The last review I watched was for a £17,000 amp, now you look at a £179 speaker and for both you approach from a positive angle of where they work best and how good a job they do. No sneering at the cheapo speaker. This is why I sub to your channel, the positive outlook on all audio for all commers.
A fellow audiophile who will admit that speakers can be situational!? You continue to impress. That being said I am so glad that you reviewed this because I was considering one for my kitchen. There is a wall between my kitchen and my hifi setup in the living area and I wasn't keen on drilling holes in the wall for speakers. I'm not sure where I could put speakers either so this seems like a brilliant solution.
As a Sonos owner, I have a stereo pair in the living room and a single speaker in the bedroom. It’s good to see someone like yourself looking at this gear and not looking down your nose at it. I have a relatively small flat and, as much as I would like to have a proper hifi setup, I’m limited for space and my Mrs can never work a hifi. That’s where Sonos steps in and gives us a decent sound, relative to the price point.
You've hit the nail on the head so to speak about using situational appropriate use for these genre of loudspeakers, something that I have come to appreciate during the lockdown period here in Malaysia. There are lots of common areas in people's homes that would benefit the implementation of such active wireless loudspeakers for background and casual listening purposes.
Yep, have had JBL LINK & Google mini around for a few years, can't survive without background music especially in condo. Any idea if ikea sonos is available in Malaysia? Although the prices is just not compatitive. Would rather buy one of the Amazon speakers with dome tweeter or touchscreen for around RM 5-600.
Definitely! They have a full enough sound that you can happily listen to music to. They can also be used as rears in a Sonos home theater, which is great.
200K subs! What an achievement! I am thrilled anytime any RU-vidr in the audio realm reaches such a milestone, since of course I’m gonna be husslin’ towards that myself! 🤘💯 Congrats, my friend.
I heard this for myself in IKEA last week and was also very surprised at how good it sounded. Also the book shelf speakers and the lamp also sounded good.
Great review! I just ordered the Symfonish picture frame for my office. I do have other Sonos speakers in my house. My experience with Airplay and Sonos is that it works okay in a pinch. The TV audio is much better when it is coming from the eARC into a Sonos Beam or other soundbar. There were lots of volume fluctuations when I was sending TV audio through Airplay. When it comes to Airplaying music, the sound was fine.
I did just this a week ago (put a symfonisk frame in my bedroom), and it’s perfect for exactly what you said: I want some music while I get ready, and paired with a Sonos One in the bathroom, that portion of my morning is covered seamlessly. Plus, it’s a major upgrade from my crap audio that came out of Bluetooth speakers and echo devices I had used before. Just wish the lamp version was still widely available.
A couple of years ago, when it was still relatively new, I have tried the Sonos Play:1. My expectations were quite low given the size of it. However, when I have tried it, it sounded much better than you expect. For background music, news listening, podcasts, radio, etc. it is phenomenal.
It's awesome what they came up with and maybe a bit brave, having in mind people will hang in on their walls, next to art. But the situational audio is the approach I have in my house. One good HiFi where I can appreciate the sound stage :) and Sonos 1s placed all over the house, including a stereo pair on top of the high kitchen cabinet and one in the bathroom. Well worth considering I'd say if you like to listen to music or podcasts while doing stuff around the house.
I sold Sonos in Richer Sounds when they first launched in the UK and always absolutely loved their products! The first generation was a tad glitchy, but show me a first gen product that isn't. I have a Play1 in my kitchen and it gets used every day as much as my hifi in my office. And I'm already looking at the Sound Frame for the living room. A great, quick review as always. A great approach to hifi that leaves the gate keeping, which is far too common in this field, at the door!
Hey John, nice to see this review. I just moved house and wanted to have music in my kitchen. Have a proper Hi-fi setup in my lounge - but just like you I didn't want to have another one just to listen to some tunes while I have a coffee in the morning. I went with a Sonos One SL. It's surprisingly decent sounding. Just need InnuOS 2.0 to control it now. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for such a thorough and unbiased review, I really appreciate your work! As a huge Sonos fan myself, I found myself agreeing with everything you have mentioned about the Picture Fame. Keep the great videos coming :)
Most portable bluetooth sound small and very directional. It would be nice to have an unobtrusive speaker that filled the room sonically so you can have ambient music and clear voicing for podcasts and internet radio. There is definitely a use case for functionality and convenience in audio devices and this looks like a great product. Another winning recommendation from Darko.
Love your concept of "situational audio". I do the same. I'm not a Sonos person (yet) but am running a couple of computers to play multiple ambient music sound sources (off youtube or Qobuz for now). The idea of wall art speakers playing various sounds (or a podcast) eminmating from different walls could be fun.
The JBL Partybox 310 is my allround speaker outside and inside. It gets plenty loud and can be pluged in for some additional dB. It does not have the clarrity of my hifi setup or the loudness of giant Party towers but its good enough to fit them both.
Completely agree, sometimes you just want music in a convenient way. That's why I use a Google mini as my alarm clock/news machine in the bedroom! (Free with the phone too at the time 😉)
Great review. We can't spend all our time sitting in the correct position in a single room enjoying sounds. The synergy of functionality and form is important in our lives and I have to admit that being able to have speakers that do the job required and can be customised to please my wife so that we don't have ugly boring boxes for certain sound reproduction, with our own artwork or photos, is very appealing. So thanks John for the unbiased and objective review as always. I see there's a Dutch company that creates custom covers for these from customer provided artwork, so that is very appealing, as I know I'd get pretty bored of the sterile IKEA designs...
Good, California, Morning! When we lived in NYC I had a headphone listening area in our apartment (an Astell & Kerns DAP>Geshelli Dac>SMSL THX Amp) and a set of Micca RB42s connected to an SMSL amp/dac for my TV. We had a weekend place that we also rented out and there we just installed Sonos speakers in 3 bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining area and a Sonos playbar and two Play1s as surrounds. The latter was good enough and simple for our renters to use. We consolidated when we moved to California and I brought the Sonos equipment with us when we sold those properties. Here I have a listening room, currently for headphones but I'm going to add speakers, a turntable and a Roon raspberry Pi. Our family room is spacious with contiguous kitchen, dining and lounge, all of our Sonos equipment is basically in that space, but I've not decided whether to get other Sonos speakers for bedrooms or our backyard lounge. This Ikea/Sonos collab might be an interesting addition. Now I just need Sonos CS to replace my Senic
Slightly tenuous connection but I want to give a shout out to Morel's Hogtalere speaker which came out a year or two ago and was designed specifically to fit precisely in a Kallax unit. Only Bluetooth so not a true streamer but really sounds great and was pretty much ignored when it came out.
I’m relatively new to the audiophile scene, being in the club for around 3-4 years now. Anyways, I quickly came to the conclusion that I want one main setup, and everything else are nice-ities. Ie. I don’t need audiophile grade iems or headphones w/ a dap or something to go to the gym, it would only be a hinderance. I got the wireless powerbeats pro because I’d rather have the convenience of them staying in my ear than top tier sound. Plus they’re not all that expensive. If anything happens I can just buy new ones. And in other areas that aren’t my setup it’s the same thing, as long as the sound is not shit then I’m all good. Not everything in my life needs to be/is going to be audiophile grade/quality.
Well, in my bedroom I have the Harman Kardon Citation 500, and it sounds great, it only does Chromecast and Airplay though, and it’s about $300 USD. But it sounds great.
I think it is definitely for someone who doesnt want a visible speaker in a room. And the uses described here i think there is a niche market for this. Interesting.
I could be wrong, but it’s worth confirming if you want to go down the Apple TV + AirPlay route: I think tvOS will only allow you to permanently choose an AirPlay speaker …if it’s an Apple HomePod. You can AirPlay ‘on demand’ to any AirPlay speaker, but it’ll ‘forget’ that speaker and require you to reselect it. I hope there’s a technical reason, and not just a controlling tech firm reason, but …🤷🏼♂️
John, I guess this is another case where this makes sense in Europe - less so with Oz pricing. Based on the estimates various sources are publishing, the frame comes in at about 270AUD - more than the local price for the One (and the One SL is cheaper again). I get it - especially as our dollar seems to bounce with iron ore prices - thanks for the video.
About your usecase; i assume you want to have a simple setup so that you dont have to think about what you do when you wake up, right? Get an NFC-tag, program it with either a url or spotify tag and have that send you straight to the newest podcast/to the creators homepage. That way you can wake up, put the phone down and have the podcast presented to you in a seamless fashion. Sure it takes a little setting up but if you're like me you're not the most energetic in the morning and such a routine can be made much easier with a little bit of work in the afternoon ;)
Hey John, regarding voice sync on RU-vid, you should check that on a number of separate occasions. I've seen it get out of sync with itself more than once. 😁
They seem like an obvious choice for rear speakers in a Sonos surround setup. I have proper hifi in my living room, but I like the Sonos One in my other rooms. How to the wall art speaker compare to the other IKEA Sonos speakers and the Sonos One?
I gave a lot of thought into picking a couple of these up to use in the couple of rooms in our house that don't have a sound system of some sort. I kept coming back to thinking the power cord would be a distraction if wall mounted. Who has an outlet that high on a wall where a picture frame would normally be hung? I suppose you could lean it on some sort of stand on a table but that kind of defeats the purpose and Sonos makes plenty of speakers ( even some with Ikea ) for that anyway. This was a great review.
I have the IKEA Sonos bookshelf speakers. It's not that bad with some eq. Quite enjoy it and it's really cheap like around 100 euro. The only thing that actually makes the sound on it worse than streaming through Airplay is that in my experience when you turn on normalise audio in the Spotify app the dynamic range suffers a bit. I guess that is a thing on other Sonos products too. It sounds like it's on per default when not using Airplay.
Would two of these work well as rear surrounding speakers for a home theater Sonos system? An Arc up front with a mini sub and two picture/speakers by IKEA as surrounds. Thanks
Fantastic video! Would be good if you could do a comparison between Bluesound and Sonos. You've already done a great video on the Sonos Play:5. Would be interested to hear how you think Bluesound's multi room speaker system compares.
So, I'm guessing it sounds better than any Google Home speakers being proper 2-way. Nice. I have 3 google home's and 3 google home mini's around the house which is fine for podcasts and background music. This looks like a more elegant and better sounding solution, although of course more expensive as well.
Dear John, thanks a lot for that great video. I (hopefully) see another case for this speaker. Maybe you could give me your opinion about that. I turned from audiophile to more electronic music and a club sound setting therefore. What is your opinion to use 4 or 6 of this speakers in a single (large) room, maybe in combination with a subwoofer, to get this "sound is everywhere" feeling from a club. Do you think this could work? THX
Look into the ducting that people use to hide TV cables inside walls. (Or you could install a power socket in the middle of the wall if you're going wifi.)
I am getting lag when I play RU-vid music from M1 Mac thru Airplay. Lag in the sense it starts sounding after 15-20 sec I start hitting the play button. How to fix this issue?
So, a benefit of using an iOS device like an iPad or AppleTV, or an android device, is that these devices communicate the lag and delay video playback so they stay lip synced. Unfortunately, Mac & Windows desktop/laptops don’t do this.
**PLEASE READ CAREFULLY** 1) Want more info? The show notes are here: darko.audio/2021/09/a-very-short-film-about-the-ikea-sonos-symfonisk-picture-frame/ 2) Polite comments that advance the conversation are most welcome (but no URLs, please) 3) All comments are moderated by a third party
I have a question but it doesn't relate to this video sorry, I hope you don't mind. It is about connection between a phone playing music through chromecast, tv, DAC, and stereo/ receiver. How would you connect it all together? It's a little bit of a puzzle at the moment! Thanks from NZ
