KEF’s Coda W is what your record collection has been waiting for

The conversation around vinyl’s resurgence has been running long enough to risk becoming its own cliché – and yet the pressing plants keep running overtime, the record shops that were supposed to disappear keep opening new locations, and the people who care about physical music keep caring about it more, not less.

What keeps pulling them back is harder to quantify than streaming numbers or sales figures: it has something to do with attention, with the specific pleasure of committing to a record and following it through. The question, for anyone serious about that experience, is whether the system at the end of the chain is keeping up with the intention.

KEF’s Coda W is built around the premise that it should. KEF has been making speakers in Britain since 1961, and the company’s engineering heritage runs through some of the most respected audio equipment ever made (including the drive units used in the BBC’s LS3/5A broadcast monitor, which became a reference point for recording studios worldwide). The Uni-Q driver array, which KEF patented in 1988 as the world’s first truly coincident-source speaker driver, now sits at the heart of almost everything the company makes.

The Coda name goes back to a series produced through the 1970s and 80s, speakers that introduced a generation of serious listeners to what high-fidelity sound could actually feel like in a domestic setting. The Coda W carries that name into a completely different format: an all-in-one active stereo speaker system with a moving magnet phono stage built directly into the primary cabinet, so a turntable connects without any additional equipment – no separate amplifier, no outboard preamp required. For turntables that already have a built-in preamp, there is a line-level RCA input as well. As a fully wireless speaker system, it handles streaming and digital sources with equal capability.

The engineering centres on KEF’s 12th-generation Uni-Q driver array, which places a 25mm aluminium dome tweeter at the acoustic centre of a 130mm magnesium-aluminium alloy mid-bass cone, so treble and midrange originate from precisely the same point in space. In practice, that means stereo imaging and spatial depth that makes the production decisions in a well-made record audible – where things sit in a mix, how a room sounds on a recording, the texture of a performance. For digital sources, Bluetooth 5.4 with aptX Lossless streams at true CD quality wirelessly, and there’s USB-C up to 24-bit/192kHz, optical and HDMI ARC for everything else.

The emotional case for this kind of listening was made plainly at a recent KEF event, KEF & Flashback Records: The Resurgence of Vinyl, held at KEF Music Gallery London. Film director John Maclean described what physical music has always meant to him: “When I fell in love with bands like The Stone Roses, their records felt precious. They weren’t just music; they were objects you could collect, study, and live with. That sense of connection is something vinyl has always given me.”

Josh Mason, music curator of Somewhere Soul, put the practical dimension alongside it: “One of the most direct ways to support artists you believe in is to buy the record, go to the shows and invest in their work so they can keep creating.”

Music journalist, DJ and presenter, Kate Hutchinson noted that her passion for records has always been linked to exploration: “Record shops became spaces where I could trace the influences behind artists and completely rethink how I heard music.”

KEF Music Gallery London is the best place to hear what the Coda W actually does. Spread across 5,000 square feet at 42-48 Great Portland Street (London, W1W 7NB) the space features Exploratory and Immersion Zones, a year-round programme of music and film events, and is as worth visiting for a coffee as it is for a dedicated listening session.

Furthermore, until 31 March 2026, anyone who books a personalised demo at the gallery or through an authorised retail partner receives a complimentary two-month Qobuz trial or three-month MUBI trial.

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