Harman Kardon HKTS 9BQ Review

Although I love movies, I'm not a big fan of 5.1 home theatre systems. The trade off between quality of a stereo system and the ability to pan audio across multiple channels in the same budget is just too difficult for me to condone. That is, of course, unless you have a handsome budget to spare for the extra four channels entailed by a decent 5.1 setup. With an MRP of Rs 45,000, the Harman Kardon HKTS 9BQ doesn't figure among your average entry-level home theatre speaker package. For that price it's expected to be built with more care and with better materials. Needless to say, that should ideally preclude it from being marred with the same issues that prevent entry-level 5.1 speaker packages from performing well with music. Whether the HTKS 9BQ actually lives up to these expectations is what I intend to find out during the course of this review.The costliest components of a good speaker surprisingly aren't the drivers or crossovers, but the cabinet itself. It's far more difficult and expensive to make a structurally rigid speaker enclosure than to just plonk in the choicest drivers and crossovers. The HKTS 9BQ's satellites seem to be built better than your average satellite speaker, and this is evident from their weight (725 grammes). However, rapping the enclosure with the knuckle doesn't quite give out the dead thud that you'd expect from a rigid cabinet. This just might be due to the vibrations from the metal protective mesh that's wrapped around most of the speaker enclosure. The spring clip speaker terminals are a major disappointment, especially at this price where one expects regular binding post type terminals.

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