Originally posted by dnewma04:
Most of the real wood enclosures were MDF/Particle Board/plywood with real wood veneer. MDF and high quality void free plywoods are simply better materials to make an enclosure out of. You can make real wood work, but it's a design nightmare trying to pull it off.

The CS-88s and CS-99s are nice, but were upstaged by the later HPM series. To be honest, the vintage speakers I have heard can be nice, but technology has come a long way with regards to speakers. I have a pair of 40 year old Bozaks that I love the sound of, but modern speakers are better. I will admit that many vintage speakers like the JBL L100T, HPM100s, Genesis, EPI, Epicure, etc speakers out there can be excellent values.

BTW, I do believe that multi-channel surround is still going to be the way to go for music, but only a few recordings have shown it.

I agree on most all counts. The HPMs (JBL copies) were great. I tried getting some HPM 100's but so far no luck. AR made some nice speakers - the AR9, I think, was a huge monolithic beast and I'd like to get a pair some day. As far as surround, there are some nice 5.1 CD's out but as a rule, home theater systems, at least the more inexpensive ones, aren't the greatest for music - especially stereo and I wasn't sure how deep the original poster's pockets were. As you stated, you really can't go wrong with a classic '70s setup and you don't have to break the bank, unless you want to. And as an analog junky, I just prefer listening on equipment that was from the same era as the media on which the music resides (vinyl & 1/4" tape).
Karl

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