Talon Khorus with no soundstage?

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.

You should trust your ears, but also the opinion of people who have experience in owning this speaker, and have witnessed the changes that break-in time makes. I didn't hear them at a show or in a showroom somewhere. I owned them for about a year, and can tell you first hand what happens with break-in time. You have also now read an article about it by a professional reviewer. Want further proof? E-mail Stu McCreary of P{ositive Feedback magazine. He walked me through my intial concerns about the muddy midrange and vague soundstage by informing me of the long break-in time. There may still be threads discussing this on Audiogon. I don't think the Khorus is a perfect speaker, and I sold mine some time ago. But soundstaging is not the problem with it.

I believe it is a credible product, but I agree that $14000. may be high. The issue I had with the speaker was that it was somnewhat dark sounding and lacking high level detail. This sound may work in some systems. I also wasn't pleased with the cabinet finish, which I guess has improved (although I don't care for the cosmetics of the Khorus X. We call it the Speak-inator).

It's easy to get a pair of Khorus for $5000. used. Incidentally, I received mine in trade for some other speakers. The previous owner also failed to wait for the Talons to break-in. I was not at all impressed with them initially, and had to read all the threads about the speaker before trading. Regarding your last inquiry about using a break-in CD...I didn't and they broke in at medium sound levels. It just takes longer.

Regarding your pre-amp, I did not say that your pre-amp is your problem, but I don't think it's up to the quality of the rest of your equipment. The sound you are getting from the Khorus is exactly what I heard from the speakers before break-in. If you don't want to put the time into breaking the speakers in, that's your business.

I don't know why the Talon Khorus is such a controversial speaker, but every thread about it draws a lot of negativity. Anybody want to address that?

The last issue of Ultimate Audio thought they were the greatest speaker made and look where Ultimate Audio is now . Good thread Octopus enough said.

Glreno,

Glreno, No disrespect intended but exactly what is it that you don't understand? Based on my own observations, (I owned the speaker for 9 months)and those of several others above, the speaker has some serious faults. The loss I took selling mine also left a very bad taste in my mouth. As Octopus mentioned above, at best, its a $5K speaker selling for $14K. I can't think of any other product that drops in value as much as these speakers. How do do account for the drop in value?

The negative feedback is a positive sign. If Talon speakers were not viewed as a threat to customers, dealers, and manufacturers defending their own speakers, they would not write a single word in response.

As for the low price of the Khorus', Talon has been selling the Khorus' for 2 years. They were initially $12,600/pr and were raised a year later to $14,000/pr. (We have since recognized that we should have changed model names with the price increase.) So a pair of $12.6K Khorus' were sold for $5-6K, which in turn lowered the selling price of the $14K Khorus'. This reflect a 35-45% resell price ratio. While we do not like this, it is the norm for speakers that have been discontinued and are selling on Audiogon. You can purchase a pair of Wilson Watt Puppy V.1 for under $7K which reflects a 35% ratio as well. The internet has really helped the budding audiophiles buy for less.

While we did make some direct sales our first year(we did not have dealers, what do you do?), and we sold some demo speakers through our dealers at lower prices, we have since been loyal to our dealer network. Dealers are an integral part in the purchase of our speakers. Their are quite a few tricks to setting up a system to fully extrapolate our speaker's attributes.

We admit that we have gone through growing pains at Talon and were not prepared for the amount of positive press that would drive sales the first year. This placed us in the spotlight more than we had planned on with our original products. We have since introduced our X series and 2002 series with cabinets that are built in-house with much higher quality construction, as well as great improvements to their sonics. We have also siginificantly reduced the amount of break-in time(now 100 hours) by burning in the drivers at the factory and utilizing other techniques as well. We are very confident that our new speakers are worth every penny of their retail price.

As for the problems that were initially addressed, I would suspect that the system was improperly set-up. Break-in can cause a "murky" midrange, flattened bass and a forward upper treble, but if the sound is staying in the speakers, it is most likely phase. Either a speaker cable is not properly connected or a interconnect was improperly terminated(highly unlikely with Nordost). Other phase issues can occur with improper set-up. Please let me know where you listenedd to this system and have the owner get in touch with me, and we can easily resolve the situation.

Presentation is everything, and sometimes even the best of us are surprised what the real problem was. Just this week I was conversing with a hardcore audiophile manufacturer(he is serious about audio is what this "label" means) who was previously blaming the amplifier and the speakers for lack of oomph. When lo and behold he dropped a new preamp in and BAM!!, the system was great! Things are not always as they seem, that is why we rely on an experienced dealer network to help our customers maximize their performance.

Happy Listening,

Michael Farnsworth
Talon Audio