Sonos IKEA Symfonisk bookshelf

At this price, you won’t get a bettersounding multi-room speaker

Mention the term ‘bookshelf speaker’ in the company of some audiophiles and you’d best be prepared to make a quick exit. After all, not using dedicated stands is the hi-fi equivalent of asking for ketchup in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

But what if the speaker actually was a bookshelf? That’s what IKEA and Sonos have concocted: one of the first pair of Symfonisk speakers from the collaboration that can be wall-mounted and hold up to 3kg of books, ornaments or any other clutter you place upon it.

If a singing shelf is all a bit Beauty And The Beast, the Symfonisk bookshelf speaker is the cheapest Sonos multiroom component on the market, half the price of a Sonos One and cheaper than the other IKEA speaker in the new range.

It’s fully integrated into the existing eco-system too. It will link to any other Sonos kit you have, it is 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 in stereo.

Perhaps our favourite feature is the opportunity to link the Symfonisk bookshelf speaker to a Beam, Playbar, Playbase or the Sonos Amp and use it as a surround channel for a neat, affordable 5.0 or 5.1 home cinema system.

Home interior flourish

When the partnership between IKEA and Sonos was announced a couple of years ago, sceptics could have been forgiven for assuming the What Hi-fi? Awardwinning multi-room brand would simply be fitting a few drivers to the former’s designs; but this is a fully-functioning multi-room speaker with a neat home interior flourish.

Wall mounting isn’t your only option for the Symfonisk, of course. It can also be rested vertically or horizontally and, at about the size of a long brick, can be easily tucked away in a fashion many other wireless speakers can’t.

You’re barely likely to notice it tucked away, either – especially if you opt for the black finish. It is typically IKEA in its refined yet distinguished design. Connections at the rear run to only power and wired internet, while without the need for any pairing button or such – there is Apple Airplay 2, though no Bluetooth – the front is clean but for the play/pause and volume controls.

You don’t need much more when you have the Sonos app, which remains our favourite of any multi-room option. You may want to do a little experimentation with Eq-ing, depending on how you have your Symfonisk stationed.

You can use Sonos’s Trueplay feature with your phone or tablet, which should help. For reference, though, we ended up taking out a little bass with the speaker resting on our Atacama hi-fi racks, but kept the Loudness feature on for a little extra punch and vibrancy.

Bold delivery

The result is that we can confidently say that this is the best-sounding bookshelf we have tested. Though it was never going to rival the Sonos One for sound quality, the same character is there. This Symfonisk is bold and focused in its delivery, with voices especially, unashamedly belting out more animated tunes with comparable energy.

The balance is generally good, though we tweaked and fine-tuned it to take out some bass. That wasn’t particularly to do with a skewed balance, rather that it opened up the sound a little; a speaker of this size can offer only so much room for every instrument, after all.

It can go quiet as well. It is not meant as a slight when we say this Symfonisk speaker would be ideal for unobtrusive background music. Simply, it can handle hanging back just as much as it enjoys throwing the kitchen sink.

Timing and dynamics aren’t bad, the only thing lacking is a little maturity. At times it feels as if the music we’re hearing is being delivered in the exact same brick shape as the Symfonisk speaker itself. Busy arrangements especially get overcrowded, with the sound often becoming cloudy, while rhythmically – though not without punch or drive – it can seem a little pedestrian, and the nuances of dynamic expression are often all but lost.

Strictly speaking, there is no other multi-room option at this price that can offer more in the way of these sonic facets, while still delivering such a bold and weighty presentation. Yet the performance still feels a little too blunt to be worthy of five stars.

On the other hand, you won't get a better-sounding multi-room speaker with Sonos’s sonic signature for less than three figures – not to mention one you can use as a floating bookshelf. It’s a thumbs up as far as we’re concerned.