Hacking a Sonos Mono Amp with the Ikea Symfonisk speaker

With a couple of small electrical hacks, we can turn the 99 dollar Ikea Symfonisk Speaker into a 100 watt mono Amp with full Sonos capabilities.

And all the tools and parts needed to do this yourself (these are Amazon affiliate links that receive a small commission from).

Required components:

Recommended Ceiling Speaker:

Soldering Tools:

Soldering Consumables:

General Tools:

3D Printing Tools:

[Zassenhaus]

This is by far the best version of a Symfonisk hack I've seen. Thanks a lot!

[Bratwurstdealer]

Will there be a guide for Gen2 Symfonisk?

[dennisstolmeijer]

Just my first symfonisk amp up and running! One more to go, thanks for this awesome tutorial and the 3d print!

[jeffreyhayashida]

Thanks a lot for this! Managed to complete the hack and hooked em up to some KEF towers. After running Truplay, they sound incredible for $99 amps - solid low end!

[earlfenwick]

Remarkable! You went a big leap beyond what Todd Parker did with his hack. Now I challenge you to build a sonos hack puck like a chromecast audio! I love this! I really did not want to spend €1, 000 on a couple of Sonos 5s.

[JesseCampbell]

Years ago I had modified one of these following the first version of your guide... and i had accidentally torn C16 off the board in the process. Followed the rest of the steps and it seemed to work fine anyways.
Well, I had some time twiddling my thumbs, and decided to finally mod the second speaker to match. I did a better job, didn't break off any components... and it sounded way worse! Even after truplay tuning. So, I ripped off C16 to match the first speaker, heh. sounds great again!
Printing out a couple of the cases now. Going to use gen2 boards from now on those look way easier to mod.
Thanks again!
Jesse

[jorgesolorzano]

Up to how many celing speakers I can connect to the MOD amp? Thanks! Awesome tutorial!

[supermanhills]

This is great. Found your article/blog post on Gen 2 and wondered when you might do a video?

[chrisnelson]

I absolutely love this. Thanks so much for putting this video together!

[you]

I wonder if you can skip the small-scale hacking on the PCB and instead split the tweeter/woofer connections on the ceiling unit and wire directly in to them. Probably assumes the frequency cutoff would be roughly the same as in the IKEA speaker, not sure what it would be like if it was off

[tomasz-nowak]

Do you think it's possible hack ikea speaker board in this way that all network and sonos interfaces are skipped and amp plays sound delivered by digital input such as spdif coax?

[ManuCarrileroAFYD]

Nice job, you have a lot of knowledge about this. Any option to ad aux input to the Symfonisk?

[lutzhegemann]

Great instruction and explanation- superb! Thank you so much!!! Have you ever tried to get a signal (line in) directly from the dac? Or any chance to get a pre amp signal to use external power amp?

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Sorry to waste your time. You already answered my question in your original instruction. Awesome

[ravanemmerik]

Hi, great video! I would like to do the opposite, make analog line-in connectors on the Ikea Sonos speaker. Can you tell if the line-in pins as shown on the picture in your video can be used directly as AUX / external analog line-in?

[jimmybee]

Hiya so I get the bridging off the 3 at the amp chip .but why does one need to bridge the speaker wire connections +&- for each channel (L&R) surely (with my limited intelligence) they can be left to run a 2nd sub should one want too (in mono ) where the impedance of the 2 subs (ohms) fall within the criteria this creating even a better sound and less drain etc on the amp and obviously the one sub if going with 2 subs ? (Or am I been thick )

[Chatchie]

Could you just use solid core copper wire exposed rather than mess with that insulated wire?

[stephancasas]

Superb video and write-up on your website!

If I desolder pins 6/7 on the DAC, and splice in the L/R audio signal from an auxiliary source, would I be able to use this as a speaker with an aux input? Would I have to buck/boost the input?

[mpedersen]

Great guide and explanations! Yet I get 3 issues: The sound is really scratchy, the volume output is super low, and the speaker cuts off when reaching ~50% volume. Anyone have a suggestion as to what may be done wrong?

[denniszhu]

Seems like people are having trouble with volume when bridging the output to speakers. Maybe something to do with maximum ohms when using it in bridge mode?

[mfi]

Hello Tyler,
Thanks for your video, I'm currently in the process of converting some Symfonisk amplifiers for my new home. I took the Gen2 Symfonisk and also saw the instructions on your website. Am I correct that pins 10/11 on the Gen2 no longer have to be desoldered like on the Gen1 or the conductor tracks have to be cut?
That should sort of take care of itself if I desolder the capacitors, right?
Thanks also for the 3D plans for the case.
Best regards, Manuel