All I can say is that with a well designed 2A3 running the meshplate Vaic that you can breathe the air of the recording venue. Much better than even the Vaic Monoplates and I suspect even the legendary Cunningham Monoplates. Talk about liquidity, flow, and emotion. And the bass will still be solid, extended and even more airy in the upper bass. You will hear a sense of harmonic that you have never experienced. I suspect 95 or 96 db is the maximum SPL but it will sound so good you won't care. The Khorus are equally resolving at low levels. The combo with good low powered SET's is the most musically satifying experience I have had short of hearing Mrs Anthony Rooley (Emma Kirkby) and the Academy of Ancient Music live at the Ambassador auditorium a few years back. Try it, James W. |
I'll agree with you that they sound remarkable on the Rowlands and the designer Tierry informs me they work wonderfully on the Electocompaniet. I however most enjoy them on My 3Watt Bottlehead Paraglows with Vaic Meshplate 2A3's. While I am limited in absolute SPL's I am not in sheer enjoyment. On most of what I listen to, smaller baroque ensembles, Irish & Scottish Folk, Alternative Female Vocalists and such the volume in just fine. A bit more efficiency or power would be nice on larger scale stuff. However I do not find any solid state or push pull design has the kind of air and timbral interity that these little amps posses. And talk about emotion in my room it is absolutely palpable. The combination of triodes and talons is superlative beyond description. I have had more than one friend comment on how amazingly good my sound is even in the lower frequencies. Yes 3Watts with these gives me solid extended bass with a sense of upper harmonics beyond anything I have heard including the Rowland of these. Db for DB I'll put this combo up against anything. The new cobalt alloy output trannies from Magnequest(They are all sold now) should take these qualities significantly further. I have mine on order. I have been toying with the idea of running Bottleheads best 300B with the soon to be meshplate 300B's on a passive Roc to increase my headroom and dynamics. After a discussion with Tierry I may instead simply go with a powere Roc. Clements discussion concerning the Roc with the Khorus was quite convincing and has me stocking up the piggy bank again. Wow what a hotbed of controvesy this thread has and is creating here. Too bad some of the respondents have not heard the Khorus in a proper setting or under the right conditions. To hear them is to love them. To live with them is to eschew all else. jgw(James W. on the Assylum and Soundstage) |
Fred: Respectfully you have no idea what you are talking about! I'm doing it and the sound is remarkable in my room. I prefer it to their sound even on 400W Rowland Stero Amp that Tierry uses. Granted I am limited to 95 or 96db but the combo on the Talon's is absoulutely magical. I suggest you compare the impedance swing of Talon Khorus' to most other audiophile speakers. It's pretty Damn stable. So no I don't need an amp capable of handling a wide impedance swing. I have some quite hardened audiophile friends who have dropped their jaw and messed their pants bassed on the quality of sound I'm getting. (Emphasie on the bassed). Yes the bass is more correct to me in terms of speed harmonic and air then big solid state. Chew on that for a minute and dump the genralizations about what will and what won't work. Fred I suggest you head to bottlehead and look at Doc B's Straight 8's a non-horn design that is killer with SET's. I don't know what your game is Fred, but I know what I hear. Don't you get tired of being so negative. James W. |
Sedond: (just in case your reading Fred I'll throw a few more thoughts your way in the third person!) A voice of reason! Thank you. How does Fred know the specs are bogus? Has Fred heard The bottlehead Paraglows? Has he really heard the Talons? Granted he may have 35 years of experience,but not with my setup. And it's not like I am some boob who fell of the turnip truck just yesterday. I have owned a ridiculous amount of stuff in the 30 some years I have played with audio. Basically from early teenager to adult. Yes SET's are new to me. I have been playing with them for just over a year now. But I can assure you that the bottlehead stuff is not typical SET and does in fact work remarkably well with the Talon's I wonder if Fred really even reads or thinks before he reacts. Reminds when my dad said you know son I used to walk 30 miles to school in the snow and you kids want your own car to drive. He is so biased based on his experience that he is not open to the possibility of anything but his own experience. Okay so I'm deluded and off my nut. But the truth of the matter is that I have not up to this point heard a system that I prefer to my own. Happy Listening, James W. |
Mikem,Glreno: I am not advocating that everyone should go out and do this. It's just that the combo of Dan Schmalle's(Doc B)Bottlehead Paraglows running with Vaic Meshplate 2A3's and GE 5 star 5965's and a number of tweaks I have done are absolutely astonishing. Yes I agree more power would be nice and certainly the Jota or even an 845 would provide more volume and perhaps a bit more drive. What you have to understand is that the combination of a parallel feed output trannie and the Vaic's have authority and drive that don't take a backseat to anything. Doc's Parabee(300B version of same type would probably be even better with 8 watts. But if you follow the threads on tube assylum or bottlehead.com you will hear people screaming about the musicality of 45's. I realize that is to low at less than 2 watts. But according to a few people the meshplates sound amazingly similar to 45's and yet the Vaic tubes have amazing slam. Why do I love them? Air, palpable air and emotion like nothing else I have heard. Make every solid state and push/pull tube sound anemic, thin, hard dry, closed in etc. Pace and rythmn are better than anything I have heard. And of course these are things the Talon already excells at. So just imagine if you will. Yeah it's only 95 to 96db max but oh is it glorious. James W. |
Vrauthor: At the risk of taking a different approach to break in. I have spoken at length to Tierry about the break-in phenomenon. I think the Talon's pretty much establish themselves with around 100 hours or so. Yes some of the sublties keep getting better after that, but I think a large part of the extra hours is growing accustomed to the way they sound compared to other speakers you have owned. After a couple of weeks of listening go back and try and listen to your old speakers? It will suprise you how hard they are to listen too. Believe me I have a hard time enjoying anything else anymore. Happy listening, James W. |
Glreno: It would be fun to hear what you think if you get a chance to run it on some Welborne Moondogs. I think you will be startled at just how much 3 watts will do with these babies. Of course in a bigger room you probably wouldn't be satisfied. My room is 17 X 13 X 8. The other thing that kills you is how immense the soundstage is with the meshplate Vaic. This is going to sound like sacriledge but since I use a very tweaked top-o'the-line Marantz DVD for my listening my system doubles with the TV for home theater. You would be stunned at how you can seperate out musical lines you were never even vaguely awayre of and street scenes just floor you with all the distinct focused noises in a wide range of locations. And voices just simply sound convincingly real. Hell I don't need surround the results are so convincing. And bass is quite astonishing although I suspect Clement and Tierry have both convinced me I need a Roc in the near future. Tierry assures me it will give me the effect of having at least another 3db. Happy listening and tinkering, James W. |
Actually the Khites are remarkably good and frankly I prefer there sound to anything but the Khorus and the Peregrine. What is amazing is how well the Khite's will do low frequencies by themselves. With the Roc they make an awesome SAT/SUB system. Again the cool thing about Talon is that all there speakers have the same sound. The larger models are more dynamic, will play louder and have a deeper bass. The Khorus also has more upper frequency extension which is not all that apparent on most recordings. Although there is a bit more air and more upper frequency bloom. Here is a wild thing from Tierry Budge the designer. You can actually put a Khite, A Peregrine, or A Khorsus in any combo as a pair and they will match almost seemlessly. I kid you not, they are that well balanced spectrally between each other. Yup I have heard the Roc at Tom Miller's place(read his review in Perfect Vision) and at Tierry's. Awesome is the only word on Theatre and musically it is just right. Watching Jurassic Park at Tierry's is quite an experience. I hope to get a Roc into my system in the near future. James W. |
Vrauthor: I would agree that a Roc with Khites has the potential to be better than the Peregrines by themselves. Because you can obviously ideally position the woofer and the satelittes. One thing is that you will find once you get settled with your Khites is that if your willing to take a bit of time subtle adjustments can make significant improvements. Just like the Khorus and Pergrine the Khite are not only sensitive to low frequency standing waves like other speakers, but also to the same effects in the high frequencies. Subtle movements of a 1/4 inch or less can make noticeable difference in terms of locking them into a room. I have found difference in a 1/16" of toe in or sidewall placement. This may seem at first ridiculous but once they are broken in it is worth tinkering with. For what it's worth. James W. |
Glreno: In a smaller to moderate size room with baroque chamber music, alternative female pop singers, Irish and scottish folk music etc. 3 to 3.5 Watts does quite nicely. If you Run them with a Roc you could probably run 2A3's in an even larger room and/or with larger scale stuff. I'd consider a 300B, but I want to wait and see what people think of the new Vaic Meshplate 300B's. I really wonder if you can get the same kind of air, midrange and upper frequency bloom out of a 300B. The Vaic Meshplate 2A3's also kick more serious heiny on the Talon's then you might imagine. No question the Talon's love triodes! James W. |
Awesome bud! I keep trying to tell people how wonderful SET's and Talon's are and people tend to look at me funny or send me email's about how it can't be done. How big is your room and what type of stuff do you listen to and how loud? Would you mind comparing/contrasting the differences between the Electro and the Jota. James W. |
Glreno: Out of curiosity do you think that leaness may be due to break-in. I would imagine it will take a couple of weeks just for the tubes to settle. My impression of my Meshplate 2A3's altered substantially over a hundered hours of running them. I wouldn't doubt the bass quality at all. I get fairly slamming bass with 3 watts although the level doesn't get real loud, but then it doesn't in any other part of the range either. But it is solid with drive, impact and detail that would make you smash almost any solid state I have heard including the big boys. And of course with Tierry's loading technique I'm getting around 20 Hz in a 17 foot long room. Impossible, nope it's in the loading. I have heard one of Tierry's older less sophisticated designs do close to 20hz in a friend 10 foot long room. Yeah I have seen the new spikes. They look very cool and I have no doubt they work very effectively. Until I can swing the cost, I'll use my audio point brass/standard steel spike combo which works quite a bit more effectively than all steel. I have to come up with the rest of the bucks to cover the new cobalt alloy output trannies I'm getting. I'd love to hear the Jota and I'll bet it will flesh out quite a bit over the next 100 hours or so of listening. I'll agree on the inner detail and mid-range purity that triodes have over anything. What might suprise you is that the Paraglows with meshplates have flat response out to 47K maybe a bit more. In combo with the Khorus the high's seem to have bloom and airiness with timbral details that go well beyond what I hear in Push/pulls and other highly review speakers. Bass response is flat to about 10Hz maybe a bit lower according to the guys who measure that stuff. It really is hard to listen to anything else. Yup I've become darn spoiled! James W. the tubes to |
Hey Gary: How's the Jota doing at this point. I was chatting with Tierry a bit about your situation as well. I think both of us would like to hear what your amp is doing. I'm pretty hardcore about lower power, but it would still be a lot of fun to hear 20+ watts of real triode on the Khorus. Are you running it with 32's or 52's. Very curious???? James W. |
Gary: Very cool! I know Tierry's getting excited about listening to the lastest Cary 805, but that jota sounds like one hell of a fine amp if you want serious triode SPL's. My little Paraglows still do a more than adequate job for most of my listening. James |
