****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
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.
