What if home audio didn’t have to comprise of conventional speaker systems? That’s the premise behind the newly launched Knit Sound Company, set up by Joel Sietsema in collaboration with the interior designer Nate Berkus, a company that ‘challenges the notion that home audio needs to be hidden away’.
Knit Form in cloud white colourway
Knit’s debut product is the Knit Form, a slender, organic Dolby Atmos-enabled soundbar that’s shaped quite unlike the boxy black rectangles people have become used to slotting beneath their TV screen. Sietsema, a former product leader at Denon and Marantz’s parent company, set up Knit Sound after realising that his interior designer wife had no desire to put speakers on show. ‘Knit was born from the idea that great sound shouldn't come at the expense of a beautifully designed space.
X-ray image of the Knit Form alongside standard TV sizes
‘I’ve spent 20 years building speakers designed to win on a store shelf. I’d bring new concepts home, and my wife, an interior designer by trade, wanted every one of them hidden. Form is what happens when you design for the home first. It should look like furniture, sound incredible, and be easily integrated into the technology you’ve already welcomed in your space,’ Sietsema says.
X-ray image of the Knit Form
Aside from the minimalist silhouette, which reduces the soundbar to the barest possible form, there was the question of delivering enough audio power to make such a device worthwhile. The finished product has dual built-in subwoofers to avoid the need for a subwoofer box, along with a central array of drivers for voice and dialogue, with full 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos capabilities. Knit supplies an app for tailoring sound to match your surroundings and connectivity is via USB and control also works with any TV remote.
Knit Form in ember colourway
To emphasise the ‘designed to be seen’ approach, Sietsema and Berkus have worked with a European textile mill to develop a special performance textile that gives the soundbar a distinctive character and texture, along with five colourways, Cloud White, Slate Black, Pebble, Sandstone, and Ember. A separately available wall-mount can also be supplied.
‘It looks beautiful, sounds great, and doesn’t ask you to compromise’
Nate Berkus
Knit Form in ember colourway
The softer design approach extends to the absence of a front-facing logo, and an organic form factor that takes a step back from home audio’s more overt and in-your-face brands. According to Berkus, a high-profile interior designer with a three-decade career, Knit Form is ‘the first speaker I’ve been genuinely excited to use in my projects and my own home. It looks beautiful, sounds great, and doesn't ask you to compromise on either.’
Knit Form, $999, available from KnitSound.com, @LoveKnit