Sonos IKEA Symfonisk lamp & bookshelf
As soon as we heard that Sonos was getting into bed with IKEA to sell a bookshelf and a lamp in their stores, we applauded their marketing nous. Getting wireless audio in front of a massive audience which might never have set foot in an audio store is a masterstroke, all the more so with multiroom, since once you’ve got one unit, it’s so very easy to add more. What’s more, with the bookshelf at $149, you simply won’t get a better-sounding multiroom speaker at the price, because there isn’t one...
The Symfonisk bookshelf is 31cm long (or high, since it can mount vertically), and is rated to hold up to 3kg of stuff. It will link properly to any other current Sonos kit, it’s fully controllable within the app, will receive all the same updates as the company’s other products, and you can even pair two together to perform as stereo bookshelves. Put two at the back of your room and they’ll even pair with the Arc or Beam or for a neat and discreet 5.0 or 5.1 home cinema system, or with a Sonos Amp for 4.0 or 4.1.
Though it can’t rival even the Sonos One for sound quality, the Sonos character is there: bold and focused, energetic, friendly to vocals. It plays quiet nicely as well, so it’s a good background speaker, or it was once we tweaked it to take out some bass. Just don’t expect it to go loud, or to deliver room-filling punch: rare indeed is any small wireless speaker that can do that, and it’s asking too much of one shaped like a bookshelf.
So how about the lamp — which has more funds behind it and rather resembles the Sonos One with a hat on?
It has a bigger sound than the bookshelf, and goes louder with less distress, though its forte is more delivering a friendly low-to-medium level of friendly background music. Which is exactly what many IKEA shoppers might like. Yet again it has full Sonos streaming and linking abilities, and again you can have two lamps behind you in the lounge working as rear channels of Sonos surround. Remarkable products which must make rivals green with envy.