Talon Khorus with no soundstage?

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.

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?