KEF LSX II Speaker Review: Hassle-Free Hi-Fi

KEF’s unique LSX was one in all our favorite wireless speaker systems, and the brand new LSX II improves on all the pieces we appreciated in regards to the unique. 

These glossy bookshelf audio system ship incredible, room-filling sound from a small footprint, and setting them up with all the pieces from a TV to your Spotify account could not be simpler. It’s not simple for an organization to high its personal best hits, however KEF has managed to tug it off once more.

Tasteful Design

The LSX II shares loads in widespread with its predecessor, and top-of-the-line issues it stored is similar fashionable design. Each speaker is a single rounded block, with smooth cloth wrapped across the edges. They are available black, white, crimson, blue, or “Soundwave”—a champagne gold with a wave sample on the material and a putting blue middle that got here on my assessment unit.

The complete design hits a candy spot the place it could actually both disappear into your decor or be a visible point of interest of an leisure system, relying on the way you prepare your dwelling house. The colour choices are a average enchancment over the previous generation, which had been rather less refined, although the shortage of a inexperienced choice is likely to be a disappointment for individuals who desire a nature vibe.

The backside of every speaker has a ¼-inch mount, which makes it simple to put them on a speaker stand. If you do this, you will should be aware of the ability cable that runs to every speaker—and probably an Ethernet cable, for causes we’ll clarify beneath. But apart from that, it is potential to mount the speaker nearly anyplace with minimal cable mess.

Myriad Inputs

The fantastic thing about a wi-fi sound system is how simple it’s to attach your audio, and on that entrance the LSX II don’t have any scarcity of choices. Once arrange, you possibly can solid music over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, however additionally they include a variety of different, wired inputs for no matter you intend to make use of them for.

There are typical choices like optical and three.5-mm auxiliary inputs, however new to the LSX II are USB-C and HDMI ARC inputs. HDMI ARC is especially notable as a result of it makes it a lot easier to manage a wide selection of A/V gear. While testing it, I used it to run sport consoles and streaming sticks into my TV, and linked the TV to the LSX II. There was just about no lag, and as soon as arrange I used to be in a position to preserve utilizing the identical quantity controls and remotes I’d been utilizing all the time.

It’s price noting that whereas connecting a PS5 utilizing HDMI ARC, I used to be unable to get sound from the LSX II. This was the one machine I had this difficulty with, and I consider this can be a bug with the PS5 software program, not the LSX II, but it surely’s price mentioning in the event you plan to make use of this with a PS5, as I did.