Most soundbars are designed to sit beneath a television and, ideally, go unnoticed. Knit Sound Company has a different idea: if a speaker is going to occupy a spot in your living room, it might as well look like it belongs there. The new American audio brand is launching with the Knit Form, a $999 Dolby Atmos soundbar wrapped in knitted fabric and available in five colors. Founded by former Denon and Marantz executive Joel Sietsema, with interior designer Nate Berkus among its investors and advisors, Knit is betting that good sound and interior design shouldn’t be competing priorities.
When Audio Equipment Meets Interior Design
The inspiration behind Knit Sound Company came from a familiar disagreement between people who love technology and people who care about decorating. After spending two decades developing speakers, Sietsema kept bringing his latest creations home, only for his wife, an interior designer, to insist they be hidden.
It’s an understandable frustration on both sides. Audio enthusiasts want equipment that delivers excellent sound, while anyone who’s spent time decorating a living room knows that a collection of black speaker boxes, exposed cables, and glowing indicator lights doesn’t always complement the furniture.
Sietsema’s background includes senior product and brand leadership roles at Sound United, the former parent company of Denon and Marantz. For Knit, he’s assembled a team with experience spanning audio engineering, furniture design, consumer electronics, and automotive technology.
The Ada, Michigan-based company has also attracted financial backing from Brand Foundry Ventures, an early investor in Warby Parker, Olipop, and Graza. Berkus, whose interior design work has made him a familiar name in homes across America, is involved as both a strategic investor and advisor.
That combination of audio expertise and design experience gives Knit an interesting starting point, although the more important question is whether its first product can deliver on both sides of the equation.
A Soundbar Designed to Be Seen
Rather than the familiar rectangular enclosure with a metal grille, Knit Form has a rounded, sculptural silhouette covered almost entirely in a custom textile called Threadform.
Developed with a fourth-generation European textile mill, Threadform is designed to let sound pass through the fabric without significantly affecting its quality. That matters because wrapping a speaker in ordinary decorative material can muffle or alter what you hear.
The company developed the material with durability, color depth, and acoustic transparency in mind. The result is a soft-looking exterior that resembles an upholstered furnishing more than traditional home theater equipment.
Knit Form comes in five colors: Cloud White, Slate Black, Pebble, Sandstone, and Ember. The choices range from understated neutrals to a warm, reddish-orange option that makes the speaker more of a decorative accent.
There’s no prominent front-facing logo, and the indicator lights turn off during viewing. Those are small decisions, but they matter when you’re trying to enjoy a movie without a distracting light glowing beneath the screen.
At 46″ wide and 3.5″ tall, Knit Form is intended to complement televisions measuring 55″ or larger. It can rest on a media console or mantel, or be installed beneath a wall-mounted television using an optional $79 flush-mount bracket.
The size is worth considering before ordering. This isn’t a compact soundbar intended to disappear beneath a small bedroom television, and its 46″ width requires a reasonably generous surface.
There’s Serious Audio Hardware Beneath the Fabric
Knit Form’s appearance may attract the initial attention, but its internal hardware is considerably more ambitious than its understated exterior suggests.
The soundbar features a 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos configuration powered by 14 channels of Class D amplification. Class D amplifiers are designed to deliver audio power efficiently while generating relatively little heat, making them well suited to compact equipment containing multiple speakers.
The 5.1.2 designation describes the sound system’s arrangement: five main audio channels, one low-frequency effects channel for bass, and two height channels intended to create the impression of sound coming from above.
Dolby Atmos adds a sense of vertical space to compatible movies and television shows. Instead of hearing a rainstorm only around you, for example, a properly reproduced Atmos soundtrack can make the rain seem to fall from overhead.
Of course, how convincingly a single soundbar creates that effect depends on its speaker design, room layout, and surrounding surfaces. A soundbar also can’t automatically duplicate the separation of a dedicated home theater system with speakers positioned around the room.
Two built-in subwoofers handle low-frequency sound, eliminating the need for a separate bass cabinet. That’s useful if you’d rather not find space for another piece of equipment beside the television or couch.
A dedicated center voice array focuses on dialogue clarity, potentially making a meaningful difference when watching movies with dramatic music, complicated sound effects, or actors who seem determined to whisper every important line.
Whether Knit Form delivers the promised immersive sound and dialogue clarity will ultimately require listening tests. The specifications are promising, but they don’t replace hearing how the system performs in a real room.
One Cable, Your Existing Remote, and Fewer Complications
One of Knit Form’s more appealing decisions is its relatively straightforward approach to installation. Instead of requiring a separate streaming device or complicated network configuration, the soundbar connects to your television using a single HDMI cable, included in the box.
The connection uses HDMI eARC or ARC, technologies that allow compatible televisions to send audio back to a soundbar through an HDMI port. eARC supports higher-bandwidth audio formats, including certain lossless surround soundtracks, while ARC offers more limited capabilities.
Once connected, Knit Form is designed to work automatically with your television’s existing remote, so you shouldn’t need another controller sitting on the coffee table.
The television also serves as the system’s entertainment hub. Movies, sports, streaming services, and connected gaming consoles can all send their audio through the soundbar.
Music is handled similarly. If your television supports AirPlay, Google Cast, or Spotify Connect, you can use those capabilities to play music through Knit Form, with album artwork and track information displayed on the television when supported.
There’s also Bluetooth 5.3 for connecting a phone or tablet directly, without involving the television.
An optional Knit mobile app provides four listening modes, personalized audio adjustments, and wireless software updates. It’s useful to have those controls available without making an app mandatory for everyday operation.
Private Listening Without Reorganizing the Living Room
Knit Form also supports Auracast, a Bluetooth audio broadcasting technology that allows compatible listening devices to receive audio from a shared source.
For someone who prefers watching television through headphones while everyone else is sleeping, that could be convenient.
It may also be meaningful for households where someone wears compatible hearing aids and wants to hear television dialogue more clearly without increasing the volume for everyone else.
Compatibility is the important qualification here. Auracast requires headphones or hearing aids that specifically support the technology; an ordinary pair of Bluetooth headphones won’t necessarily work.
Still, including Auracast gives Knit Form a useful accessibility feature that goes beyond its emphasis on appearance.
Is the Knit Form Worth $999?
At $999, Knit Form sits firmly in premium soundbar territory, where buyers have plenty of established alternatives. Its appeal will likely depend on how much you value having substantial audio hardware integrated into an attractive, self-contained speaker.
The combination of Dolby Atmos, built-in subwoofers, straightforward HDMI connectivity, Bluetooth, and Auracast is compelling on paper. Its fabric exterior and color options also offer something different from the black-and-metal designs that dominate home audio.
The trade-off is that you’re paying for design as well as audio engineering, and there’s no independent listening experience yet to establish whether Knit Form can outperform similarly priced competitors.
For someone furnishing a thoughtfully designed living room, however, the proposition makes sense. If you want better television sound without surrounding your furniture with speakers, cables, and a separate subwoofer, Knit Form offers an interesting alternative.
The Knit Form Dolby Atmos soundbar is available beginning November 10, 2026, exclusively through KnitSound.com for $999, with free ground shipping to the 48 contiguous United States. The matching flush wall mount is sold separately for $79.