Thought I might share with you my impressions on the KEF KHT 2005.2 egg's 5.1 satellite speakers package. I got this as a HT setup for a friend who wanted a HT setup without the bulk of floorstanders or bookshelfs cluttered around her lounge room.
Each speaker was around a foot length in size and weight's a hefty 2kg per speaker. I'm not a big fan of HT packages with satellite speakers, but these one's are well built and have proper speaker plugs at the back of the base to accept up to 8 gauge speaker wire or banana plug terminations. Each speaker comes mountable with a floorstand for the mains and surround speakers that is at ear level or you could use the provided base stands. Either way the floor and base stands are quite well built and are heavy (around 1kg for the base and 2kg's for the floorstands). The floorstands have a cable management system which routes the speaker cable via the base of the stand up along the stem of the floorstand to connect to each speaker.
The speaker itself uses the Kef's Uni-Q technology, where the tweeter is mounted in the middle of the bass/mid bass driver, similar to the tech used by Tannoy's Dual Concentrics.
After setting up the speakers, I hooked up the Onkyo 875 receiver & Pana BD30 to it, so its time for a test drive. In stereo mode, these speakers are quite surprisingly musical for what they are! The highs, midrange are sweet and not glary in anyway, which cheap little satelittes packages tend do. The Best of the Eagles sounded quite musical and was warmingly engaging and I found myself tapping my foot when I was playing the cd! Vocals are smooth and nice without any hint of sibilance (Holly Cole Trio & Norah Jones are good test cd's for this) or vocal nasal like sound. Put on some 80's rock and these little babies can and do rock to my surprise.
Chucked in Transformers on BD, using the Dolby TrueHD soundtrack and it was great! Bullets whizzing here and there can be localised when the sound pans across from L - C - R and vice versa from the film. Vocals and action were presented well without sounding harsh.
Now, the lowdown. These speakers, although little but they do need some clean power! The speakers are rated at a modest 88db to 100w at 8ohms, which can be hard to drive to get some serious spls. Luckily the Onkyo has enough power to drive them without any noticable distortion. I found that with these speakers, I had to put the volume at the 12'oclock position to get the best balance of loudness and clarity.
As expected, they are lacking in bass, particularly in the lower freq's (lower than 100hz).. Checking out the specs, and it says its rated from 120hz - 20khz. And this is fair rating as without a sub, these speakers lack that midbass warmth for music. With a sub, these speakers come alive and put out a decent performance, that can rival some some bookshelf speakers. HT performance was great, surround effects were convincing and was tonally accurate when low bass slam was assisted by the sub with the crossover set high to 120hz.
Another lowdown is that you must have..repeat must have a subwoofer to be used with these speakers as the manufacturer has set the roll off rather high for bass, which is expected for speakers of this size and capability. Along with a sub, I could not notice a gap or anything lacking with the soundstage, with again brings up another con. The soundstage is fair for speakers of this size. If you have a small to mid size room, these will do fine, assuming you are no further than 10meters away from the speakers. Further than that, the soundstage just doesnt sound right. To be fair, these speakers are mean for those small/mid size rooms where users live in apartments that want a HT system without the bulk of large speakers.
Overall, I'd have to say that i'm impressed with these and am now thinking of getting a set for the bedroom!
I'd recommend these or its bigger brother, the 3005.2's if you have a bigger lounge area. For a complete HT system for under $1000(after bargaining), its hard to beat!