Behind The Scenes: KEF High Performance Music Lounge Tour

We recently had the privilege of traveling to Marlboro, NJ, to experience KEF's Music Lounge and tour their Music Lounge and incredible THX Certified Home Theater. KEF is famous for its Uni-Q technology, which can deliver a sound that is incredibly phase-accurate while, at the same time, covering a vast listening area. The sound coverage these types of speakers provide throughout the home, and especially in a home theater, opens up new ways to think about speaker placement. The best part of this trip was spending time with the team and discovering that they are equally passionate about audio and love to figure out the best solution for immersive sound in any type of room. Their many choices give them many tools in the bag, and it was great to hear their perspectives on the right speakers for various situations, as they demonstrated to us in the KEF Music Lounge.

KEF was founded in 1961 in Maidstone, UK, and is still based there for R&D and high-end manufacturing. Their founder was an ex-BBC engineer by the name of Raymond Cook. His big idea back in the late 1950s was to use new materials, new manufacturing methods, and new engineering to create better-sounding loudspeakers than were available at the time and more consistent manufacturing systems. Currently, they have their R&D department in Maidstone, UK, where they are not just learning about speaker design only but also the science of sound. So on top of acousticians, they have research physicists, DSP Engineers, and materials and meta-materials experts that work on every single product in their lineup.

They are a vertically integrated tier one manufacturer, meaning that everything that they can do themselves, they do. Everything — including the drivers, cabinets, assemblies, and crossovers are manufactured in-house — allowing them to continue that philosophy of consistency that Raymond Cook started over 60 years ago.

A fun fact is that the KEF was the first to use computers in loudspeaker design and manufacturing back in 1971. In 1976, they brought total system design — a holistic approach to loudspeaker design. In 1984 they commercialized force canceling, and much more recently, the application of metamaterials and the UNICORE driver were integrated into some of their products. 

The significant advancement that came out from KEF back in 1988 is the UNI-Q driver. This is a combination of a point source high-frequency driver and their mid-range precisely aligned so that every frequency from those two drivers emanates from a single point — just in the same way that every sound in nature is created. This creates a very, very natural sound because every part of the sound reaches you at the same time, while providing an incredibly wide sweet spot and a lot of flexibility in terms of placement.

We had the opportunity to sit at the bar in the lounge and test the movie Ready Player One, one of the most popular demos. We've seen it a million times, but usually, we watch it in a traditional theater setting. To see it in this bar setting and still have the immersion level that the KEF Ci (custom installation) range provided was an incredible experience. In addition, we loved the look of this installation in an area with a super modern, sleek vibe. In-wall and in-ceiling speakers can genuinely be an elegant, seamless solution.

If you’d like to learn how to install in-ceiling or in-wall speakers, check out our Home Theater Design Series, which covers virtually everything about designing a home theater DIY. We have an entire video & article dedicated to Home Theater DIY: How To Install In-Wall & In-Ceiling Speakers.

Regarding the box speakers, we started our demos with the Q Series. We were impressed with the exceptional value they provide — even at their entry-level price point!  This is all because KEF trickles down their technologies from KEF’s Blades, Reference Series, and more to all the rest of their designs. But, again, KEF emphasized that they believe everyone deserves excellent sound, no matter their price point.

The LS Collection consists of one passive speaker and three active speakers. The passive speaker is the LS50 Meta, which is the replacement for the award-winning legendary LS50 that was released for KEF’s 50th anniversary, and the LS50 Wireless then evolved from that. 

That technology then trickled down into the LSX II Wireless Bookshelf Speakers and their newer, flagship active speaker, the LS60 Wireless Tower Speakers that were released earlier in 2022. The LS Collection of active products is a combination of everything the KEF R&D team has done over the last 60 years in regard to acoustic design, amplification, and DSP. Designing an active speaker where all of these variables can be taken into account allows KEF to be able to extract huge amounts of performance from this line of products.

While performance is an obvious must-have for any speaker, an active product also needs to be easy to use and this user experience is a very important piece of KEF’s design process. All of the LS Collection run on their W2 platform which allows the use of the KEF Connect app to provide full control over each system. Using the app, you can even tell the speakers information about the room, such as how far they are placed off of the wall, which subtly but powerfully adjusts the sound to be tailored to the room to ensure that you are getting the best KEF performance no matter how you are positioning them in the room.

Connectivity is never an issue with the LS Collection having inputs for HDMI, analog, optical, and coaxial. They also support Deezer, Qobuz, Tidal, Connect, Spotify Connect, Amazon Music, Airplay2, Bluetooth, and several other music streaming services.

With the incredible performance and functionality, the LS Collection offers, KEF told us that they very much see these active products as the future of HiFi.

Next, we moved to one of the listening lounge's most exciting parts, the Blade One Meta's. These are KEF's phenomenal flagship tower speakers. The Blade One Metas, hands down, are some of our favorite speakers to just melt away and enjoy listening to. We recently added a pair to our Raleigh Showroom if you’re ever in the area and interested in checking them out, they are absolutely worth the trip! 

If you are interested in learning more about KEF, be sure to also watch our tour of their incredible THX Certified home theater. 

Check out our free home theater design tool to help you build your home theater or media room. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to give us a call at 888.899.8776 or chat with us about anything audio or video related, we’d be happy to help. Be sure to check out Home Theater Central where you’ll find design guides, installation videos, inspiration galleries, and everything home theater.