KEF LSX II Wireless HiFi Speaker System Carbon Black

Never imagine I'd spend $350 for a pair of sticks to hold up $1000 pair of speakers but here I am. To be fair I have heard of KEF before, but the brand never appealed to me. The brand does not cross my mind when shopping for audiophile products. And I was never in the market for book-shelf style speakers. My old Logitech/Creative 7.2, 2.0 systems, or my parent's Yamaha or Onkyo systems, never ever impressed me. The LSX II's grabbed my attention with its simplistic design. Clean lines with traditional speaker look yet somehow looks so luxurious. There are some wonky looking expensive speakers out there that try to stand out by prentending to be a UFO. But these KEF are so symmetrical, so even, straight edges with rounded corners, the driver unit square in the center. Just timeless. Classy. The blue one especially grabbed my attention, and motivated me to research further. How much money am I paying for brand and design, how much am I paying for just fluff? There are tons of options out there. Are these KEFs worth it? I remember my research was super simple and straight forward. The simplistic yet luxurious design carries over to the back. The availability of wired and wireless connectivity options are laid out perfectly clear. At the time I was dissatisfied with the SONY RA5000 ($700 single bluetooth speaker)'s horrible implementation of wifi and bluetooth. The KEFs have all the wired and wireless inputs I could want. USB C, Airplay 2, 3.5mm, and HDMI eArc. So I know they'd be perfect by my computers, or TV, or just playing out of the phone. Furthermore the LSX IIs support wireless-pairing of the two speakers and still maintain hi-res audio. And I can use wired-pairing to boost the SQ even further. How flexible and amazing are those. So after watching maybe 10-15 review videos, I pulled the trigger. Normally these big purchases I'd have buyer's remorse - I'd think, I could've gotten the Edifiers for $100 or Audioengines for $200, and save so much money, and still get pretty amazing sound!!! But happy to report, no buyer's remorse at all. I'm just happy with these. They bring me joy just by sitting there, not making a sound. And they sound wonderful. These are the type of speakers that make you dig up all your old favorite songs, songs you no longer remember you used to love, that these speakers will make you recall, and you will stay up all night sampling all of those songs, feeling like you are hearing them for the first time. And they are so easy to set up and use. I was streaming lossless music from my iphone in minutes. Also hooked up to my gaming set up and played 150 hours of Mass Effect Legendary Edition with those. And they sound epic. Watched a few favorite moves, and they were perfect. These speakers made me understand why they call good sound quality "high fidelity". They define "fidelity" for me. I love love love these. Despite that there are a couple minor things - all of which I'm perfectly happy to overlook and not care about. 1) The new LSX II LT uses USB-C to connect the two speakers, adding power delivery. So now you'd only need 1 power source. This helps a ton with cable management, if you have your desk not against a wall. I wish this the LSX II have that feature. In contrast, the LSX II's need a power source for each Left and Right speaker, but you get the option to go wireless-pair, which could also lead to less cable clutter. But to me, the wired-pairing sounds pretty significantly better. So I'd prefer the new LSX II LT, if not for them looking cheaper and just lesser than the LSX II's. 2) When using the S1 stand, which elevates the look even further, the power cable feel a bit short due to the built-in cable management system taking away some length. So I had to use extension cables. 3) Despite their power and fidelity, they sound a bit less when powering a full room. They are best when being desk companions. However the uniq drivers do deliver sort of omni-directional awesome sound, but just a bit less than when you are sitting directly in front in the sweet spot. I believe adding a sub to the set up would solve the issue though, and so far I'm perfectly happy without a subwoofer. I really love these. I think I'll buy another pair when they are on sale to put in bedroom. Read more

The KEF LSX2's are pricey, but they're not just powered speakers. They are a feature-rich audiopphile stereo system. They include separate amplifiers for the tweeters & woofers, a built-in pre-amplifier with lots of different input options. They include a high-end DAC and network streamer than can stream TIDAL, Spotify, and other services, and any music you might have on an NAS. You can connect almost any source to the LSX2's, from a turntable to a TV set and much more. You can stream music to them from any device on your home network, or via bluetooth. The fact that all of this takes up no more space than two compact speakers is a huge convenience for me; my KEF LSX2's are my secondary stereo system, they're in my home office, which doesn't have the space for a full system. In my main system, I use KEF R3 Metas. Previously I had KEF LS50s in my main system and KEF X800As for my secondary system. (The discontinued X800As were powered speakers with no wifi or streaming, they sounded great but the LSX2's sound better.) I'm into aethetics, and I think the LSX2's look great. The pictures are accurate, but they look better in person. None of this would matter if they didn't sound great. They do. REALLY great. I've played many genres of music through them - acoustic jazz, orchestral music, classic rock, funk, and soul. The soundstage is wide, deep, and tall. You can hear individual instruments and voices. The sound is warm and rich and full, with surprisingly great bass for their size. The highs are crisp, the mids are very present and warm, like piano accompaniment to vocal music, and the bass is tight and clear, never muddied like in cheaper systems. The speakers sound best when connected to each other with the included ethernet cable. But you have the option of connecting the speakers to each other cordlessly, via wifi, which gives you a lot more flexibility in speaker placement, and they still sound pretty great. When connected cordlessly, it's possible that interference between the two speakers will cause occasional brief dropouts in the sound in the secondary speaker (the primary speaker being the one you connect your sources to). According to the manual, you can minimize or eliminate the dropouts by experimenting with placement of the speakers. I didn't bother--in my use-cases, I am able to use the fairly long included cable to connect the two speakers. Like most speakers, the KEF LSX2's sound best on stands, ideally about 1.5 to 3 feet from the back wall. If you've never placed speakers on stands like this, you are in for a treat. The bass is better and the soundstage is more airy, more 3-dimensional. But you absolutely don't have to buy the $350 stands that KEF makes for these speakers. Amazon or your local hifi shop sells perfectly good stands for $100 or less. With most speakers, the listener should sit in the "sweet spot" for best stereo soundstage, where the speakers form a triangle with the listener (e.g. 8 feet between the speakers and 8 feet between the listener and each speaker). But KEF speakers are a little less picky about placement. KEF speakers have the tweeter situated in the middle of a larger speaker, so the high, mid, and low frequencies come from the same point. As a result, the sweet spot is much wider, so listeners don't need to sit in a perfect triangle with the speakers to get the best stereo sound. One downside of these compared to other speaker systems I've used is the learning curve is a little steeper with these. With other speaker systems I've used, it typically takes 15-30 minutes max from opening the box to enjoying them and fully knowing how to use them. With the LSX's, it took a bit longer, and several days to become fully acquainted with the app. That said, after a few days, I felt completely comfortable with the app, and now using the LSX2's is easy. Lastly, there is a break-in period with these (and with every pair of hi-fi speakers I've ever owned, KEF or otherwise). Out of the box, they will sound okay but not amazing. As you play them, they break in and the sound quality gets better. Within 5 hours, they will sound fantastic and it keeps getting better from there. A good thing to do is to run them overnight (in a room that's far away from your bedroom). They don't need to be real loud. The next morning they will sound much better. If you just want decent computer speakers, skip these. There are lots of very good options costing half as much as these, or less. But if you want a compact audiophile system with a ton of useful tech and GREAT sound, it's worth spending for the LSX2's if you can afford them. -- UPDATE I'm stlll loving my KEF LSX2's. I wanted to mention the new KEF LSX2 LT speaker system. The list price is $300 less than the list price of the LSX2's. How do they compare? The LT's sound exactly as good as the LSX2's. They use the same speakers, same cabinets, and same electronics. The LT's must be connected to each other with a cable. The LSX2's can connect to each other over wifi. The LT's do not have an analog input. For me, this is a deal-breaker since I run a turntable through my LSX2's. The LT's have fewer color options. IMHO, the LSX2's look a bit more high-end, with nicer finishes & most color options are two-tone (e.g. speaker grill is a different color than the body). In short, the LT's are the LSX2's but with fewer features and fewer color options. I think the LT's will be the better option for most people, given the $300 savings compared to the LSX2'S. But if you want the LSX2's but want to save some money, Amazon and Music Direct (60 day return policy) occasionally have open-box or used-but-excellent-condition ones for hundreds less than MSRP. That's what I did, and the LSX2's I got were indistinguishable from new, for about $300 less. Read more

I was somewhat skeptical that a speaker this size and price point would perform to my expectations. I was frankly shocked at the amount of sound output these little speakers put out. Using at my desk in a 13x14 office/bedroom. Even when I am laying down on my adjustable bed on the other side of the office area/desk, the sound is very nice and full. Also was pretty amazed at how good they sounded right out of the box... the top end was not harsh are fatiguing at all. But if you like more "sparkle" and detail at the top end, adjusting some settings is very simple. Setup was easy and the app lets you adjust different parameters (DSP) to tailor the sound a bit to the speakers' location in the room and your room itself. My room has carpet, a king size bed and cellular shades/drapes, so it is fairly damped. But being able to adjust the sliders in the app for these different parameters while listening is a very powerful tool. I use Tidal Connect which is so easy and have everything I need on my phone. For my main system in the living room, I am also using an active, streaming speaker from Dynaudio (Focus 50), which is far more expensive, but in a smaller space like this, these speakers are great. I have cables in my main system that cost what this KEF speaker does, so at about $1,500, it seems like a bargain. I would highly recommend getting a decent subwoofer. I am using a KEF KF-92 (previous model to the current KC-92) and what this combo does is extraordinary. Read more