KEF HTF8003 Home Theatre Sound Bar - Short Review

If you are looking for loudspeakers for your home theater, but don't want all the speaker and wire clutter, then check out the KEF HTF8003 Home Theatre Sound Bar system. The HTF8003 combines three front channel speakers (left, center, and right) into one 38-inch long housing that is designed for table or wall mounting. The KEF HTF8003 complements flat panel LCD/Plasma TVs and can be used alone (but does require connection to a home theater receiver), or combined with a subwoofer (recommended) and a set of surround speakers. After reading this review, also check out my Photo Gallery.

The KEF HTF8003 Home Theatre Sound Bar is a single housing, about 38-inches long, that includes Left, Center, and Right channel speakers. The center channel delivered a very good vocal and dialog presence from both music and movie material. However, the sounds from the left and right channels, although clear and detailed, did not project a sound image far beyond the physical sides of the sound bar.

I listened to the KEF HTF8003 Home Theatre Sound Bar in three different types of setups:

1. As a single, standalone (L,C,R) sound bar speaker system.

2. As a sound bar combined with a separate subwoofer, in this case, KEF provided the KEF HTB2SE-W Wireless Subwoofer.

3. Same as setup #2, but adding two left and right surround speakers, the 2 EMP Tek E5Bi's (borrowed from my EMP Impression home theater speaker system).

When used alone, the KEF HTF8003 does not provide deep bass or an enveloping surround sound environment as it does when it is used as part of a system with an external subwoofer and additional surround sound speakers such as in setup #3 outlined above.

However, in a space-saving setup with just the sound bar paired with a subwoofer and no additional surround speakers, HTF8003 delivers good detail within a narrower soundstage, and the subwoofer adds deeper bass. My suggestion: Use the KEF HTF8003 with a separate subwoofer, even if you do not use additional surround speakers.

Also, if you currently have separate Left, Center, and Right channel speakers and replace them with the HTF8003 Sound Bar in combination with separate surround speakers that are placed far apart, you may notice that while the rear surround image will still maintain a wide sound field, you will experience a narrowing of the surround image with sounds that are combined in both the front left and right and surround speakers, especially with rear to front sound movement.

However, the KEF HTF8003 offers very good mid-range and high frequency response for music and movies, can easily be used in a small-to-medium size room, and is a great design and size match for use with up to a 42-inch Plasma or LCD flat panel television. However, at $799 it is expensive when also consider that you need to add a subwoofer for best results.

Other hardware used in this review:

Home Theater Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR705 (set for 3.1 and 5.1 modes for this review).

Sources: OPPO Digital BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player and OPPO DV-980H DVD Player

Blu-ray Discs: Across The Universe, Avatar, Hairspray, Iron Man, Shakira - Oral Fixation Tour, The Dark Knight, and UP.

Standard DVDs: House of the Flying Daggers, Kill Bill - Vol 1/2, Lord of Rings Trilogy, Moulin Rouge, and U571.

CDs: Al Stewart - A Beach Full of Shells, Beatles - LOVE, Blue Man Group - The Complex, Joshua Bell - Bernstein - West Side Story Suite, Eric Kunzel - 1812 Overture, HEART - Dreamboat Annie, Nora Jones - Come Away With Me, Sade - Soldier of Love.

For a close-up look at the KEF HTF8003, check out my Photo Gallery.

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.