Ikea Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker
Ikea’s collaboration with Sonos is as much about flexibility and getting the speakers to fit in with your home as it is about sound quality. With the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Bookshelf Speaker, you get a product that could sit happily on a shelf or even act as a shelf; the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker is, as its name suggests, a lamp and a Sonos speaker in one.
It’s kind of a combination of a Sonos Play:1 speaker with a lamp stuck on top, the styling is either going to blow you away or you’re not going to like it at all. What’s for sure is that the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker is both practical and fun – ideal for rooms without a lot of space or for those who don’t want a traditional speaker on display.
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You can use the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker as just a standard lamp, or fit a smart bulb
The base of speaker looks a little like an Apple HomePod thanks to its material base and slightly bulbous body. Available in white or black, there’s a choice to suit your existing home decor.
Unscrew the mushroom-like glass top and you reveal a standard E14 (mini screw) bulb holder. You can stick any LED bulb into this, and because the lamp has a simple on/off control, you can install a smart colour changing bulb. Ikea recommends its Tradfri range, but there’s nothing to stop you putting in a Philips Hue bulb if you prefer.
Most Sonos speakers have their controls on the top, but Ikea has placed them on the base of the Table Lamp Speaker, which makes far more sense. There’s the standard range of controls: play/pause and volume buttons.
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You can do everything with the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker that you can do with a Sonos-branded speaker
Once again, the Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker is a true collaboration with Sonos, which means that the lamp looks and acts like any other speaker in the Sonos range. Once you’ve added the speaker to the app, you can play music from any of your linked sources, and you can group the Table Lamp Speaker with other Sonos speakers throughout your home.
The controls on the front are fully Sonos-compatible, too. Double-tap play/pause, for example, and you can skip tracks, or you can hold the button down to join the most recent group, and you can use one streaming music account, such as Spotify, to play different tracks on different speakers at the same time – whereas other multi-room systems are more limited and can only stream a single track from Spotify at a time.
Beyond this, if you buy a set of Table Lamp Speakers you can stereo pair both to boost sound quality and increase stereo separation. You can add in a Sonos SUB, too, if you want a bit more bass.
If you have the Sonos Beam, then two Table Lamp Speakers can act as the rear channels. Depending on how you have configured your room, having a pair of lamps as rear speakers could work well. As with all new Sonos speakers, the Table Lamp also supports AirPlay 2, so that you can beam music from a phone or tablet.
If you prefer voice control, the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker is compatible with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant control. This product doesn’t have a microphone, so you’ll need to use a separate smart speaker.
Ikea has also made the Symfonisk Remote, which looks like a hockey puck. It can be paired with a Sonos speaker, giving you play/pause, track skip and volume control, although you do need a Tradfri Gateway to make it work.
Related: How to set up and use Sonos with Alexa
The Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker sounds great with a surprising amount of bass
The Bookshelf Speaker blew us away with the quality of its sound for the price. The Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker follows a similar path, delivering a bit more audio punch than its cheaper sibling.
As prompted during installation, I used TruePlay to tune the speaker to my room using the Sonos app. This can make your speaker sound a lot better and filters out the distortion caused by placement. TruePlay works brilliantly but I’d still love to see an automatic option as with the HomePod, which uses its microphones to automatically tune itself whenever you move it.
Related: Ikea Symfonisk Bookshelf Speaker review
Specs are thin on the ground, with Ikea simply saying that the speaker has two class-D digital amplifiers, one tweeter, one mid-woofer and, this time, a sealed enclosure. Sealed enclosure make bass control easier, giving the Table Lamp Speaker a bit more punch than the bookshelf.
Play something bass-heavy, such as OK Go’s This Too Shall Pass, and the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker kicks in with a satisfying thump, delivering a bit more of a kick. There’s a more pronounced high end, too, although the odd hi-hat can send a little harsher than on the more mellow bookshelf speaker.
Play Debussy’s Clair De Lune, and you get the gentleness and detail from the music. With Frank Sinatra’s That’s Life, Ol Blue Eyes’ vocals spring to life. Ramin Djawadi’s epic The Night King, from Season 8 of Game of Thrones sounds immense, delivering the menace and intensity from the show, preserving the complexity and subtlety.
There’s a bit more attack and presence from the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker compared to the Bookshelf Speaker, with the sound closer to that of the Sonos One. That said, the Sonos One is that bit more composed and has more range, letting tracks breathe more so that you can more easily hear the individual notes.
On all accounts, the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker sounds fantastic and is loud enough to fill a room with ease.
Should I buy the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker?
There’s a lot to like about the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker. If you’ve not got much room, it gives you two devices in one, and you can even make the lamp smart by installing a smart bulb.
Styling-wise, you’re either going to fall in love with this product or think that it will never fit into your home. I feel that that the base is nicer than the top, and a few lamp shade options, even as extras, would be nice to change the look of the product.
The Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Speaker sounds fantastic, delivering slightly more punch than the Bookshelf Speaker, and getting sound that’s closer to the Sonos One. Ultimately, the choice will likely come down to what you have room for and what looks right in your home. It’s nice to be spoiled with so much choice, though, and the Sonos Ikea Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker is a great choice for many homes.
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