Too many to list here - email me at sjkenny1@yahoo.com

Almost 1 year SOLID PLAYING TIME to break in. But worth it.

This review is for the Peregrine X. This is not a speaker that is going to dazzle you the first time you hear it. None of the forwardness, brightness, Hi Fi or Gee Whiz factor of every other speaker you have heard is here. No COLOR, which will sound constricted and boring at first. Until you figure out what is going on. And what is going on is that you are getting the purest, most honest presentation you will ever hear. Music music music. No speakers - amps - pre's cables or DAC's to think about. Just sweet beautiful liquid MUSIC. From around 19hz, way up to the 20k's, nothing connects all the places in between with such cohesion and REFINEMENT. Images are nailed down - transparency is astonishing. Everything else you have heard, and believe me, I've heard then all, is a lie. The last speaker you will ever need. Period.

Similar Products Used:

Spendors, Audio Physic's, Quad's, Vandys, Logans, you name it.

musicality, power handling capabilities, toe-tapping coefficient, holographic imaging, reality, instrument and vocal reproduction

took too long to get here

I don't care what you have heard, what you have read or who said it, until you hear these speakers, you are fooling only yourself. It doesn't matter what you spent or what products you are using to deliver music to your speakers, you don't know what you are missing until you listen to these speakers. Mine aren't even broken in yet and I already know they are fundamentally different from anything I have ever heard in any pro listening room or at home ever before. Quit screwing around and go listen to a broken in pair of speakers from any of the Talon line, now.

Similar Products Used:

ProAc, B&W, Merlin, Soliloquy, Chapman, Ruark, Magnepan, Tannoy, Silverline, Khorus

Please forgive me, dear reader, for shamelessly misusing this review space for the Talon Peregrine speakers to provide a review of the ALOIA 11.01 inductive preamplifier and the ALOIA 13.01 inductive amplifier. It appears that audioreview.com does not have the Aloia gear listed for reviews, but it is so good that I have resorted to this trickery to get some comments onto the site for interested readers. Anyone who searches for “Aloia” should find this review of them. The Peregrines are indeed relevant because they are the speakers through which I am listening to the Aloia amps, but see my review below for my opionions about these wonderful speakers.

Strengths: incredibly fast, transparent, detailed, smooth, natural, and dynamic amplifier/preamp combination

Weakensses: None I’ve been able to identify, at least within its power limitations (30 wpc)

Similar products used: I’ve owned GAS Ampzilla, B&K ST-140, B&K ST-442, Rowland Model 1, and Cary 2A3 monoblocks; I’ve auditioned Krell FPB-300, Cary 300B monoblocks, Audio Research VT100, Spectral 200, InnerSound ESL, and others....

I bought the Aloia amp and preamp with the inductive power supplies to drive my Talon Peregrines (see my review on this site). These amazing speakers are incredibly resolving and able to reveal the differences between electronics like you wouldn’t believe. Before I got the Aloias, I was driving them with an Audible Illusions Modulus 3A preamp and a Rowland Model 1 amp -- both of which are excellent pieces of equipment that have (or once had) Stereophile Class A ratings -- and the system sounded truly great. (The CD player is a Muse Model 9 Signature, which is also terrific.) I also briefly tried my Cary 2A3-based amp/preamp combination on the Peregrines, which sounded even better, except for not having enough ooomph at loud levels. But when I swapped in the Aloia gear, everything got MUCH purer, more trasnparent, and highly resolved without introducing any etch or glare whatsoever. The Aloia sound is very neutral and natural, not “sweet” or “liquid” like some tube gear, but just amazingly “right” in a fundamental way that serves the music extremely well.

The easiest difference to describe is that the dynamics increased dramatically. Lots more dynamic range, especially at the bottom end, all of it exceptionally clean and clear. The Peregrines are pretty efficient (90.5 dB sensitivity), and this 30 watt wonder can drive them without distortion as hard as they need to be driven for any music I’ve listened to. It also seems to have great bass control, although that’s a little hard for me to tell, because I have a powered subwoofer (a Talon Roc) handling the very lowest regions (15-40 Hz). It isn’t easy to describe some of the other differences in words, but they are easily audible through these speakers to anyone with an educated ear. The best I can do is say that with the Aloias in the system, the musical events I am hearing have became naturally “textured” in a way that they hadn’t been before and that this dimension adds significantly to the realism of the sound. Maybe this is part of what reviewers mean when they talk about “microdynamics.” It’s being able to hear Ella’s lipstick, the ridges on Michael Hedges’ fingers sliding over the strings, the low-level reflections of sounds off rear walls, and the extended decay of notes in a natural acoustic environment. They somehow manage to present staggering amonts of detail without ever calling attention to that detail. It’s just there, and it makes the recordings sound incredible natural and neutral.

But not bland! When the trumpets blare, their bite can make you jump in your seat, especially if you aren’t expecting it. But they don’t make you want to cover your ears or hope that it will be over soon. The sound is exciting simply because it is so real. And with imaging champs like the Talons, these electronics throw a soundstage like you wouldn’t believe: gigantic, articulated, and stable.

It isn’t easy to review equipment like this where I’ve never heard anything this good before; there’s no reference point “beyond” them on any dimension I can think of. They can’t be perfect, but I can’t say that I hear any significant flaws at all. They don’t have that “tube magic” in the midrange that the best SET amplification does, but to me these Aloias sound more natural and “right” than even the best low-powered tubes I’ve heard. (I admit to not having heard many of the big, powerful tube gear from Acoustic Research, VTL, etc., most of which is beyond my price range.) For me, the Aloia amp/preamp combination is a revelation.

full weight to the entire musical spectrum, the most 'real' sounding speaker I have ever heard, utterly believable

extremely long break-in period, not the most exotic or beautiful looking speaker out there

timbre: 'the quality of a tone distinctive of a particular voice or musical instrument'

pitch: 'the property of a musical tone determined by the frequency of the sound waves producing it - highness or lowness

These two qualities are what help determine whether or not a speaker is doing its job correctly. If the music reproduced does not sound like the real instrument or voice or if the tones are not at the correct frequencies of the original voices or instruments, then the speaker is less than real. I believe we are trained by our equipment after years and years of listening to believe that what our particular equipment reproduces is correct - it becomes our reference. We respond to the equipment and chose to believe that the equipment we have delivers to us how music is 'supposed to sound'. What the Peregrines do is deliver the music much closer to the 'real' than you have previously heard. You become re-trained and come to realize that your previous reference had it only partly correct. It can be a painful, tedious, frustrating experience. First of all, it takes well over 500 hard hours to break this speaker in. After 800 hours, you get a real sense of what this speaker does. That is a lot of listening, trust me. It has taken me almost a full year. Most speakers don't deliver the body or weight real instruments and vocals possess. Most speakers get the bass or the high end ok, but only present a 'passable' presentation at the core of the music: the midrange. Music has guts, it has a middle, it has weight and body. This speaker forces you to re-learn and re-define how you listen to reproduced music. Given the full break in period, this speaker will change how you perceive reproduced music. It can truly be full range, detailed, musical, hypnotic, natural, powerful, delicate, deep, smooth and full. Real. You come away thinking, this is how music is 'supposed to sound'. It will probably be different than what you are used to, most likely it will be different. But the experience is imminently satisfying, ultimately. The music is 'proportionate', large, enormous, 3 dimensional, dynamic and it has real timbre and pitch. You don't need a subwoofer, you don't need to get exotic cabling. You need decent wire and equipment and you need patience and you need to be willing to re-learn what you think you already know. You need to be patient and willing to be re-trained. There is nothing quite like it, I assure you.

Similar Products Used:

ProAc, Merlin, Tannoy, Soliloquy, Magnepan

They make music.

none

After reading the other reviews there in not much more I can add. My wife and I love these speakers. Don't let the simple looks of these speakers fool you these are incredible. Listen to them before you buy.

Too many to list!

Only two that I’ve noticed: lack of “air” at the very top (which I'm not sure is actually be a weakness after all) and lack of full authority at the very bottom (20-40 Hz)

Let’s cut right to the chase here: these Talon Peregrines are an F-ing MIRACLE! I’ve had them for about two weeks now (fully broken in from the start, because they were dealer demos), and already I can’t imagine listening to anything else ... except maybe Talon Khoruses or Khites. They’re that good.

It’s easy to describe the Peregrines’ sound: extremely natural, clean, smooth, tight, detailed, dynamic, spacious, and life-like. I kid you not. They’re not razzle-dazzle speakers in the sense of calling attention to themselves with sonic hyperbole (you know what I mean), but they are supremely musical and utterly convincing at reproducing real performances. Once I’d listened to a variety of music through them, I realized that I was -- maybe even for the first time -- completely absorbed in enjoying the musical performance rather than “analyzing the system.” You almost can’t help it with these speakers because the performers are right there making music in the room with you, and you just can’t ignore them and listen to the speakers. The Peregrines image so well, by the way, that if you close your eyes, they really aren’t there; you just hear the performers out there in front of you.

And this doesn’t happen just on a few cuts of a few audiophile classics, but a huge number of CDs that I hadn't considered very special before -- even some that I considered unlistenably bright and hashy. I hadn’t realized until I got the Peregrines just how much my system had restricted what I enjoyed listening to. I was down to maybe 1/3 of the CDs I owned, and maybe only half of the cuts on them. Now I listen to everything I own, and enjoy them all. I know this is heresy. Highly regarded audiophile speakers are supposed to be “ruthlessly revealing,” making the great recordings sound terrific, but the bad ones sound awful. Well, that just isn’t true of the Peregrines. Everything sound better on them -- by which I mean more musically enjoyable -- and by a wide margin. I've never heard anything like these puppies before. All the others sound like speakers; these sound like live performances.

Once I knew how special they were, I decided to upgrade the rest of my system to feed them the ambrosia they deserve. (See equipment listed below; the Aloia amps in particular are just incredible.) And ultimately I decided I wanted that bottom octave for the kind of foundation that full scale orchestral music really should have, so I added a Talon Roc subwoofer. Wow, do they ever make a difference and do they ever integrate seemlessly with the Peregrines! I feel like I’m closer to musical heaven than I’ve ever been, and maybe as close as I’m likely to get in this lifetime.

The bottom line is that these Peregrine speakers -- actually, all the Talons -- really are qualitatively different from the rest. To my ears, they’re better by a country mile. If you’re thinking about buying speakers anywhere near this price range, you should have a serious listen to these before you purchase anything. They aren’t cheap by a long shot, but they’re an astounding bargain compared to the competition, which seldom gets you even halfway as close to the music. Try them on a random sample of your albums (“bad” ones as well as good), and let your ears decide.

My system consists of:
Muse Model 9 Signature CD/DVD player
Sony SCD 777ES CD/SACD player
Aloia 11.01 preamp (w/ inductive power supply)
Aloia 13.01 amp (w/ inductive power supply)
Talon Peregrine Speakers
Talon Roc subwoofer
PS Audio Power Plant 300
Acoustic Zen Matrix interconnects
Analysis Plus Silver speaker cables.

Similar Products Used:

I’ve owned VMPS Towers, Vandersteen 2Cs, Magnepan IIIAs, Apogee Stages, and Reference 3A De Capos; I’ve auditioned several models of Martin Logans, Thiels, Dunlavys, Ariels, Alons, Silverlines, Sonus Fabers, InnerSound Isis, etc.

Detail retieval. Low bass extension. Sheer musicality!

None at this price.

Simply excellent. The music flows naturally. I'm a detail freak, and after I got over the initial WOW factor in that area I was lost in the music that I have loved and listened to my whole life. I'm driving these with an Electrocompaniet EC 4.7 and AW250 DMB combo. Digital feed is a Wadia Model 8 transport recently upgraded and the Perpetual Technologies P1A/ P3A D/D-D/A rig with Modwright upgrades. Redbook has never sounded better in my system. A favorite cut for me is from The Beatles remastered "Yellow Submarine"- "Elenore Rigby" The strings are glorius. The cello's and double Basses dig deep and vibrant! Violins are sweet and filed with pathos that brings the message of this composition home to those with an ear to listen. McCartney's voice is front and center with an immediacy that gives goose bumps to all of the Beatlemaniacs that come to visit. Warmer than the Gershman's, but lacking the impact of the 802 N's-they nonetheless grab you and make you pay attention until you forget them and simply find yourself immersed in the music. I will add a subwoofer that will do these Peregrines justice and get that last stretch at the bottom they narrowly lack. When I find one that matches well, I will write back and let you all know the result and the model. Get them if you can. There are better sounding speakers for sure, but not at this price range or considerably above.

Similar Products Used:

Dahlquist DQ-10. B&W Nautilus 802. Snell B Minor. Gershman Acoustics Avant Gardes

The Peregrines are my first "serious" speakers, so my ability to compare them to others comes mainly from auditions. Based on this, I can honestly say that they outperformed anything else on the market under $10,000. I have yet to find an audio demand they could not fill - and also importantly, they filled my wife's quality-of-appearance demands. The compact size is deceiving since there is nothing lacking in the presentation. Bass is incredibily responsive, every note is clear, and sound reproduction is true. These speakers are a complete package at an unbeatable price.