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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.
That said, it's quite discrete and at least it is right at the bottom of the cabinet. I have been a KEF proponent for more than 2 decades with floorstanding speakers, a subwoofer and surround sound ceiling-mounted speakers in our family room since the late 90s. We recently finished our basement and I wanted to continue with KEF as the sound system for both big screen entertainment media as well as surround sound audio. The T305s were the perfect solution for an "on-wall" product that comes awfully close to floorstanding system in terms of sonic excellence. I could not be more pleased with the results - great balanced approach for the audiophile as well as the AV junkie.
Review: KEF T305 speaker system Page 3
Anyone speaker can give you raw power and boom, but Kef give you that and clarity. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. Each T301 comes with a mounting plate that makes vertical or horizontal wall-mounting easy.
Uncompromised home theatre sound without bulky boxes. The T305 system, with T301 satellites and a T-2 subwoofer is ready for anything. We have no information on reviews that were never published in the first place. PASS/FAIL/WARN does not necessarily prove the presence or absence of ‘fake’ reviews. The subwoofer also does its best to blend in with your décor with its compact dimensions and stylish black finish – perfect for slinging in the corner of the room.
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As far positioning goes, the front and rear speakers sounded best toed in to point at the listening position, placed about 15cm out from the wall. Given that the T301s only add another 3.5cm of depth to that, the overall projection into the room is very little indeed. As the T 305 system followed some man sized floorstanders, the nett visual impression was of an empty room by comparison. If they were white, they would have been all but invisible. The centre stood on the top shelf of my rack with the prop stand set to tilt the T301c back.
No issues though, just the materials bending and flexing. The final piece of the system is the new T-2 subwoofer. Following the lead of the satellites, the T2 is a less than micro 37cm on a side, but is only 18cm deep. Further more, all cable connections, which means a two pin reversible mains lead and a single RCA phono connection, are housed in a recess on the base of the cabinet. 18cm deep in this case, means 18cm - Not 18cm plus cables.
Klipsch Reference R-625FA 5.1 Home Theater Pack, Black Textured Wood Grain Vinyl
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.
The Onkyo is kindof tricky when doing music and a 5.1 setup is even trickier because I can't just run a stereo signal and get left/right because left/right is 2 channel native, not 2.1. When I've found settings that work best for the music, I am very happy with the sound. Hardwood floors and plaster walls are great for jazz, and I love how clear the acoustic bass sounds in the mix. That may be the best test actually because that instrument runs a wide range of frequencies. I've run plenty of Coltrane, Stereolab , and live Yes through the system, and again, with the right processor on the Onkyo, I am very happy with the sound.
From KEF
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.
It’s heavier than you’d expect for the size, which is reassuring, but putting the controls on the bottom was a slight design misstep as it means you have to lift it up whenever you want to make any adjustments. We didn't detect any reviews that used language indicating they were incentivized. Beware of crroks who advertise quality product brands like MCINTOSH ...
In ultimate terms, the only area that I felt was only adequate was the T 2 subwoofer. It's nimble, it's clean, a fine match for the system in general, but it could dig deeper with movies. It is fair to note, that it's performance limitations, are a result of it's compact form factor that is entirely consistent with the rest of the T 305 system. It is a discrete and visually appropriate accompaniment to the package as a whole.
I was also worried that the speakers wouldn't be as loud or provide a full sound, but I was wrong. The main appeal of the T series is the depth, and I'd planned on wall-mounting them until it came time to do it and my 70 year old plaster walls stared me down. But the rear channels are on tables and the fronts placed out of the way so it'll work for now. The center channel is robust enough to adequately cover the wide space between the two front channels.
The tweeter design must be damned robust, because KEF uses a very low 1.7 kHz crossover point. Most tweeters would distort or self-destruct with a crossover point that low. It could be action from the platform, personal decision by the review author, part of an entire account closure, even some data error on our part, etc. We counted 22 reviews for this product over the span of 3,557 days, an average of 0.0 reviews per day. If these reviews were created randomly, there would be a 99.9% chance that we would see 1 or fewer reviews on any given day.
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