Realistic lifespan for studio monitors

I bought a pair of original Adam A7’s from a friend that bought the, new. I sold them years ago to another friend and he’s still got them and they’re going strong. They’ve got to be pushing close to 20 years at least. Plenty of lo-fi crap speakers sitting in my relatives living rooms that have been there since I was a kid (I’m pushing 40). Stuff happens though, it doesn’t matter if it’s crap or really expensive. The difference is, you can usually fix the nicer stuff fairly easily.

My parents are your age, my dad hunts and fishes a lot. He doesn’t buy as much gear as he used to, but the handful of things he’s gotten the last few years have all been top of the line. At your stage in life, if you can afford it, I say you deserve it. Nothing wrong with your Dynaudios, I worked on a pair of those for 5 years sitting as the B speakers in a larger control room. They’re great for the money and time they came out, but things have certainly progressed significantly since then. Plenty of options in the $2k range that will leave you saying “ya, this is an upgrade”. If you want to jump up to the $5k range, it’s going to be a night and day difference.

Keep the dynaudios, you’ve had them a long time and they’re familiar. I say you’ve earned it, splurge and get something really expensive and great. Speakers are everything, it’s the culmination of everything else in your studio and really the only thing that matters. Treat yourself and your ears.

With or without repairs?

If you like them, and they work for you, I wouldn’t change. Maybe keep them and get another pair of something just to see how they compare. But if it ain’t broke….

I've had a pair of BM5As that are about 20 years old. They still work fine. I only just upgraded to a different pair of monitors last year, and that was only because I was jonesing for a 3-way, so I got the Neumann KH-310s, which I have been very happy with.

That said, I'd agree with some of the advice above about using what you know (the BM6As). I guess it depends on how long you think you will continue to want or need a functional pair of monitors. Or, if you're feeling that sort of retirement age urge to splurge, just get something nice like a new 3-way, and live a little.

They have better speaker design tools now but mostly make less useful speakers than the BM6a. Mostly they’re used to make stuff cheaper from worse parts that do not sound as good and measure as well then claim they’re better, put a hype machine around that theyre better, and then have their mostly paid off or free sample supporters cite “science” on the internet. You don’t see those guys rocking crazy stuff like Reflector Audio or Strauss systems or anything awesome like ATC SCM 50 + subs, PSI 25, Quested dual 8” woofer three ways, or Duntech / Dunlavy mains. No it’s all compromised bs with additional conversion steps in it, low headroom, big port boosts into a limiter, and complex crossovers.

The cite Floyd Toole books that you can equalize away resonances in the loudspeaker drivers without consequences, without considering that these resonances have distortion or the distortion of the cheap eq filters usually used in active crossovers or the old style digital biquads ones in cheap dsp chips running at single precision float that feed the quantization error back into itself, producing partial near dc in your woofer and that these poor filters do not matter 😆 It’s better to just use a better speaker driver. Floyd Toole never designed a useful speaker for studio monitoring. They were all useless. Then he trashed the Yamaha NS10m and the Auratone 5C. Meanwhile many far from linear JBLs, that often had overly complex bs crossovers and still sound far from flat, were useful. There are albums that were mixed on NS10s or Altecs and remixed recently on modern speakers. The original mix always wins and translates better.

The BM6A are still very useful and detailed speakers that force you to get the low mids correct, the mid mids are good and flattish, there is a slight crossover dip that forces you to make voices and strings audible, and the air is slightly boosted, forcing you to remove artifacts and filter out hiss. They are still probably the best active speakers you can buy for 2000 dollars a pair new. The ATC SCM12 are a little flatter but are passive and require a powerful amplifier. The Focals might use some more advanced parts but mostly just sound different.

They will last multiple decades, but eventually you might want to get them recapped.

I've owned my Tannoy Big Reds ( M 1000 ) monitors for over 40 years.

The only mantainace is to rotate the Coaxial Speakers every so often.
The large cones will tend to sag over time so a 180 degree rotation will prevent this.
The speakers are front mounted with 4 large Allen screws so it's an easy procedure.

They still sound great powered by an Adcom 555 modified by Jim Williams.

I have an NS10m pair from who knows when. The bottoms are scraped up. The right speaker has an issue where the woofer won’t work unless I feed it a 90dB signal, then it pops on and will work at lower levels for as long as i want. Sonically, it does what I need from it. Embarrassing at first startup though.. sorry your mix sounds like bacon frying., .. everyone plug your ears, lol

That’s the kind of issues to watch for.

I'm still using my ATC SCM10 Pro's, bought new in Dec 1997 direct from the factory, and they are still going strong and sounding great