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