They can rock out too, just listen to the fast paced ‘Go’ which features some top guitar soloing. There are shades of Toto on ‘Run’, then on ‘Snakebite Charm’ you have a neat piece of modern melodic rock – definite shades of Grand Illusion’s love of backing vocal arrangements on here. Anders Rydholm is no slouch either having worked with Overland, Seikima II and Japanese artist Demon Kakka. Lars Säfsund is well known in melodic rock circles not only for Work Of Art but also for his singing with Lionville and Enbound. This is the debut album by Art Of Illusion, a duo consisting of composer and producer Anders Rydholm (Grand Illusion) and singer Lars Säfsund (Work Of Art) – see what they did there with the band name? Very good chaps! Online.Share the post "Album review: ART OF ILLUSION – X Marks The Spot" The picture frame speaker is available exclusively from Ikea – either in-store or If you prefer, physical buttons behind the frame’s rim control play/pause and volume – though these won’t be much help if you mount the speaker high up on a wall. The app can also be used for the basic audio options mentioned above, and to control the speaker. You can also connect it to another Symfonisk picture frame to create a stereo pair in the same room. Thanks to the Sonos app you can link this up to other Symfonisk and Sonos speakers for multi-room audio, syncing the sound seamlessly across your home. It’s worth noting that there are no microphones here, so this isn’t technically a smart speaker – though it can be connected to and controlled by other smart speakers and virtual assistants. Spotify Connect and AirPlay 2 support make it even easier to stream. Streaming services over the speaker through the Sonos app – including Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and even oddities like Plex, meditation app Calm, and various online radio services.
Like most Sonos speakers, the Symfonisk uses Wi-Fi (or Ethernet) to connect, rather than Bluetooth – and there’s no option for an aux lead either. Wi-Fi or Ethernet only – no Bluetooth or aux.
If you stick mostly to pop and rock you’ll make the most of this speaker, with punchy vocals cutting through an open, balanced soundscape. The speaker’s strengths clearly lie in the higher registers, where the company’s bright, crisp sound profile shines through. The Sonos app’s basic EQ – just treble and bass sliders – compensates for this somewhat, but has its limits. On the default tuning the bass is fairly thin, with the propulsive bassline of ‘Out of Sight’ by Run the Jewels falling short of the pulsating oomph it demands. The best speakers you’ve ever heard are probably big, bulky, and quite obviously techy – three things that this isn’t. This won’t be one of the best speakers you’ve ever heard, but it doesn’t need to be. You’ll want to use the Sonos S2 app, and once signed up it only takes a couple of minutes to get the speaker onto your Wi-Fi network (anĮthernet port is also included, if you prefer, though will give you an extra cable to worry about), with pairing handled by a quick tap of your phone against the spot on the speaker where the power LED is visible. The good news is that if you can get past the mild hurdles of getting the thing up on the wall, the digital half of setup is painless. For extra neatness, a cheapĪdditional power cable will let you daisy chain two Symfonisk picture frames together, both drawing from the same power socket. The frame is designed to be positioned in either landscape or portrait orientations, and has some comprehensive cable routing to keep leads tidy – though you will still need to deal with a dangling power lead unless you drill an extra hole to route it through your wall, or chase out the wall to a socket lower down and re-plaster.