Ikea SYMFONISK Picture Frame Speaker Review

[Ralph_Cramden]

Sonos' TruePlay room correction will also work with these...

 

[Zoide]

Could I hook these up to my Denon X3700H receiver for use as a pair of 5.1 rears with massive WAF?

 

[Wes]

So,it's better than the Maggie LRS (??)

 

[restorer-john]

Does this speaker signal a change in reviewing direction @amirm ?

The tests results speak for themselves- it's an absolute unmitigated disaster of a HiFi speaker, but you like it subjectively enough to give it a strong reccommendation because it's a Sonos wall mounted 'lifestyle' speaker? I don't get it.

 

[maverickronin]

Another otherwise excellent product kneecapped by an intentionally limited set of input options.

 

[daftcombo]

Nice review.

Man, that main woofer is tiny at 3.5 inches/9 cm. Wonder if it uses some kind of transmission line to get that low.

No wonder directivity is wide and good.

Doesn't it mean that any speaker with a high-pass filter 48dB/oct starting at 60Hz has no SPL limit?

 

[airs]

This not having line level or speaker inputs makes me sad.

 

[MZKM]

This not having line level or speaker inputs makes me sad.

Who is hooking this up to a stereo system?
AirPlay, Spotify, and Sonos app will cover 99% of what users want.

Not having the jacks and no ADC is going to be cost savings.

 

[airs]

Who is hooking this up to a stereo system?
Not having the jacks and no ADC is going to be cost savings.

That is a good point. My thinking was that I could use them as rear speakers in a 5.1 system, or atmos height speakers but I guess there are better options out there.

 

[Dogen]

I can see these doing quite well. It certainly beats what lots of people listen to - crappy Bluetooth speakers - with virtually zero footprint. For an Airplay user it’s a simple way to get music into a domestic space.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Who is hooking this up to a stereo system?
AirPlay, Spotify, and Sonos app will cover 99% of what users want.

Not to mention they will work as Roon and LMS endpoints, including stereo paired. Sonos app covers FAR more music services than any competitor.

 

[Wes]

Does this speaker signal a change in reviewing direction @amirm ?

The tests results speak for themselves- it's an absolute unmitigated disaster of a HiFi speaker, but you like it subjectively enough to give it a strong reccommendation because it's a Sonos wall mounted 'lifestyle' speaker? I don't get it.

I don't get the disaster comment.

 

[airs]

Not to mention they will work as Roon and LMS endpoints, including stereo paired. Sonos app covers FAR more music services than any competitor.

Is there a way this could be used as a stereo pair for a TV?

 

[Helicopter]

Thanks Amir. This one is interesting.

 

[PierreV]

If someone had told me, a few years ago, that we would have an argument about a cheap, but highly rated... IKEA speaker here, I would have spilled my coffee on my keyboard. And yet, he we are

 

[Somafunk]

I don't get the disaster comment.

Me neither , seems like an out n’ out win for the majority of consumers who want an unobtrusive speaker, perhaps he’s just upset.

 

[restorer-john]

I don't get the disaster comment.

It has more peaks and troughs than the Himalayas, no matter how you look at it.

 

[Wes]

It has a lot but, as noted, they are small.

Now, what is the psycho-acoustic effect of numerous small peaks/valleys??

 

[raindance]

Looks like it will be awfully bass heavy up against a wall.

 

[amirm]

Now, what is the psycho-acoustic effect of numerous small peaks/valleys??

I am not sure how much of that is real. We saw those with the Monoprice in-wall I measured in free space:

To this with special half-space measurement:

Once we have half-space measurement capability with NFS together with wireless support, I might go back and remeasure this speaker and see what it looks like.

BTW, I did the computation for this speaker at first with 10 points per octave. It looked really good then! I then changed it to 20 points to match my other measurements and became quite ragged in contrast. So the high resolution is bringing things out that may not be audible.