This review covers everything the Kef KHT 3005SE set has to offer!

Recently I received my new Kef KHT 3005SE 5.1 Home Theatre Set from Amazon and I promised you a review. Well here it is! After playing around for a couple of weeks, watching  movies, listening to music, watching concerts and doing some fine-tuning I thought the time was right to publish this review.

The KEF KHT 3005SE 5.1 Home Theater Speaker System, in my opinion, truly delivers great sound quality. I was used to having large Kef speakers, but the time came to give their small speaker system a go. I must say that the sound quality surprised me to be honest! But let’s start at the beginning…

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Unpacking

When first I unpacked the set, I noticed this was done very decent to prevent damage to the speakers. All speakers were packed in a linen bag for extra protection. The four small egg-shaped speakers, which have an aluminium unibody design, are ideal for any kind of room and very nice to look at. I ordered the black edition. The sub-woofer also has a unique design, as you can see in these pictures.

Connections

I already had speaker cable with banana-plugs ready in my living room that I had installed when I moved in and run beneath my wooden floor. The cable is a 4mm² silver cable with golden connectors if you want to know.

When I looked at the speakers I noticed there was no possibility to plug in the banana-plug! I looked in the manual and it said that you should remove a plastic cover, after which it is possible to insert a banana-plug.

The manual had a warning that you shouldn’t use banana-plugs in an EU country, and since I live in the EU, I had to make sure it wasn’t a problem to use plugs. After doing some research I found out it’s only a EU safety regulation, the reason is that you can fit a banana-plug into a power-outlet in EU countries. Since I’m not that dumb, I decided to keep using the plugs. On my previous speakers I also used these gold-plated banana-plugs, which are soldered with silver onto the cable. Wouldn’t it be a waste to just cut them off?

Anyways you don’t have to use plugs, the experts have different opinions on using bare wire or plugs. It seems that without a plug, there is less resistance which means better audio quality, but personally I can’t hear the difference and I like connectors better, it’s neater. You can decide whatever you like best.

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Wall Mounting

I decided to wall-mount the speakers, so I had to modify the speakers’ floorstand and attach it to the back of the speaker, this was an easy task, which you can do with a supplied tool. Every speaker needs 2 screws in the wall, on which you hang the speakers with modified floorstand.  After installing all the speakers, I had to reconfigure my my Denon receiver to use ‘small’ speakers instead of ‘large’ ones and set the cross-over frequency to 120Hz. Now I was ready to give the system a test drive!

Testing

I my previous post I wrote about the Uni-Q technology that Kef uses in their speakers, this places the tweeter in the acoustic center of the midrange/bass cone, thereby creating a single audio source through which the sound is distributed evenly throughout the room. This allows everyone in the room to enjoy the same fullness and richness of either the music or a movie sound track. The Kef KHT 3005SE also incorporates this technology in all speakers and this doesn’t go unnoticed! I was really impressed by the sound that the set produces. I used some blockbuster movies with a lot of special effects to test the speakers.

As with it it’s larger speakers, KEF was able to create a center channel that is totally dedicated to delivering greater clarity and fullness for an amazing movie theater like experience. Unlike other home theater speaker systems, the KEF 3005SE does not have an identical looking center and satellite speakers. The center speaker has a different design than the satellite speakers as you can see and hear. The dedicated center speaker uses a pair of extra drivers to increase the clarity and directness of its midrange.

I also listened to different kinds of music and I must say I was impressed with classical music. This is not my first choice but what a sound!

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Sub Woofer

My previous sub was an ugly box that I hid next to the sofa but this sub is placed in plain sight and a lot of people like the design. The HTB2SE subwoofer goes very deep and adds extra scale to big Hollywood blockbusters. I was really impressed by the depth charges in U-571 . There isn’t much you can configure on the sub, except for some extra bass boost, but this isn’t necessary in my opinion.

Pros

• Superb sound quality! The Kef 3005SE is proves that small speakers can produce great sound quality.
• First time I really experienced a seamless surround field and deep bass.
• Beautiful design of all speakers including the sub.
• Construction quality is very good, the center channel and the satellite channels are of a smooth black finish and made of solid aluminum.
• The subwoofer is small compared to normal subs and performs exceptionally well.

Cons

• Sub has no volume control, but my receiver handles this so no big problem.
• You can’t reach sub’s power button without lifting it, also no problem since it turns off automatically and uses less than 1.7 watts in standby.
• They’re not cheap, but you certainly get what you pay for in this case!

Click here for the Lowest price for the Kef 3005SE set!

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