Using Sonos/IKEA 99 usd internals to drive passive speakers

A friend posted this in our chat group today and it’s quite cool. I wonder if anyone is going to do this with a pair of beovox or something like that.

A high quality 99 dollar amp with Sonos, AirPlay 2 and self calibrating audio circuitry using a microphone in your phone (almost like a Beolab 5/50/90). One per speaker so about 200 usd for modernizing a pair of older speakers.

https://makezine.com/2019/08/16/hacking-the-sonos-ikea-symfonisk-into-a-high-quality-speaker-amp/

Thanks for sharing Michael!

What a great hack and what an impressive price point for that speaker, especially compared to similar B&O gear!

One downside though, I am pretty sure the crossover frequency is fixed, and thus properly not ideal for another speaker, but hey - Close enough !

It's actually cheaper than a second hand Beolink Passive..

I was thinking on trying this out with a set of CX100s, however they have a two woofers installed and I am still not sure how to wire these up, since the Symfonisk is only able to control one tweeter and one woofer (separate wiring) 

I am curious if someone with a little more practical knowledge can give insights on this

Wow

Sounds great

In this IKEA ecosystem, you also have a gateway, a remote for the speakers, for the lights, for the curtains, aso.

It’s plastic, yes, but 10 to 20 times cheaper than B&O...

I have just hacked two Symfonisk amps into a pair of Beovox RL45.2s. All the new electronics fits inside the original enclosures. The only visible differences are the three buttons on the upper rear surfaces of the cases, and a power cord hidden inside the speaker terminal recess. Forgive me Jacob Jensen.

They sound amazing (after autotune)! Not quite as crisp as my SONOS Ones but a much better bass response, and a much "bigger" sound. Not as much bass as my SONOS Beam and Sub combo, but a much better for music in general. They still get too boomey on the floor, on their kick stands, at higher volumes. Autotune cannot fix that, but speaker placement can. 

After the sad death of my Beomaster 7000 the Redlines were probably headed for Ebay or landfill or into a box next to the RL60.2s so 300 AUD was money well spent.

I'll post some more details and photos in the workbench section if anyone is interested.

 

Which process did you use in order to get the Symfonisk speakers modified for the RL45? 

I modified two of the Symfonisk speakers last weekend and am now planning to use them with the existing cross-over of the Beovox CX100 in order to use the original frequency cross-overs of the speaker as they were designed. 

 

I used the instructions as shown here in order to avoid the Symfonisk splitting the signal into high low frequency, but rather give out a clean "mono" output signal: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4M1DRB2ss4&t=1344s 

 

Hope that helps everyone who is interested. Will let you know how they sound once they are finished. 

Hi Zassenhaus,

I removed the original crossovers and connected the two amps separately to the tweeter and the woofer, as Sonos designed them to work. The old crossover network would just get in the way of 30 years of electronic progress.

For my initial "proof of concept" test I opened up one Symfonisk speaker, disconnected the driver wires and extended then with two 1m long lengths of speaker wire threaded out through the curved bass reflex port. Next I opened up one of the Redlines found a place to bring the wires in (reversibly). Disconnected the crossovers and hooked up the extension wires. I powered up the Symfonisk and configured it as a one half of a stereo pair with another Symfonisk. I did some A/B comparisons, the sound was not so good. Then I did an autotune, the sound was great!

By the way, when I reconnected the Symfonisk drivers the sound was incredibly bad. Almost no low notes, missing lower mid range completely, tinny high notes. Autotune does make major changes to the crossover point, but also adjusts gain at many points across the frequency range to flatten out the response of the speakers and the room acoustics. 

Because the RL45.2 is only a two way bass reflex design there is no need to risk the rather difficult de-soldering, lifting and bridging procedure from the youtube video. The only wiring modifications I made was to extend the 240V AC lead wires. Everything else fitted "out of the box".

Your CX100s would need three amps to works properly, but you could also try connecting the woofers in series or parallel, and seeing how they worked (efficiency be damned!) Autotune is very forgiving when it comes to impedance matching. Another option would be to to drive one woofer and leave the other as a passive radiator. Autotune is very forgiving when it comes to bass boost (Sonos Ones roll off around 80Hz). I'm going to try this on a RL60.2 one day soon.

My best advise is to have fun!

 

So finally, I modified some CX100 and a Cona Subwoofer to join my Sonos System.

 

to be fully honest with you, I think they work quite alright, however the sound is always improvable. The CX100 are now fully equipped as a sonos speaker each. Hence, a stereo setting is working wonderfully. The cona does it’s Job as a separate speaker with a lot lower base.

Playing all of the three together, gives a great band from base to highs.

The nord. only fits very tightly into the speaker case without modifying the internals. I modified the plastic back plate to be alright and finalized it by adding the three symfonisk buttons to the back of the case. Now the cx100 contain their beautiful retro bang & olufsen looks and feel, going well along my Beogram 6500, however with plenty of added benefits (Spotify Connect, AirPlay 2, and of course - fully Sonos System integration)