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Secondly, it makes acoustic sense to go too tall, rather than too short. Listening below a speakers axis, tends to introduce less phase cancellation anomalies between the tweeter and mid/bass driver, than listening from above. Thus a slightly too tall speaker will deliver a more consistent delivery at a range of seating heights than slightly too short one. To summarize, if you have a problem with these speakers I'd tinker with your receiver because the speakers themselves are top notch.
These effects lose none of their clarity with our Onkyo amp’s volume cranked up to 75 per cent – no mean feat given the slimness of those cabinets. We’re particularly impressed by the ferocity with which it spits out the Monaco Grand Prix scene in Iron Man 2. As drivers rev their engines on the grid, the KEFs nail the paint-stripping rasp of the engines and back it up with a bed of bass so deep and powerful you might want to stock up on Blu-Tack for your treasured ornaments. Running through our regular gamut of test discs – Inception, Hellboy II, Avatar and Iron Man 2 – the system delivers an explosive and aggressive sound that thrills in ways only previously achievable through the use of hard drugs. The powered subwoofer boasts a 250mm woofer and 250W Class D amplifier, delivering a frequency response down to 30Hz. On the bottom is a line-level phono input and switches controlling Bass Boost and phase control.
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The little midwoofer doesn't sound so clear in the lower register of the male voice, making some guys' vocals sound a bit bloated or congested. Melodic bass lines tended to plod a little; electric bass notes lacked some of their characteristic growl and punch. An average person would think the T305 sounds great with music, but I doubt audiophiles would be impressed. I had always been reluctant to have a separate sub because most .1 systems I'd heard didn't sound natural, but this setup does.
The centre was also about 15cm from the wall, but of course was getting it's boundary reinforcement from the rack, to balance that provided by the stands of the flanking left and right speakers. The subwoofer sat to the right of my stand, alongside the right speaker and pointing sideways. There was no acoustic reason for this, other than it simply looked even more discrete. Finally, distances were set in my processor and the crossovers set to the suggested 110Hz.
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But what marked the T Series out, was the excellent freedom aural location ie, the satellites pull off a real disappearing trick. Given these speakers' form factors, it'd be logical for KEF to engineer them more for home theater than for music. The system sounds fine for music; I put in many hours of listening to two-channel stereo CDs and always enjoyed it. However, it's not as involving as a serious music listener would probably want. The treble sounds a little soft, as if the tweeter starts to roll off above about 10 kHz; the acoustic guitars that begin Steve Earle's country classic "The Devil's Right Hand" lacked their usual sparkle.
The T-2 subwoofer offers a taught and tuneful foundation and is less exposed in the very deep bass than it is with action movie effects. Subwoofer demo disks will find it out, but up to and including the point where the T 305s reach their comfortable limits, it's well able to keep up. As mentioned, it seamlessly blends with the satellites, due to it's clean upper bass. That's far more important in the context of this system, than a few extra Hertz of extension.
T101c Centre Channel Speaker
Assembly is pretty logical and I was up and running with all five speakers in about half an hour flat. It immediately struck me that mounted on the dedicated stands, the T301s are rather tall, standing in at a combined height of 140cm. This places the tweeter at a lofty 110cm above the floor whereas my, not exactly low, sofas place my ear at 90cm above the floor. Clearly the T101s would knock 17cm off that total height, but would still place the tweeter at the same level. To my mind, this is rather high - The stand could be a comfortable 15cm shorter to suit the average seated ear level, but there are upsides.
This restricts it’s loudness capability and bottom end performance, placing greater emphasis on the partnering subwoofer to cover frequencies it’s not ideally disposed to do. The T305 would be a great home theater system for $1,999 even if the speakers were butt-ugly black boxes. The fact that the T305 delivers excellent home theater performance and is also one of the best-looking systems you can buy makes it a stunning achievement. And as long as your music listening doesn't get much more adventurous than smooth jazz and Jack-FM, I'm sure this system will do everything you want it to do. The T301s are a two and a half way closed box design, fitted with two 115mm midrange drivers that KEF designed specifically to squeeze into these slim profile speakers. The suspension and magnet system have been moved to the side of the voice coil, while the flat but rigid diaphragm has been ribbed and braced with dual aluminium discs.
Setup
My options seemed to be limited to over priced Bose, which I knew from actual listening experience was not what I was looking for. Or, one of the many small satellite systems that all kind of sound alike and have no mid-range. I did some research on flat panel speakers and narrowed my choices down to Definitive Technology and KEF. I really liked Def Tec's Mythos XTR50 surround system . However, they were almost 2x the price of the KEF T305's.
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To keep the driver slim, the spider (the pleated fabric structure that joins the back of the driver to the speaker's frame) is not attached to the front of the voice coil as usual. Instead, it's attached to a separate, stubby cylinder that is in turn attached to the diaphragm - so the cylinder is actually concentric with the voice coil. I'm confident we'll see this great idea copied in short order. When it comes to skinny, the KEF T301 speakers are the real deal. Even when wall-mounted, they stick out a mere 1.5 inches - and these are my measurements, not KEF's. What's more, KEF also offers a slim subwoofer, the 7-inch-thick T2, to go along with the T301 and its smaller sibling, the T101.
I found them equally adept at low level, late night TV, or high level music listening and whilst doing either, I didn't feel short changed. When listening in 2.1 stereo mode, I had a genuine giggle whilst torturing them with Metallica's 'Black Album' at silly volumes. They do quiet and clear, they do loud and refined and that's not an easy trick to pull off. And having mentioned high volumes, it's worth noting the the T301s can play comfortably at high volumes. It's easy to forget, when presented with such a slender speaker, that the enclosure is still packing a pair of 115mm drive units.
It's when you turn any of the T Series satellites sideways you realize that something out of the ordinary is going on. You have to set these to 120HZ for crossover frequency and let your sweet sub take over for bass. After watching concert Adele Blu-Ray, the experience is phenomenal. I'm still in this period and my speakers are still trying to settle in with some crackings.
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