Talon Audio Khorus Floorstanding Speakers Reviews

Price Paid:  $5000.00 from online

Summary:
for talon bashers: if you don't own the product and you bash, something stinks (your s-holes probably). i've owned a pair of khoruses (non x) for about a year now, and they sing. i keep on upgrading my equipment , one thing for sure these speakers stay. powered by pass labs x250 and bat vk-40 and rega planet that is about to be replaced with sony scd-1 sacd player. these people in Utah show the world how speakers should be built. uncompromising customer service. mesmerizing throughout the frequency range, visually gorgeous. amazing musicalitywise and that's, my friends, what it all comes down to. if you get a chance to audition, i , wholeheartedly advise you to do so.

Strengths:
huge soundstage, imaging, killer bass, captivating mids.

Weaknesses:
none period

Similar Products Used:
any speaker that you can imagine and more.

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
I don''t own these speakers but a friend of mine does. I have auditioned the speakers several times at his home. I am in absolute awe of what I have seen written here. Not only would I not pay $14k for these speakers, I probably wouldn''t buy them at $1k. But having said that, I know that my friend really likes them. How anyone can say that these speakers have impressive bass is beyond me unless those using them are in an extremely small room. The specs at the Talon website state 17 Hz and 1000 watt power handling. I double dog dare anyone who owns these to feed them a 17 Hz signal at 1000 watts rms, hell even 1000 watts peak. Can you say bye bye puny little 10 inch woofer? Independent measurements I have seen would put these speakers at 30+ dB down at 17 Hz. The measurements also show fairly ragged response for a speaker in this price range. In my listening sessions they sounded dull, bass shy and not particularly good at imaging. I suspect the guy who said he was hearing things in the recordings that he hadn''t heard before was just experiencing what uneven response does to a musical presentation i.e. emphasizing certain areas and supressing others.

Strengths:
Nice cabinet

Weaknesses:
No comment necessary

Summary:
I come from an engineering discipline, so my analysis is from this perspective. I and an associate had access to a pair of these on loan from the owner and put it through its paces with a number of measurements and listening sessions.

Frankly, I do not know what the fuss is. We found a number of so-so performance characteristics for these speakers - the amplitude response was not particularly flat, and rather ragged off-axis in the vertical plane. We also measured rather high IM distortion for a speaker in this class compared to the Revel Salon and Waveform Mach 17's we also had access to. Both of these outperformed the Talon in roundness of tone, transparency, and dynamics.

The website of the company had some rather "unorthodox" claims for performance breakthroughs, some nearly inmpossible to fathom. The fact that two other speakers we had on hand clearly outperformed it makes the issue moot from my point of view.

To the guy that extols Dunlavy's stuff - I owned these, and found them colored due to their rather poor power response in room, caused by lobing of the first-order crossover in the vertical plane, and restricted off-axis high frequency response int he treble caused by the deep mounting of the tweeter and the wool material used to deal with diffraction (a rather crude but effective approach on axis).

Passing square waves sounds very important, but it isn't, as David Clark and others have demonstrated (Clark found that 2000 degrees of phase shift were undetectable on music). If you listen to pops and clicks in the lower midrange, then it is important. Dunlavy has his marketing niche, but the price you pay in any but the largest models in the line is increased IM distortion due to the drivers having to deal with so much information out of band. First-order corssovers cause as many problems as they solve, perhaps more, which is why so few designs use them. The big Dunlavys (my brother owns the 5's) sound better, but they are so huge that the wave launch and soundstage are almost oppressive unless you room is huge.

Strengths:
Nice looking

Summary:
I too searched for years for these speakers. I had spent a lot of time auditioning all the above speakers and found all of them lacking in some respect, especially given the prices we're talking about. When I heard about the Khorus, I corresponded with the designer, Tierry Budge, a former Wilson Audio designer, and as best as I could determine without actually listening, they seemed ideal, almost too good to be true. I was shipped a pair on approval, as there were no local dealers, and I must say I was very disappointed out of the box- they lacked range and in fact sounded rather bland. I spoke with Mike Farnsworth, the owner, who was so concerned he flew out from Salt Lake to hear for himself, and he agreed with me. We decided that it was partly a function of break in, although they had 100-200 hours on them by that point, and partly related to cables and equipment. Although I've had my doubts about just how much effect speaker cables can have, this resolved them. With his cables, the bass appeared and the speakers opened up. In addition one of the midrange speakers was damaged, and he had a technician fly out to replace that and upgrade the crossovers. With that, and further break in, these speakers have really opened up and their dynamics have begun to shine. It really does take 500 hours to break these puppies in, and they are quite sensitive to cabling. Now I can say they blow away any other speaker in their price range, and offer all the attributes I like about the Wilsons without the fatigue factor at about half the price. I find myself, as the manual warns, listening to my music at higher volumes, as distortion is just nowhere to be heard, and appreciating detail and nuance I never heard. I can't imagine ever getting tired of listening to these speakers.
Value is a relative thing. Compared to say, the WATT/puppies, these are an incredible value. On the other hand, for 1/3 the price you can get the Talon Khite, which I use as my CC in my HT set-up, which comes pretty close to the Khorus but without the deep bass or quite the clarity. But aside from the sound, these are just about the most beautiful, cool looking speakers around.

Strengths:
Bass extension, detail, soundstage, build quality, dynamics

Weaknesses:
Long break in period

Similar Products Used:
B&W 802N, Dynaudio Contour 3.3, Wilson WATT/puppy, Dunlavy SC-IV-A, Hales Tanscendent 3, Revel Ultima Salon

Summary:
Ok, I have been reviewing these speakers for about 2 months now. I finally decided to purchase them and I think it was one of the best decision I have made in this field so far. I have not heard another single speaker that can set up a soundstage or perform the micro-dynamics that this speaker is capable of displaying. I like Sade, I have owned the "Best of Sade" for probably 2 years. Tonight I was listening on the newly installed Talons, and on more than a few songs I hear information that I had absolutely NO IDEA was on the disc. We have all heard that one before, BUT I MEAN IT>>> These speakers are errie good and it is going to take me sometime to get a complete handle on everything they are doing. I will do a follow-up review in about 3 monts. The bass is also out of this world. Well now my SCD-1 has a worthy stablemate. I will not be adding the Roc as I do not feel it is necessary with the Khorus. Forget the naysayers, you never know who those people are or what their agenda may be. I say listen for yourself. If you are considering a reference level speaker system, you must audition a broke-in pair of the Talons, I hear the smaller version also have a similar sound and have shamed some big dollar items. The guys in Utah (home of Talon) are for real. I give it a 5 in the Value rating because even thought 14k is a lot of mulla, these speakers blow away speakers that I am very familiar with that cost 36K. I have no doubt they could be compared to anything out there.
Best regards,
Mike Marcellas

Strengths:
absolute ability to portray sounds within recordings I had no clue were there.

Weaknesses:
long break in/but if thats all, I'll take it

Similar Products Used:
Rush Sound/Magnepan/Speaker Art/Silver Line/Vienna Acoustics/Watt Puppies/Martin Logan