[imcarthur]

Foams rot, other suspension materials dry out & crack; plastics harden & absorb airborne smoke & pollutants -papers likewise. Coils cook gradually & their formers deform. Ferrofluids turn to paste. Wires oxidize. Capacitors leak. Magnets saturate & lose their strength. And on top of all of that, our knowledge & implementation of acoustical theory has advanced significantly with new materials, computer modeling & a better understanding of dispersion etc etc. The age of digital also ushered in better bass extension since the LP grooves (and a phono cartridge’s suspension) mushed out before our ears did. This forced the industry to actually have to deal with sub 40Hz bass in normal speaker design. Old is old & sounds it.

As for high frequency response, you are right. We damage our hearing daily & our ability to hear 20kHz is fleeting. Probably the vast majority here can’t hear above 12kHz & many may have a mild (but growing) mid-frequency suckout . . . Too many planes, trains, automobiles, jack hammers & rock concerts. But there is a school of thought that even if we don’t hear ultra-frequencies, they do influence our ability to interpret the spatial information in recordings – hence the need for extended high frequency response.

Ian