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IKEA Symfonisk Gen2 Amp Modification Guide – A Much Cheaper Sonos Amp
- bjelkeman-again 4y agoI love these kind of hacks. Nicely done. However I must disagree with one thing in the original article: > Brilliant sound I have a Symfonisk bookshelf speaker in my kitchen, and I don’t think the sound is brilliant. It is too boomy for a speaker that is supposed to be placed near a wall or in a bookshelf. The low price forces some compromises and I suspect this is one.
- squarefoot 4y agoI've listened to one at a IKEA shop and think its quality is mostly okay (speakers placement can change everything), but if I needed one I would certainly build it myself for much less money using cheap easily available ready made modules to convert to wireless normal amplified speakers. This is a field in which DIY is still viable; the other day I posted a link to a data sheet of a set of modules promising quite serious performance (digital uncompressed audio with sub-millisecond latency), but sadly can't find any seller from whom I could purchase a few for testing. http://www.vastera.com.tw/1/PDF/DIO-S003B.pdf http://www.vastera.com.tw/1/PDF/DIO-S003B.pdf
- yborg 4y ago>I don’t think the sound is brilliant I returned mine after a week, the HomePod Mini produced superior sound even in an open area for less money. The Symfonisk was capable of being loud, but the highs were very muffled.
- atVelocet 4y agoYou know that you need to calibrate them with an iPhone? This totally changes the sound.
- yborg 4y agoYes, I went through the whole procedure.
- bjelkeman-again 4y agoDidn’t know that. But it turns out it isn’t supported on my iPhone SE 2nd gen. Bah.
- wodenokoto 4y agoI found the guide difficult to understand, but I think the end product is connected to new speakers. At least they link to buying a pair of speakers.
- tpmx 4y agotl;dr: turn a $119 IKEA Symfonisk gen 2 wi-fi bookshelf speaker into a 100W mono Sonos TPA3116D2-based amp. You'll likely need to switch out the PSU to get 100W for real though. Consider looking into used laptop PSUs for bargains. (There was some missing context.)
- Snoozus 4y agoYeah, but why? Is the end result better than using any old hifi speaker set with an amp? Will there be stereo?
- zihotki 4y agoFor good and easy multiroom sound obviously. It's a killer feature of Sonos. And in this particular case it's a ceiling speaker. Stereo is not a problem here since a single Symfonisk is a mono speaker and you need a second one to get stereo. That won't change after the mod.
- mikeyouse 4y agoThe Sonos Amp + two built-in speakers with equivalent functionality is like $1,200. This lets you use a $100 speaker as that amp (or two of these setups for stereo sound) and then you can use much more reasonably priced built-ins that are still Sonos compatible. It's only useful if you're in the Sonos ecosystem, but it's pretty useful if that's the case.
- ryanianian 4y ago> This lets you use a $100 speaker as that amp Not all amps are equal. The Sonos Amp can competently drive 4 beefy in-wall/ceiling speakers. The Sonos Amp isn't just the guts of this product marked up 5x. Either way, it's silly that Sonos doesn't have a simple un-amplified receiver for similar setups. Perhaps they are afraid consumers would get confused about non-amplified products given all their other products are amplified.
- tpmx 4y ago
- rspoerri 4y agoOnly with the old guide it made sense to me: https://www.thetylergibson.com/ikea-symfonisk-amp-modification-guide/ https://www.thetylergibson.com/ikea-symfonisk-amp-modificati...
- xd1936 4y agoYes, this is linked in the introduction. Great reads.
- jeffbee 4y agoYeah, the article doesn't make it at all clear what the point of this project might be. I gathered by the end that the idea is to rip out the guts of an Ikea speaker, add some binding posts and a custom case, and come away with a hacked-up, 1-channel replacement for the Sonos Amp. Tell you what scares me though: I don't like seeing that they doubled the amount of DRAM in the new one. Hopefully they did that only because it was becoming impossible to source the 256MB module. I hate to see it because if they allow themselves to use it, eventually there will be a software release that doesn't work on the older 256MB model, and they'll deprecate it.
- dmitriid 4y agoBoth IKEA and Sonos have been decent in terms of support of older hardware, so I wouldn't be too wary of that. But, companies rarely feel incentivised to maintain older products these days.
- jeffbee 4y agoI am pretty happy with Sonos support but they did already EOL all their original products up to everything with less than 128MB of RAM, on the basis of not being able to run the newer software. Those older platforms also had SuperH CPUs, which might have been part of the problem.
- dmitriid 4y agoThat's why I said "decent", not "great" :) My Playbar from god knows when (5? 6? years ago) still gets updates and is on S2 now. But then yeah, there are the older devices which are EOLed. IKEA still supports 5-year old smart switches they no longer produce even with their latest smart bulbs. But no idea if that will continue with their move to Matter (or whatever the new hotness is called).
- tjoff 4y agoI only glanced at this but I couldn't see anything about why you'd want to do this? I'm guessing you get some more functionalities out of it? Or Sonos compatibility?
- ska 4y agoI imagine Sonos compatibility for your own speaker config for (lots) less than Sonos offerings, or for things they don't offer at all.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- trynewideas 4y agoSonos compatibility. The $120 Ikea product is effectively a $320 Sonos Connect - which can connect to any arbitrary speaker - attached to a cheap bookshelf speaker. This mod removes the Ikea speaker and adds the connectivity required to the Sonos component to effectively replace a Sonos Connect. Because Sonos doesn't offer a $120 device that replicates this functionality, it effectively allows you to invest an hour or two of soldering and circuit board modding, and optionally $60 in 3D printing, to replace a $320 device.
- mxmilkiib 4y agoMight there be any professional products yet that can recieve Snapcast?
- karamanolev 4y agoI frequently see efforts that use cheap, popular, globally available off the shelf hardware for more than it was meant to. I love that and it really showcases the benefits of hackable, modifiable things. Someone could make this as an argument of user-serviceable, accessible hardware instead of sealed units that only the manufacturer can open. Also, do we need to talk about "warranty void if seal broken" stickers?
- dylan604 4y agoI'm all for that as well, except I have become slightly more sympathetic to the warranty aspect. Yes, we absolutely need "void if seal broken". I would love for something to be released that was fully intended to allow tinkering, but once you do so, you get no warranty service as there's no way to know what mods were done. I think that's totally acceptable
- notsapiensatall 4y agoThat approach has many perverse incentives. Fortunately, we've already figured this one out: manufacturers should only be able to disavow their warranties if they can prove that a modification caused the need for a repair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
- kbenson 4y agoWhich, maybe an appropriately placed sticker can help determine. Note I said help. Whether the sticker is enforceable or not, it's an easy way for the manufacturer to know whether the user even accessed internals that aren't required for normal operation, streamlining some warranty cases. TL;DR - invalidating because of sticker bad, using present sticker to fast track warranty cases good.
- karamanolev 4y agoInvalidating because of sticker - bad. So sticker saying so is also bad. OK if sticker says "Breaking seal at own responsibility" might be a measurable improvement. Let's not pretend we haven't seen 1001 cases of "You've upgraded your laptop's RAM, so the laptop hinges that we see break in thousands of laptops is your own fault" (Dell).
- jon_adler 4y agoHas anyone found a cheaper way to get stereo digital output (than the Port) to replace an old Sonos Connect? I have a nice DAC in my pre-amp, so I’d like to use that with streamed digital audio. My original Connect was very expensive and is now incompatible with newer S2 functionality. I have never understood why Sonos devices costs more without an amplifier or speaker! Presumably because they can?
- ska 4y agoWould this same approach work for you? I haven't looked, but presumably you could pull the signal before it hits the amplifier, and make it work that way...
- tpmx 4y agoThis IKEA wi-fi/Sonos bookshelf speaker has a stereo DAC (per the article), but I would assume it's designated as a mono Sonos output device in terms of software, so only one channel (left) is probably active.
- ska 4y agoThat's a good point. If it's like the other Sonos mono speakers, you can (in software) designate them as a stereo pair working together in arbitrary configurations - which would suggest that there may be a way to do it.
- jeffbee 4y agoSonos uses a software DSP and crossover and its two channels are used for low and high frequency drivers instead of left and right.
- tpmx 4y agoAh, now the instructions in the article make more sense.
- MrBuddyCasino 4y agoNowadays, amplifier modules often have built-in DSP capabilities, eg to psycho-acoustically improve bass or better match the speaker. Has it been verified that this is not the case? Otherwise you'd get a signal that has been altered and is likely a mismatch to any other speaker other than the Symfonisk.
- happyopossum 4y agoThese do use such a DSP, but it's not a fixed response. Sonos speakers use the phone amp with a process they call TruePlay to tune their speakers, and TruePlay still works with this after the mod, so you can retune the DSP for pretty much any kind of speaker and room combo.
- MrBuddyCasino 4y agoYou mean they use the microphone in my iPhone to tune the speakers? That'd be interesting!
- krnlpnc 4y agoHmm, hacking in a stereo line level out seems more worthwhile. Chip amps can be found super cheap, and will likely give better results (as would a traditional amp)
- happyopossum 4y agoBut there isn't a traditional stereo signal in there - there's a mono signal fed to a crossover which splits the high/low audio and feeds it in to the amp as 2 separate channels. The (normally stereo) amp is then used to feed the tweeter and woofer instead of L/R.
- krnlpnc 4y agoThere must be something that could be tapped before the power amp section
- madmod 4y agoI made a guide to get line output from the Symphonisk two years ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/dkrui0/cheaper_sonos_architectural_with_ikea/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/dkrui0/cheaper_sonos... I already had a whole home amplifier and wanted to use some of my AVRs also. Truplay with in ceiling speakers is amazing!
- jstsch 4y agoI did the same hack, except using two Symfonisk's and just connecting the existing speaker lines to a pair of floorstanding two-way speakers (Kef iQ70 from the 2010's). The little amp in the Symfonisk is plenty powerful to drive these large speakers. The crossover is completely off by default, but by using Trueplay the crossover gets tuned properly and the sound is pretty damn good (albeit a tad boosted in the highs). It's a great way to get super convenient (Airplay 2) and high quality sound in a room, just with a power cord for each speaker. And these quality Hi-Fi speakers are readily available for cheap second-hand... some pics here: https://twitter.com/jstsch/status/1529204823912075264/photo/3 https://twitter.com/jstsch/status/1529204823912075264/photo/...
- danyim 4y agoCould you expand on this? What do you mean by the "existing speaker lines"?
- longtimelistnr 4y agoInstead of modding it into a new amp like this post does they likely just spliced the speaker wires right into the speakers. The upside is it was easy the downside is you can’t just plug and play after the fact.
- jstsch 4y agoIndeed! Nice thing is that two Symfonisk's give you great stereo sound on external speakers. And no soldering inside the Symfonisk, just some connectors to unplug and run the cable out of the bass reflex port, so easy to restore in original condition if you'd want to. So thanks to the magic of these tiny transistor digital amplifiers, in total you'll spend ± 500 euros and have better — and super convenient — sound than quite expensively priced systems.
- jstsch 4y agoSo if you open up the Symfonisk, you'll find that the cables running up to the tiny tweeter and woofer speakers have a nice flat crimp connector on them. So simply unplug those (carefully, use tweezers to squeeze the connectors and they'll pop off without friction), and connect those on some cables which you'll run to your speakers. The connectors can be found at your local electronics store. The speakers you'll be connecting need to have a crossover that you can bypass (typically four connectors on the back versus two, with a piece of metal in between to short them). Total upgrade would be to mount all the electronics inside, but I haven't dared to cut mine open yet
- happyopossum 4y agoThis is a great hack, however I really prefer the easier version of simply connecting the symfonisk board to a decent/great bi-amp speaker. See, in their normal state these Sonos speakers are mono, yet they have this stereo amp in them. What Sonos does is use a crossover with that stereo amp to make it a mono bi-amp (in other works instead of left/right, it's outputting high/low to the tweeter and woofer respectively). If you simply connect one side of the amp to a normal speaker, you'll either get muddy bass or incomprehensible chirping, because the crossover splits the audio) The whole soldering part of the mod here is to work around that fact, and bridge the audio back to a single mono channel. While this has some advantages - more power, and connects to 'regular' speakers, it's a lot more wrk, and a lot riskier.
- perrylaj 4y agoThis idea sounds appealing, but wouldn't that also (generally) require standard power (115v/60hz stateside) to run the amps? Not having to worry about having an electrician run the appropriate 'high voltage' (in a residential wiring context) power to ceiling/wall speakers is appealing to me. I'd love any additional resources you have about this method though.
- happyopossum 4y agoUhh, no - you run 110 to the symfonisk, and run 2 pairs of speaker cables to the bi-amp speaker.
- perrylaj 4y agoOh, I understand. For some reason I was thinking self-powered (internally amplified) speakers that were being driven by a line-level source off the Sonos. Not sure why that's where my mind went, but appreciate the clarification!
- cushychicken 4y agoI was the hardware lead who designed that black board you're modding. Nice work. Warm fuzzies.
- harry8 4y agoDon't just drop that and run! Tell us about the whys of the design decisions. Please?
- cushychicken 4y agoMany of our decisions were based on what we had driver compatibility for. Software ALWAYS took a lot longer to get right at Sonos than hardware, largely because of the huge number of internal and external compatibilities we were required to maintain. We had a working amp + DAC signal chain with the TPA series, so we reused that. We also had working wifi drivers with the MT7613. Much of my job was convincing the RF people that they didn't need to break out all the RF chains, which would have tipped the product into unprofitable territory. A lot of the design decisions were based on hardware cost and speed of development. We reused a lot of subcircuits we'd previously validated on other designs.
- lmas 4y agoI concur! Please share some wisdom.
- AnthonBerg 4y agoCool! The TPA3116 is a nice sounding chip don’t you think?
- cushychicken 4y agoNot really - specs and sound wise, it's not any different from any other integrated class D analog input amp. Pretty run of the mill THD and SNR specs. It also has one hell of a startup transient. It was not a fun exercise to get that passing startup click/pop requirements. I said some words about TI in anger while bench testing.
- lkois 4y agoI'm not too familiar with Sonos, but was under the impression that they are just high-end wifi speakers with some proprietary system. And that Ikea's version is again the same idea, but at a lower cost (and less proprietary?) So what is the actual benefit here? Is it upgrading the speakers of the Ikea model? Or is it adding an amp and wifi to unpowered speakers? Or more specifically, creating a ceiling wifi speaker for cheap? Because step way down from the Ikea speakers, and you could grab a few Echo Dots for (alarmingly) close to free, and line-out into any powered (or amped) speaker, which would seem to be about the same result? And at least with Spotify, multi-room works quite well. This of course ignores privacy concerns, which keeps costs down.
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoI have the same question. Looking at the original post, the impetus seems to be "save hundreds on Sonos". I'm not that impressed with Sonos so this is like saying save hundreds on Bose. "This laid all the technical groundwork to prove that the Symfonisk speaker should work as a general purpose mono speaker amp." Then he goes on a crazy mod and solder run that almost no one could or should ever do. He wanted to power some ceiling speakers. I'd rather just buy a TPA 3116 amp with bluetooth and go from there or use echo dots like you say. I've got the DAMGOO in my greenhouse and it sounds damn fine. $25. https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Amplifier-DAMGOO-Technique-Password/dp/B07XG33WPN https://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Amplifier-DAMGOO-Technique-...
- kalleboo 4y agoIt's for people who are all-in on the Sonos ecosystem, which supports stuff like multi-room audio (listen to your podcasts as you walk around the house), integration with music services etc. If you just want a single pair of speakers in one room and are fine just casting off your phone, of course Bluetooth is fine.
- lkois 4y agoEcho + Spotify does the whole multiroom thing, and would be unbeatable on price. Adding to an existing Sonos setup makes sense though
- harry8 4y agoQuestion: Is the Sonos thing that you can walk around your house streaming playing whatever on your phone and the speakers know where you are and automagically turn on, connect, and play the sound? Start listening to something in the bedroom, head downstairs for breakfast, bedroom speakers switch off as kitchen speakers take over? Is that it?