Whole-House Audio from IKEA? | Symfonisk Speaker Review 

Yep. People (the kids) have no idea. I have a crapload of stuff from about 1970-1980 and it sounds fantastic.

tube amps - all cone drivers - a lens made of steam-bent plywood - crossover capacitors that weighed a pound - the speakers set in tress at La Honda by Ken Kesey - all teh signal coming from reel to reel tapes from Riverside label & recorded by Rudy van Gelder. And somehow since that day the industry found a need for & created, auto-tune

Haha good one!

Lets be honest here... Audiophile speakers today sound better than they ever did before, but they come at a price. Most people don't want to spend thousands of Dollars/Euros/whatever on huge boxes that clutter up the living room. I have two KRK Rokit 8 G3s in my home studio with a 12S2 sub and two Elac Uni-Fi UF5s as my main audiophile speakers. All of them sound gorgeous but still... Most people don't care all that much. The "lamp" is pretty much a Sonos Play 1, which is the same price as the lamp itself. I'm not a fan of Sonos at all. I don't like the way they sound, I don't like how restrictive they are and I don't like how much they cost but you've got to give it to them, they have found their piece of the marketshare. Give me the option for multiroom play over Echo and Google Assistant as well as audio over Bluetooth and I would probably get a couple of them.

DezzyTee what brand would you recommend for starting out a home cinema system for around £500? I feel I’ve gone full circle with soundbars and realised anything quality with add ons will be way more that £500.

Never... Just never use Bose as any kind of quality comparison... The only good thing I've heard from Bose in like ever was in my Audi A6 audio system.... That's about it.

Totally, plus it’s easy to forget that integrating a light fitting in to a speaker reduces clutter in your household. Throw a Philips Hue lamp in to the unit and now you’ve got a smart lamp-speaker for a fraction of the cost of a HomePod.

hello ray, i'm conducting a university research on Smart products of IKEA. Can i ask you some questions about your feedback on SYMFONISK lamp by email? I'll leave here my e-mail: ilaria.rivara@gmail.com thanks ilaria

@@rh9329 doesn't it lack the mic?

Kaitlyn L I consider it not having a mic to be a feature. The idea of an always on internet connected microphone sitting in your bedroom is pretty unsettling. There’s always dozens of mobile devices around the home begging to deliver voice assistant services at the press of a button. The Symfonisk Lamp has been a winner. Wire it in with a network cable for best performance.

Walled garden

Everyone knows that true audiophiles only listen to Bose systems... 🤣

👍😂

@@sbrazenor2 I know that was a joke but it still hurt badly... Fun fact... This is a Sonos speaker and Sonos is using Bose technology.

Average people have forgotten how music sounds like. They listen to music with a telephone. Consumer plastic shit don't last and sounds awful. I'm using Neumann. en-de.neumann.com/kh-310-a

@@sbrazenor2 Bose is not even HiFi.

Yeah I immediately lost interest in anything with a Sonos label after hearing that.

I agree. I wish the Sonos ecosystem was more open. That said, I don't think you need to sign up or log into any Sonos service to use the mobile app. Also, there are also lots of open source projects that can stream from local media servers to the speakers.

some stand-alone "internet radio" units have this feature, streaming over samba or DLNA. I have one I got from a garage sale from the mid-2000s and it's a bit slow but does the job with no frills. other than that, your best bet would probably be to just get a cheap android phone or tablet to have set up with your speakers. maybe a fancy new AV receiver would do it too?

I don't get why so many smarthome devices need an account and/or have to call the mothersbip regularly to check for updates, so you have to update your smartphone app for the 3rd time in a week

Check out Bluesound. Completely stand alone and can stream hi-res FLAC from your NAS (besides Spotify, Airplay, etc.). Unfortunately you _do_ need an app/client for most features, but it doesn’t involve accounts or cloud services.

The Ikea lamp speaker is exactly the same internally as the Sonos One (which is €199 here) and a little cheaper, with a lamp added. The bookshelf is completely different internally. There are many reviewers that confirm this, so this reviews is not so on the point. So with the lamp he is actually criticizing the Sonos One and Play:1 :P

@@davithdevries6774 one thing that is not the same between the lamp and the original ONE other than the obvious is that the lamp doesn't have a microphone.

@@Mac2thaPac yes I meant identical to the "old" Play:1, which doesn't have the mic. Easy to mix those up, the Play :1 isn't officially sold anymore now the One is out, but it is still available in most stores for a slight discount.

This reminds me of when I visited someone's office 2 years ago and they had a white Sonos Play:1 in the break room that was streaming some radio station 24/7, and of course no access to the associated account so I didn't want to touch it.

Kevin Bhasi the guy with the login probably left years ago lol

@@Mrcaffinebean 🥴

Absolutely correct, Jeff. I frequently play direct from Spotify to my Sonos speakers without using the Sonos app.

Same for me with the Sonos playbar, ours does double duty via toslink to the TV and Spotify on Android directly from the app

They said it is very close to the Play 1.... Not the One

Its actually not a 360 speaker believe it or not

You could also use a Raspberry Pi

Indeed added a 30$ home mini and 20$ bluetooth amplifier to speakers from the eighties, made the basses kick in at 50hz

And how can I hook those dirt cheap legacy hardware to work in a multi-room setup? No sarcasm, just asking for real needs.

I for one welcome our swedish overlords!

You can connect it to WiFi instead of wired Ethernet - the Sonos app can help you set that up.

I have two of them set up as beside lamps, but they are also act as rear speakers for the Sonos Beam soundbar above the bedroom TV

I agree. But I was disappointed to find the knob on the side is not a dimmer, just on/off. I don’t want a bedside lamp to switch on at full power when getting up in the middle of the night, but you need some light when reading in bed. Should have been a dimmer if you ask me....

@@klaasa.deraad6355Good idea. I've never had a dimmer on my bedside lamp so I've never thought about that

It’s actually painted on, not wallpaper. Took me about a month to finish.

oh no you didnt... :)

I saw that article, and I think the results would be hit or miss. The biggest concern would be the crossover point and if it's appropriate for the new speaker drivers. The other thing to consider is if there's any DSP/EQ being done in software to get the stock drivers to sound "better" -- if so, it could make new drivers sound bad or weird.

@@ThisDoesNotCompute Thanks!

Thanks!

IIRC when using this with Airplay, the two volume controls are tied together - change the volume using the buttons on the speaker and it’ll change on your phone too.

I don’t have the sub yet, but currently looking at videos to decide if I want these or the Sonos one sl as surrounds for my arc

Don’t have the arc but playbase setup. Surrounds sound great. The ikeas are play:1 in disguise, they are about 80% of one, okay for surrounds.

@@TravionMusic Adding rears gives much more immersive feelings. Sub is always nice to have for action-packed movies.

@@curionion I agree, I ended up getting the Sonos one for rears. I see the sub gen 3 on Etsy for $355

@@TravionMusic Haha ones really?? I use SL as rears but that was when ikea wasn’t introduced yet. You could have saved some bucks if going that as they are nearly the same. Is that a new unit or 2nd hand?? That’s a grab for sure if gen 3

Yes, Sonos can do whole house sound. Only caveat is they all have to be Sonos products

People can be transistors?

He said the name.... Eneby (also sold att IKEA)

Yes, you can control with Alexa if you set up the Sonos skill.

killervacuum about a week or two ago I read that Sonos is launching a WiFi/Bluetooth model this fall. That way you can take your speaker outside or to places with limited or no WiFi and keep playing. I’m not buying these ikea speakers until I’ve seen what the new Sonos model will be like

I talked about it in this video.

he said multiple times it has no mic

Yes they can, IKEA launched a brighter E14 fitting smart bulb which I have fitted to my two,

cros13 thank you !

Yeah this isn’t competing against those.

I agree. Hundreds of shitty speakers sitting on the shelves of thrift stores with no service left to play them. On the other hand, my mid-70s stereos still play everything.

@@fergusontea they are powered wifi speakers. They will work just fine for decades.

Then buy those kind of speakers, no one cares if you don't like these kind. This is a review of the speakers to let you determine if you want to get them or not, not to showcase your opinions

Maybe it's my ears, but I heard him say "emale (e-mail?) vocals" twice!. Is it my ears, his recording, or his voice?

@@driekberndsen1917 Your ears, or your speakers, I'd say. He didn't put a lot of force behind the f, it was very breathy, but it was definitely there.

No its not. I have one myself.If you compare this to hi-fi, go somewhere else! But for most people, the sound is good enough.