Talon Loudspeakers

Acuujim and Philfreak: Are you guys playing them loud? According to the designer, the surrounds of the Scanspeak midrange are an accordian type. He has been using this driver for 8 years, and knew that break-in was a very long time before they sounded good. On the other hand, they'll last forever. I have been playing them for 24 hours for a couple of weeks now at low volume to wear-in the crossover electronics, but haven't figured out how I'm going to break-in the drivers at higher volumes without driving everyone crazy. I once read a Stereophile article that suggested facing the speakers towards each other so that the drivers fired into each other. This supposedly causes them to break in faster. Right now, they sound constricted, murky, and have a midrange glare at high volumes. When I talked to the designer, he told ME what I was hearing, so I know he knows what he's talking about. On the other hand, this speaker is very fast, detailed, and images like crazy. My buddy just bought a pair also. He auditioned them at Jeff Rowland's place. He described them as "stunning", and sold his ESP Concert Grands for them. Rowland told him that the crossover in this speaker was the best he had ever seen. My buddy is breaking his in now. This probably should be done at the factory to some extent to avoid all the uncertainty of new owners during break-in. Thanks for the comments. I'll let you know how it goes.

I only play mine loud during the day, At night while we're as sleep they play low.In the manual(which I'm sure you've read a million times) it says not to use any breaking in tweaks with the acception of loud,harmonic rich music.

jeez, (sy)phill(ys) - i guess yer rite - too bad i'm stupid. too bad that's all ewe care about re: audio. doug

I haven't seen the specs on the particular ceramic midrange that is in the Kharmas (it's not Accuton, it's supposedly much better), but I can tell you that the Accuton ceramic drivers are not any faster than the Esotar mid. In fact, their moving mass is higher, and their motor strength much lower; also their surface area is larger. This translates to "slower and less dynamic", not "faster and more dynamic". Also, any metal diaphragm has break up modes that no crossover gets rid of (all tests bear this out, there's no getting around physics), where a soft dome mid has no HF resonant modes whatsoever, only one suspension (instead of two), and a smaller surface area (I'm only talking in the range above 700 Hz for these domes...OF COURSE you have to use a "cone" type driver if you are going down below 300 Hz, and these ceramics ARE like a cone despite their inverted dome shape, because they use both a front and rear suspension).

Audiogon: surely Phill isn't still here, is he?