With light, booming bass, and three other features it’s the ultimate living room accessory.
Key Takeaways
- The IKEA Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker is a surprisingly capable room speaker with a minimalist lamp attached to it.
- The speaker has a sound profile that features booming bass, great for mainstream genres and parties.
- The lamp's ability to merge light and music creates an excellent ambiance, making it the ultimate living room accessory. It also offers excellent 360-degree sound.
Most often, when buying tech accessories, you expect them to change the way you use your devices for the better. Be it a new laptop or a phone, a smartwatch or a new set of headphones — it usually comes with the expectation of a faster, better machine.
However, sometimes you just buy something because you like the idea, but your reasonable mind is telling you that it might not be exactly perfect. So was the case for me when I purchased IKEA Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker. The idea of merging a minimalist table lamp with a speaker was great on paper, but I wasn't really convinced that it would work on a day-to-day basis.
Fortunately, I couldn't be more wrong.
From my first listen, the IKEA speaker lamp became my (and my wife's) favorite tech accessory, and it's probably the device I use most at home, aside from my smartphone and PC. It sounds great thanks to the invaluable collaboration with Sonos, looks trendy, and for the most part, changed the way I view music throughout my day thanks to these top features.
Sonos Symfonisk Speaker Lamp
1 Speaker features a warm sound profile
A lot of bass for a 2-in-1
Sonos Symfonisk Speaker Lamp
Enlightened idea for a speaker
The IKEA x Sonos Symfonisk Speaker Lamp is a surprisingly capable room speaker with a great-looking, minimalist lamp attached to it. It not only brightens up your room with nice, diffused lighting, but also warm, fun-sounding tunes.
Pros
- Sound profile that doesn't compromise on quality
- A 2-in-1 device that isn't just for show
- Understated, minimalist design with swappable shades
Cons
- Weaker Android software support
- Lacks Chromecast or Bluetooth for non-Apple users
- Smart functions would be a great addition
$250 at Ikea
Seeing as the IKEA Symfonisk speaker lamp is meant to play music, its sound quality is the first thing I really enjoy about it. However, it was an acquired taste. I've never been much of a bass head. I much prefer my headphones to be bright, with detailed mids and highs and toned down low end, which is why I'm a fan of open-back over-ears. So, trying out the IKEA Symfonisk speaker, with its (comparatively) boomy bass was quite an experience.
It's not overwhelmingly bassy and doesn't muddle the sound, it just makes for a great speaker for mainstream genres.
Well, it turns out that bass also has its place, even if there is quite a bit of it. Note that the IKEA Symfonisk lamp is not overly bassy, it's just not what I usually gravitate towards. But seeing as the lamp isn't solely a critical listening device, but more of a fun party-starting speaker, it makes sense why it features this specific profile.
With that usually come different kinds of music and different, more bass-heavy mixing, so it's an ideal sound profile for these kinds of tunes. It's not overwhelmingly bassy and doesn't muddle the sound, it just makes for a great speaker for mainstream genres.
2 The colorful lights create the perfect vibes
Sound and lights make for the best ambiance
When it comes to the actual lamp aspect of the Symfonisk lamp, I've found I previously underestimated the power of light and music merged into one device. Simply put, ever since the IKEA lamp reigns in our living room, the vibes there have never been better.
On the surface, the mechanism here is easy, simply needing to screw a regular E27 bulb into the base of the lamp, throw on one of the three types of shades, and turn the lights on with the single button at the front of the lamp. However, replace that boring white bulb with a smart RGB bulb, and you've got yourself a party machine.
It's really a great idea to be able to quickly turn on some chill music and pair it with soft, colorful light. It takes the vibe of the room to another level and is an excellent party starter for every gathering with friends. You essentially got the music and the lighting covered by a single device — all that's left is to just have fun.
3 Excellent 360-degree sound
And a special 3D feature for Apple users
I've mentioned that the IKEA lamp is spot-on with its fun sound profile, with a bit of an accentuated bass. However, that's not the only thing that the lamp is doing in order to make the experience even better and make the speaker lamp the ultimate living room accessory.
Thanks to the tuning trickery — no doubt courtesy of Sonos — the IKEA Symfonisk lamp, even though it only comes with one speaker, can fill the room really well with spatial, 360-degree sound. It's not a directional speaker, firing only straight ahead, like regular bookshelf speakers. Instead, it covers your whole room, and the music sounds just as good in the corner as when facing the lamp straight ahead.
There's even an option that makes that 360-degree effect even better. If you have an Apple device, you can calibrate this spatial audio with the Trueplay feature. It plays a test tune from the speaker and asks you to walk around the room with your phone, using its microphones to calibrate the audio profile of the lamp.
After just a moment, you get spatial sound that is tailor-made for the layout of your room — just remember to repeat this setup every time you move the lamp.
4 Sonos software and settings create a seamless experience
Tune and control a Sonos ecosystem
As the lamp is a product of a collaboration between IKEA and Sonos, it uses the Sonos app in order to access both the playback options, along with in-house settings and software features. The setup itself is simple as you just connect to your Wi-Fi and complete the optional tuning sequence. Then, you can try and uncover some additional features, and there are plenty to choose from.
You can tune your speaker, and the EQ allows you to dial in two sliders for treble and bass, as well as turn on the Loudness toggle. You also get the aforementioned Trueplay feature, the ability to turn touch controls off or on, as well as a volume limiter.
However, the star of the show is the option to create a stereo pair. If you have two Symfonisk lamps, you can pair them in software, which makes for a nifty stereo setup for your music, which can easily be hidden in plain sight. You can also add a Sub, making the bass a lot more boomy and deep sounding.
Combine this with the ability to create your own rooms and set them up as separate audio-units, and the Speaker Lamp can become much more than a simple living room lamp, making it a centerpiece of a bigger, more impressive Sonos system.
Not to mention that, for the price, it plays as a great entry point into that ecosystem as well.
5 One-stop shop for all our music streaming services
Might be a 2-in-1 device, but it's great for all platforms
The last thing that I love about the IKEA x Sonos Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker is the fact that I don't need to bicker with my wife about our choice of music streaming services. I'm a devout lover of Tidal for its recording quality and much bigger payouts to artists, while she uses Apple Music because it's convenient and familiar.
Fortunately, Sonos just lets you connect to multiple streaming services at once.
We all have our playlists on our respective streaming services, so usually we need to connect to a Bluetooth speaker from different phones to play different things, depending on the mood. However, with the IKEA lamp that's not the case.
Fortunately, Sonos just lets you connect to multiple streaming services at once. It handles its search function beautifully as well, giving you the results from all the services, so you can easily play from whichever option you want. It's a small quality-of-life feature that has since proven to be invaluable, and a great annoyance with other devices that do not support such a multi-streaming solution.
