If it didn’t quite get in on the ground floor, at least KEF didn’t have to sprint up too many flights of stairs to gain a spot in the “wireless stereo speaker system” elevator.

Having opened its account in fine style with 2016’s LS50 Wireless (it never does any harm to reference one of your greatest hits when pushing some newfangledness onto your consumer base), KEF expanded its “wireless stereo speaker system” portfolio in both directions with the smaller LSX, the subsequent LSX II, the bigger (and floor-standing) LS60, and the altogether-less-glitchy-than-the-original LS50 Wireless II.

And now there’s this, the LSX II LT system. At $999 (£899 in the UK), it’s a stripped-back version of the LSX II and the most affordable KEF wireless stereo speaker system so far.

Being the most affordable KEF WSSS isn’t the same thing as being straightforwardly affordable, of course—and this sector of the market is plenty mature enough so that there’s no need to spend this sort of money to achieve very similar functionality.

So what, if anything, makes the LSX II LT a compelling proposition? Beyond KEF’s reputation for being, well, really good at this sort of thing, I mean.

Like the LSX II, on which it’s closely based, the LSX II LT is smaller in physical (as well as financial) terms than the norm. If your desire for convenience extends to an entire audio system that can happily live on a shelf or desktop, this KEF fits the bill.

Better still, it looks good as it does so. Each speaker is a tidy 9.5 x 6.1 x 7.1 inches (240 x 155 x 180 millimeters), and while KEF offers a few options for stands and brackets, the bottom of each speaker has a little integrated foot on which it sits. No furniture rearrangement should be necessary.

Meanwhile, the choice of Stone White, Graphite Gray, and Sage Green finishes means the speakers should complement, rather than distract from, your interior decor choices.

Even the shape of the cabinets (designed by Michael Young and carefully optimized for acoustic performance) deviates just enough from the boxy norm to seem unusual and interesting.

As far as the properly serious stuff is concerned, though, the LSX II LT is all business. As with the LSX II, each speaker features an 11th-generation Uni-Q coaxial driver array (the dramatic look of which is just a happy byproduct of its extraordinary efficiency) powered by 100 watts of Class D amplification.

There are plenty of wired and wireless connectivity options. Dual-band Wi-Fi means Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Apple AirPlay 2, Chromecast, UPnP, and Bluetooth 5.0 (with SBC and AAC codec compatibility) are available—and the KEF Connect app also gives access to Amazon Music, Deezer, Qobuz, and internet radio.

On the rear of the primary speaker is a USB-C input and a digital optical input, along with an Ethernet socket, HDMI ARC input (giving the option of involving your TV), and a USB-C for making a connection to the secondary speaker. For the bass-preoccupied among us, there’s also a pre-out for use with a subwoofer.

The LSX II LT is compatible with all popular digital audio file types (as well as quite a few unpopular ones), and incoming content can be as big as 24-bit/384-kHz resolution if it’s delivered via network-attached storage.

No matter how the content gets on board or how high its resolution, though, it’s resampled to 24 bit/96 kHz in order to travel via the interspeaker USB-C cable (yes, this isn’t entirely a wireless system). It’s also given the once-over by KEF’s Music Integrity Engine digital signal processing algorithms, just to be on the safe side.

Control is available via the aforementioned KEF Connect app that’s free for ioses and androids. It’s both stable and comprehensive, which means it’s a pretty big step on from the app that accompanied the original LSX. In addition to the obvious control options, it allows you to integrate your favorite music streaming services, confirm the position (left or right channel) of the primary speaker, fiddle around the edges of EQs, access your local media servers, integrate your LSX II LT into a wider smarthome setup, and plenty more besides.

For the day-to-day of play/pause, skip forward/backward, volume up/down/mute, power on/off, and input selection controls, there’s a small and unremarkable remote control handset provided.

Obviously the LSX II LT has the best opportunity to show what it’s capable of if it’s given the best stuff to work with, which means some full-fat, hi-res audio files either from network-attached storage or a worthwhile music streaming service like Qobuz or Tidal. And, sure enough, with a 24-bit/96-kHz FLAC file of Lorde’s Solar Power to deal with, the KEF’s best turns out to be pretty impressive.

For such a diminutive, discreet system of unremarkable power and modest driver dimensions, it summons unlikely low-frequency drive and presence. Bass sounds are deep enough to make the idea of an external subwoofer seem a bit much, and they’re controlled at the attacking edge with proper authority.

Detail levels are high (as they are across the board, to be fair), so there’s plenty of information available regarding texture and tone. The LSX II LT is able to make even minor low-end dynamic variations apparent, and where straightforward punch is concerned they outperform their physical dimensions to a remarkable degree.

The opposite end of the frequency range is equally well served when it comes to detail retrievals, dynamic impetus, and simple fidelity. Treble sounds are bright and ringing, but even if you decide to test the upper limits of the system’s volume they never cross the line into hardness or glassiness. There’s ample bite and crunch should the music demand it, but none of the edginess that less capable loudspeakers can threaten to introduce.

And in between, the KEF creates more than enough space in the midrange for a vocalist to express themselves fully. If there’s information regarding character, technique, or attitude in a recording, there seems little doubt the LSX II LT is ignoring it.

Tonality from the top of the frequency range to the bottom is even and consistent, and there’s sufficient dynamic headroom available to let the quieter moments of a recording contrast nicely with the moments of all-out attack.

The soundstage the system can generate is appreciably wider and taller than the speakers from which it emanates, and it’s organized and controlled with confidence. The relatively complicated driver arrangement demonstrates its worth (again) with a presentation that’s neatly unified and of an appreciable whole.

The LSX II LT proves remarkably tolerant when it comes to lower-resolution content, too. A bog-standard 320-kbps Spotify stream of The Record by Boygenius sounds compressed and compromised, sure, but not to a fatal degree. Some systems can be overtly sniffy about poverty-spec audio files like this, but the KEF is not so judgmental. It does what it can with the information it’s given, attempting to open it up and find the light and shade within it rather than throwing its hands up in despair.

In performance terms, there’s really only one significant caveat to KEF LSX II LT ownership, and that concerns out-and-out scale. For all the dynamism of its sound and the expansive, organized nature of its soundstage, the KEF can’t muster the sort of outright scale that can fill a larger room with sound.

For the majority of customers, that’s unlikely to be an issue. The LSX II LT is no shrinking violet, after all, and in a typical room-sized room it has no problem with spreading sound all around. Those prospective owners who are hoping to fill a big space with sound from little speakers, though, are advised to think again.

Otherwise, there’s not an awful lot to take issue with. An analog input or two wouldn’t go amiss—after all, if you want to involve your TV in your system, why wouldn’t you want to include, say, a turntable, too? But given what KEF has managed to provide both in terms of sound quality and flexibility with the LSX II LT, I feel a little mean-spirited even bringing it up.

For KEF, the elevator continues to move upwards, even when it’s heading down to what it considers to be the bargain basement.