Maggie 3.6 vs. Talon Khorus?

I am VERY fluent with both speakers, I own the 3.6 and a one of my best friends(who lives locally, well close enough;) owns the Talon Khorus X MkII- I have said it before and one more time for the record I wouldn't trade even any day! I enjoy visiting the Talon's but I am more excited to come home everyday and listen to my system(the only difference between his system and mine- aside from the speakers- are the amps, he uses $20k OTL tubed monos, I use a $5800 solid state dual mono). He has been changing components and swapping things in and out and can never seem to be happy, I am happy. His speakers have more bass though there is NO comparison in the musicality compared to the 3.6. Both are HIGHLY resolving and require first rate components in front of them to really show there true colors.

My experiences differ from Jafox, I find the maggies have more body/texture then the Talon's- with the maggies you need a good amp and source and then try cables till you find something that works for you(including power cords which are often over looked- when I started trying more PC things started to get REAL good) The maggies are more room dependent and for HT I am not sure which I would rather have, the maggies have more speed but lack an urgency that the Talons have which may be very beneficial for HT use. Also you can not ignore the frequency response difference between the two speakers, the Talons would probably be easier to integrate into a HT. With the maggies to do HT you would need a much larger room then with the Talons. All of this being said if I didn't have the 3.6 and didn't care for the magnepan sound the Talon Khorus would be a nice alternative. Mike Farnsworth of Talon is a class act, one of the nicest most informative people I have spoke to in the audio world. Maggie people are all over the place, look here and try to find someone from your area with maggies and take a listen, it may be for you but some aren't into it. That being said I am hooked! Good luck.

I had the 3.6's for about 3 years.

Amplification makes all the difference in the world with the Maggies. They are 89db sensitive and not easy to drive. The more power/amperage you can feed them, the better they tend to sound. Very few 100 wpc amps can come even close to comparing with what 500wpc to 1000wpc can do to the Maggie sound. This is my main complaint against the Maggies... owning them gets you into a viscous cycle of upgrading amplification. Yes, I have heard the 3.6's driven by an AR CA50 integrated amp (50 wpc tube power). No it did not sound nearly as good as driving them with a VT100 mk2 amp which did not sound as good as driving them with a Plinius SA-250 amp which did not sound as good driving them with two Plinius SA100 mk3 amps in MONO (665 wpc into the Maggies).

If you do get the 3.6's, and you experiment with different amps, you might find yourself craving as much power as you can afford (or that you can put on your Amex card, heh heh).

KF

Actually the Maggie 3.6's are more like 86db sensitive. I had Mag IIIa's for years and tubes are a great mix for music but makes sure you have enough watts like everyone has said. But in dynamic movie gunshots the speakers are really fast and image amazing but sometimes they don't move enough air if you are looking for THX levels. This will cause the mags to flap against the magnets.. I have NHT 3.3's for HT right now.. nothing like 23hz bass flat.

But I'm breaking my system apart again and I'll probably go back to Maggies 3.6's or Maggie 20.1 (if I win a lottery), and try to power them with some VTL 450's for music. The magic on horns/accoustic bass/jazz and female vocals are amazing and like someone already said the upgrade game ends and you start looking like crazy for good music and watch the tubes glow.

If you like the Talons, Don't buy the Mags without hearing them. Bring your own favorite music and trust your ears.

Oopse my mistake Cytocycle , you are correct Maggie 3.6's are 86db sensitive. DOH!

Donno what I was thinking when I posted 89db, heh heh.

KF

Another suggestion: For my ears, the VMPS RM-40 is the ideal "compromise" without compromise between these two speakers. The RM-40's ribbons have midrange and top end clarity that surpass both the Maggie 3.6 and the Khorus at only slightly more money than the Maggie. Neither speaker can compete with the 40's bottom end with two 10" and a 10" passive tunable radiator. The RM-40 is also not as difficult to drive as the Maggie and is more sensitive -- about 91 db/1watt/1 m, I believe. The Khorus have nothing sound wise over the RM-40, but are physically smaller and look cool in their pyramid shape. The Maggies offer a imaging and wall of sound unique unto themselves and similar to full range elecrostatics. Weigh your options carefully.