you can get great sound without breaking the bank to a much greater degree than what was available two decades ago (IMHO).