Talon Khorus with no soundstage?

Put everything aside and trust your ears. I believe what you heard is what you get. I have heard this speaker and was amazed at the lack of upper mids and imaging from a 14K speaker. This year in May, I heard the new X version, sound was the same but the price increased a couple thousand dollars. Their claim to fame seems to be that they are the fastest speaker on the planet. While I don't know about their speed or how to even measure it, I can tell you that they have very muddy mids that never seem to open up.

With so many great speakers out there I don't know why anyone would waste their time wasting the Talon. The only thing I noticed about how "fast" they are is the speed with which the price on the net dropped from $15000 to under $5000.
This is a speaker that is fundamentally flawed, the midrange is reticent making and the highs unrevealing it is not a coherent speaker. I have heard the X version and heard no improvement except for some rather gaudy cosmetic ecroutements.
It seems a little dishonest to blame such gross flaws in soundstaging on what is a very capable preamp from EC, perhaps to increase the reputation of a product you do sell at the expense of one that you don't.
I also question a company that say its speakers need 300 hours of breaking in, do you realize that is 125 days of continous high volume play. For a $16000 or a $160 speaker this is a completely unreasonable form of torture to make a customer suffer through especially when the result fall well short of Nirvana and after the cops have been over every night for four months. I suppose they realized this finally and chopped the last zero off, an easier sell?
DML1 the above poster said it well "Trust your ears!" if it sounds like $@#* it probably is $%@# or if it needs 300(0) hours of breakin, a perfect room, a paricular pre, 16 grand and ears of lead then count me out.

I have equipment far worse than what you heard and my talon peregrine Xs disappear. I have compared them to wilson 6s, utopias,temptations and confidence 5s and believe me these speakers are right up there with them, if not better. Well better in some regards but worse than in others. But then again they only cost 9500.00 so who can blame them. Anyways, their imaging is incredible. You can stare right at the speaker but the voice is not coming from it, its coming from the middle. I dont know how that happens but it just does. Talon is for real.........

Just one remark on Chelilingworth's math: 300 hours divided by 24 equals 12.5 days not 125.

I owned a pair of Talon Khorus for eight months. I would describe the soundstage of the Khorus as similar to Spendors. Very coherent, but not location-specific.

The speakers have their strengths, but also some serious weaknesses. The primary problem is the above-mentioned problem with the midrange. A Tact RCS showed a huge suckout in the midrange that seemed related to cabinet vibrations. I put the speakers up on Sistrum platforms to reduce cabinet resonances and it helped, but could not fix the problem. The Sistrum stands add at least two inches to the overall speaker height and throw off the listening position. They also gouge the bottoms of the speakers. In the end, I could only run the speakers if I used a Tact for correction, an extremely expensive band-aid for supposedly $14k speakers. When Talon decided to manufacture their own in-house cabinetry I believe they actually solved the cabinet resonance problems and that is the 'big improvement' with the new Talon X. Aside from the cabinet, Talon told me there are no other changes to the speaker.

The low resale price pretty much reflects what all buyers eventually discover - these are not $14k speakers, but are $5k speakers being sold for $14k. Constant back-dooring at the factory certainly didn't help the used price either.

My overall experience with the Talons left a bad taste. They are a product of reviewer hype and I would recommend against buying them.