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Great Sound, a Clean Look

Do you like movies? From modern-day demo pieces like Dune, Ready Player One, and Blade Runner 2049, to classics like Casablanca and Gone With the Wind, to comedies like Young Frankenstein and The Big Lebowski, a good movie or two can be a great way to spend an evening.  

If you’ve been lucky enough to audition a good home theater system, you know it can transform your home space into something remarkably like the sound of your local theater – or even better. But not everyone can handle 5, 7, 11 or even more channels worth of speakers. In these situations, a soundbar can be a space-saving approach that also offers a clean look.  

Unfortunately, many soundbars sound like a compromise – lacking the truly immersive feel of a movie theater, with poor bass, unclear dialog, etc. But KEF’s new XIO Soundbar (pronounced Zee – O) is a 5.1.2 soundbar with 12 class D amplifiers on board, and it sounds wonderful. It has many KEF innovations, for an immersive home theater experience from a soundbar.

XIO Soundbar is aesthetically pleasing, in either silver grey or slate black, with a simple yet very nice-looking design. It retails for $2,499 and is shipping as of early July, 2025. It can be placed on-wall (KEF even includes a wall mounting kit) or placed on a cabinet or table-top. The wall mount kit even gives you about ½ inch of clearance to run your HDMI cable to your flat-panel TV. 

KEF’s XIO Soundbar connects to older TVs via optical cable, but works best with the HDMI eArc connection found on most of today’s TVs. With eArc you get uncompressed audio to your XIO, which sounds great. You also have the convenience of being able to use your TV remote to control both video and audio.

For its slim dimensions, XIO has surprisingly good bass on its own. But a quality freestanding subwoofer or two is a terrific upgrade for your music and movies, providing the bottom octaves that even many large, floor-standing speakers struggle with. XIO has a traditional RCA sub out feature, which is good. Even better, any KEF subwoofer can work with KEF’s KW2 RX wireless module, so you can tuck the sub or subs out of sight – no need to run wires from soundbar to sub, for a really clean look. 

Twin subs are even better than a single sub, not so much for more bass, but for better bass impact at more seated listening positions, spread evenly throughout the room. KEF’s wireless kit accommodates multiple subs – no wires from system to sub.  

You’ll love the streaming convenience. You can stream many music sources: Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, Qobuz, Deezer, Apple Airplay, Chromecast. Or stream directly from native apps like Spotify Connect, Qobuz Connect, and Tidal Connect. 

Spatial audio support is also excellent. XIO has an up-mixing technology, so stereo and even mono sources can be converted to multi-channel and sound very immersive. For movies, XIO supports Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Airplay Spatial Audio, Sony 360 Reality Audio and more. 

On your favorite movie demos, like Baby Driver and Mad Max: Fury Road, you’re going to be impressed, both by the immersive sound quality and especially the bass. Even without a subwoofer, XIO has solid bass content. You’ll get even better bass by adding subs, but we didn’t expect a slim soundbar to sound this good. 

What is XIO’s driver complement? XIO Soundbar is built by KEF, one of the most award-winning speaker brands on the market since their founding in 1961. It has a total of 11 drivers: 

There are four UniQ MX drivers: left, right and two center channels. UniQ means a concentric tweeter in the driver’s center, a KEF design that creates a cohesive point source, so mids and highs arrive at your ears at the same time. The MX in UniQ MX means a downsized, miniature version of UniQ. 

In a truly unique design, a gyroscope type device adjusts the output of the 2 center channel drivers based on wall or table-top mounting. Two full-range drivers reproduce the rear channels. Two more Uni-Q MX drivers handle the overhead channels 

Now on to the bottom end of this space-saving product. KEF’s P185 racetrack oval bass drivers keep the cabinet slim, yet produce surprising bass. The bass drivers are paired back-to-back, like KEF’s KC 92 subs, for good bass with minimal cabinet vibration. The bass driver surrounds have P-Flex technology, or folded pleats, so bass notes stay clear and controlled

What KEF calls Velocity Control Technology (VECO) is the game-changing built-in sensor at the heart of the P185 driver. VECO is a servo circuit with flexible printed circuit boards. VECO monitors the woofer cone motion, and uses negative feedback to actively manage and minimize distortion so that it won’t become audible. That helps us to get clear, clean bass notes. 

XIO Soundbar also features Intelligent Placement Technology, a built-in calibration tool that automatically adapts the sound output based on the objects around the soundbar, such as its proximity to the wall. XIO sounds more immersive, more like you’re in a theater, more realistic than so many soundbars that frankly can sound very two dimensional.   

One of XIO’s best features is the EQ Wizard. Once you have the soundbar mounted, it asks you simple questions about the height of the soundbar, the square footage of your room, and runs signals that, along with the included mics, dials in the XIO to sound its best in your room. The EQ Wizard helps make XIO a simple, plug-n-play solution.

What about ease of use? XIO offers 3 sets of control options: top panel controls, a handy remote, or simply use your phone with the KEF Connect app. We love the EQ settings, because they’re simple - like Dialog mode which is great for understanding the dialog in TV shows.  

Night mode is perfect for helping you hear the actors speak when the overall volume is low. Night Mode also keeps the bass content down, so you don’t wake up your sleeping family members. You can even store two of the sound modes as remote preferences. 

KEF’s XIO Soundbar is a great solution when big theater speakers won’t work. It looks good, it’s space saving, it sounds very good on its own, and you can add a wired or wireless subwoofer, or multiples using the KEF’s wireless kit, for even better sound, especially in larger rooms.  For more information on KEF, and all our great brands, visit us at Gramophone.com. To purchase your own XIO, visit SKY by Gramophone.com, where you’ll get fast and free shipping, straight to your door. We’d love to meet you at our showrooms in Timonium, Columbia and Gaithersburg, Maryland, so please consider visiting us.