Sonos IKEA

That's one point of view. On the other hand, a fervent audiophile will look at both as cheap commodities. And to be honest, while Sonos is brilliant for convenience/features and music quality, seeing it as a lifetime investment is stretching it, in my view.

IKEA makes some darned good furniture, had some of ours for a lot of years now and it is holding up quite well, they make pressed sawdust junk too. Same goes for their other lines, they make great quality and dirt cheap so you buy what you can afford.

I can't imagine an audiophile buying Sonos, no specs to drag out to impress others, pretty reasonable price so you can't wave a receipt around to impress your buddies either.

In my opinion, there will be more advantages than disadvantages with this collaboration. IKEA is a well known brand for most people and Sonos is still developing their identity/image. Contrary to what it may seem, this isn't an example of Sonos riding IKEA's shirttails, though. I believe the engineers at both companies share a great deal of passion for design, as well as innovation. From Sonos' side, this helps more of their products become available in the marketplace, in a store where you wouldn't necessarily otherwise find their presence.

Similar companies have merged with great success, and it appears this relationship has a great deal of momentum to do well. Offering a more budget conscious segment of their catalog is not going to diminish the high quality attention to detail we've all come to love from Sonos. If anything, the revenue stream and increased market-share will allow Sonos the capital to offer (in most people's eyes) updates to some of their existing line, or potentially a new launch altogether.

I have a hard time believing that consumers who don't care for ikea products are going to transfer those feelings over to Sonos. I don't really think the opposite is true either. I would guess that there are more ikea shoppers who gain knowledge and interest in Sonos from this than vice versa. And I'd think the inclusion of speakers built into furniture is going to help sell furniture for ikea.

Engadget has done a first-look (type) short article on the Sonos/Ikea collaboration here:

https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/25/ikea-shows-sonos-speaker

I think ikea should have maybe (better) hidden, (or even airbrushed out) the power-cable, just to give the device a little more appeal in the second 'shelf' image, but that’s just my own personal opinion. It’s quite a small device isn’t it?

I assume there will be several other speakers of varying sizes besides the one shown, as there is apparently some kind of formal unveiling due in April.

Yes, those same images appeared in an International news source yesterday, and have been cut/pasted to various outlets.

https://teknikveckan.com/ikea/officiella-bilder-pa-ikea-och-sonos-gemensamma-hogtalare/

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/3/25/18281352/ikea-sonos-symfonisk-bookshelf-speaker-final-design-red-dot-award-reveal

Completely agree about the lack of hiding cord(s), but also understand it's probably not Symfonisk's official marketing.

April 9 will definitely help answer additional questions.

Looks great! No more metal grid front but instead a cloth cover, making it look more like a conventional speaker. Also favour the dimensions, especially when placed vertically.

Hope this comes close to the sound stage of a Play:3 on lower to moderate volume settings. Depending on the final sales price I expect this product to easily find its' customers.

Could also be a glance of hope for the rather miserably looking SONO stock development...

Here's a thought...what makes a current Sonos speaker a Sonos beyond the Play 1 and Playbar….

1.Sonos One (Gen 1 and Gen 2)_Airplay2 and Alexa
2.Play 5 _Airpaly2 and Line-in
3. Beam_Airplay2, Alexa, HDMI-ARC and Optical
4.All Sonos can be integrated with Amazon Dot, Spot and Show

If those features/abilites are withheld from the Ikea version therein lies your onus to upgrade to genuine Sonos. There's also the possibility that TruePlay will not be an option.

One other point...the speaker enclosure may make a difference in the resonance of the sound. You can put a Sonos speaker in a variety of enclosures but the tuning will vary and may influence the tone just enough to say "give me genuine Sonos" :8

Cheers!

interesting thoughts. Perhaps it will be good for Sonos, gaining press from IKEA etc.... but my personal opinion is that it cheapens Sonos. The person who mentioned above that IKEA make some good quality furniture, but also some poor/cheap is the exact problem I have.... Sonos doesn't make good quality AND poor quality.... just good. Therefore in my mind the fact that IKEA does offer cheap/lower quality furniture amongst their range, cheapens the brand of Sonos to me. Perhaps I'll look at alternatives. 🙂

Perhaps I'll look at alternatives. :-)

Probably the best choice for you, Sonos gear doesn't have much market appeal to folks looking at that kind of thing. If all you were concerned about was decent sound, reasonably appealing design and a wide selection of music you'd probably be more interested in Sonos.

I know the Sonos ease of use has a huge appeal for me, I have several rather good home theater setups hooked to Sonos but I rarely bother to turn them on these days. Much easier to just tap a single button and have music nearly instantly. It is getting so bad the spouse got me to give one audio system away so she could quit dusting it. Her point that it hadn't been turned on in over 6 months was spot on. Just too much hassle compared to the paired Play 3s in the same room.

Whatever you end up with consider getting a Connect and sitting it out of sight, Sonos sound piped into a high end system with a sub-harmonic synthesizer and big sub will move things around when cranked up.