Ikea Sonos Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf

amazon Ikea Sonos Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf reviews

The Ikea Symfonisk WiFi bookshelf speaker works within the Sonos ecosystem and delivers powerful sound for its size and price.

Last year, Ikea surprised us with its great, affordable Bluetooth speaker, the Eneby. The Swedish furniture giant has teamed up with Sonos to create two new multi-room wireless models, each of which functions as furniture. The $179 Symfonisk Table Lamp doubles as a lamp, while the $99 Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf Speaker, reviewed here, can be used as a wall shelf. The speaker theoretically delivers a strong punch for the price, including some impressive bass depth. It can also be integrated into an existing Sonos system, making it the cheapest Sonos-compatible speaker available.

Design

Available in black or white and measuring 4.0 x 12.0 x 6.0 inches (HWD), the Bookshelf Speaker is the more modest model in the Symfonisk lineup. It looks like a speaker and doesn’t need to be installed as a stand — it works well on a tabletop and can be horizontal or vertical, with rubber feet to keep it stable in either position. If you choose to mount it on the wall, you’ll need a Symfonisk hook, although it’s not included, and we don’t know the price yet. The speaker can also be mounted on Ikea’s Kungsfor kitchen rail system or its Fintorp rail.

A fabric grille covers the front of the speaker; coarse tweed blends harmoniously with the eggshell of the outer plastic layer. Also, on the front panel, there’s a cloth tab with both Ikea and Sonos logos—if you’re the type of person who likes to remove the grid and view the controls, note that the card acts as a tab drag ease of use.

Below the grille, a single 1.25-inch tweeter and a 2.75-inch midrange driver are powered by its class-D digital amplifier. As well as a The port pushes enough air that if you turn off the grille and are listening to a particularly bass-heavy track, you can feel some significant airflow pushing out of the cabinet. It’s atmospheric enough to be annoying, and while the driver looks cool enough, we like the look and feel of the grille.

To the right of the grille (or the bottom, if it’s vertical), there’s a control panel home button for play/pause and volume up/down. The play button also doubles as a track forward or backward button when tapped quickly two or three times. There’s also a status LED that makes you know when the speaker is ready for setup when it’s connected, and when it’s in standby mode.

The back contains the connection for the included fabric-wrapped power cable, as well as an Ethernet port for connecting directly to your router. There is no connection for wired input, no Bluetooth connection, and no speakerphone functionality.

The setup process is relatively simple. The Sonos Controller app (for Android and iOS) does all the work for you, from identifying nearby speakers and connecting them to your WiFi network to update the firmware. It’s a seamless process.

After the firmware update, the app guides you through the custom tuning process to get the audio experience you want from your speakers. You can also add music services to the Sonos app, like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Audible, Bandcamp, and a very long list of other options. You can also send audio from your iOS device’s local library to the speaker using AirPlay 2.

If you have an existing Sonos setup, the bookshelf speakers can be built into it. They can even be designated as rear surround speakers in a home theater scenario involving the Sonos Beam. Two Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf Speakers can also be assigned as a stereo pair’s left and right channels.

The speaker supports voice control through Alexa and Google Assistant but does not support voice control like the Sonos One and Sonos Beam. Like the entire Sonos ecosystem, you can link Symfonisk with your voice assistant of choice and control playback with a separate smart speaker or the Sonos app. So yes, it can be made to play or pause with voice commands, but it doesn’t have a built-in microphone or alarm function.

Ikea promises an Ikea-branded remote and app designed specifically for Symfonisk speakers, but they won’t hit the market until later this year.

where can you get a Ikea Sonos Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf online

IKEA Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf Speaker White 804.352.11: Buy it now

Performance

The process of adjusting the room in the app is simple, requiring you to walk around the room with your phone while a series of beeps measure the sound. It is optional, and to provide a baseline assessment of the bookshelf speaker’s sonic performance, we tested the speaker without any adjustments.

Like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the speaker delivers impressive bass depth on tracks with intense bass content. At the highest volume, streaming via AirPlay 2 from the iPhone 8, we experienced some distortion, which isn’t surprising from a $100 speaker. At slightly lower volumes, the depth of the bass is impressive and clear. We played several tracks from Thom Yorke’s new record, Anima, which featured challenging deep bass with varying intensity levels in different ranges. We noticed much less distortion at high volumes on these tracks, so it’s not a full-blown problem with deep bass, and it only happens at the highest volumes.

Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the speaker’s overall tonal characteristics. The drums on this track can sound too thunderous on the bass relay speakers, while here, they get a bit of a boost in-depth, but the sound sounds pretty natural for the most part. Callahan’s baritone seems to get most of the bass boost, suggesting that bass and mid-bass are generally stronger here than in the bass frequencies, which is no surprise given the size of the bass of the drivers. The guitar bars are well defined and bright, and the higher register percussion hits have a clear timbre to them — this is a rich, bright, sculpted tonal signature that can produce solid bass, not the depth of a subwoofer.

In Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum gets an ideal mid-high presence, allowing its attack to hold a powerful edge. The vinyl squeaks often associated with the background are also pushed forward a bit in the mix. At the same time, the beat-breaking sub-bass synths delivered with respectable depth—nothing like a subwoofer would bring, but a lot of body for a speaker of this size and price. Vocal performances are delivered crisp and clear – there’s barely a hint of extra sound, although there’s some sculpting in the mids and highs.

Orchestral tracks, such as the opening scene in Mary’s Gospel According to Others, by John Adams, sound bright and vibrant. The chorus, strings and higher vocals take center stage, with some more subtle bass depth to anchor everything. It’s a sculptural acoustic signature, but the carving feels a bit less obvious on orchestral and jazz tracks.

Conclusion

Most of the speakers we tested in this price range are portable Bluetooth models like the JBL Charge 4, which is more waterproof, and the Sony SRS-XB32 ($150 each). If you’re looking for a solid, smart speaker in this price range, we’re fans of the $100 Amazon Echo.

The Ikea Symfonisk WiFi Bookshelf speaker delivers powerful sound for its size, works within the Sonos ecosystem, can be used as an AirPlay speaker, and looks great too. Its affordable price makes it more alluring. Sure, it would be nice if it supported Bluetooth, but that’s not found in any Sonos product, and Ikea’s 12-inch Eneby is still a great choice if you want a Bluetooth speaker for the price of fewer than 10 dollars. As it stands, the $100 Symfonisk is the cheapest speaker to work in Sonos’ multi-room ecosystem, making it a great choice if you’re thinking of building or expanding a wireless audio system for your home.

Advantages

Good price.

Powerful sound with rich bass and bright, refined highs.

Attractive design.

Doubles as a shelf.

Defect

There can be deep bass distortion at high volume.

No Bluetooth.