The sound you are describing as wooley and colored is what the Talons sound like before they break-in. The midrange is murky and veiled. After about 50 hours, you hear substantial improvements. As Clement Perry said in his article, it takes about 400 hours of hard hitting music to break them in. The accordian surround mentioned in this thread is very stiff. Dealers who don't break these things in before having people audition them are going to lose a lot of potential customers who walk away unimpressed with what they've heard, as Mitch apparently did. I would too. I went through my doubting phase after acquiring mine, but was reassured by Stuart McCreary of Positive Feedback that they would change. He is also writing a great review of these speakers. I also spoke to Tiery Budge of Talon, who told me what I was hearing before I told him. He knows what these things sound like before they break-in. If you read the previous thread (the one that is up to about 75 messages now), you will read how I addressed this problem by acquring knowledge rather than making a snap judgement based on what I heard for 15 minutes in a dealer showroom. My only comment to Talon about this is that I think they should break these things in at the factory to some extent so people will hear at least some of what this speaker can do right out of the box. Many new owners, like myself, are immediately going to be disaffected by what they hear after setting them up, and some aren't going to wait around for that 400 hours before they post the speakers on sites like this. There are and will always be people who will claim their PSB Alphas sound better than Watt Puppy 6s, or that they know everything because they have been doing "this" so long. There will always be people who listen to speakers in a showroom and think that they have actually heard that speaker, with no regard for lousy room acoustics or improper set-up by the dealer. There will always be people who think that all reviewers have their pockets lined with cash everytime they give a positive review, without considering that giving a positive review to a poor product destroys their credibility which they need to remain employed. There will always be people who are in denial about great products because they are too expensive for them to buy or unavailable to them for whatever reason. There will always be people who take third hand information and run with it like they know what they're talking about. If you are seriously considering this speaker, then talk to owners, read the reviews, and take a lot of the crap from these discussions with a grain of salt. People who are noted audiophiles are buying these things and swearing by them. Jeff Rowland has them. Ezra (Audioezra), who has owned about everything out there, has them. Scott at Electraglide bought them. Are these guys nuts? Could it be that people who have never heard the Talons or have little or no experience with them know better? I think not! Use your head AND your ears.
