I can tell you that my vintage gear doesn't appeal to me the same way the new stuff does. I do a bit of mix and match and probably truly mismatch.
The older table and cartridge that I use a 70s Hitachi top of their line at the time with a special Pickering MM Cart, VS my simple VPI Scout and Dynevector 20X HO. the level of detail a frequency extension in the new gear simply is much greater than what the vintage system can deliver. I have circa 1960 JBL speakers and a couple of tube components from that era as well.
It's fun but in truth the new stuff just sounds better to me. One area where the older gear/parts are much better than new has been with tubes. Even there, there has been remarkable progress, the better new tubes really are better. That may sound silly but we are told this break through or that one is going to a vast improvement and in the end it isn't. The new output tubes are getting to be as good as the tubes they were named after.
