Journalists Chain 149 of Ikea's $10 Speakers Into a Wall of Sound

Tech publication Wired tested at its London office whether Ikea's budget Kallsup Bluetooth speakers could be chained together in large numbers. The Swedish furniture company launched the model in April at $10 each and said 100 could be linked in one chain. Ikea's headquarters in Älmhult agreed to the experiment and sent 150 units, saying the connection might hold up to that number. A company spokesperson admitted nobody had tried it before.

How the test went

One speaker was damaged in shipping and would not work, leaving 149. Each Kallsup is a cube measuring 2.75 inches. Chaining is simple: the first speaker is paired with a phone, in this case an iPhone 16 Pro, and each additional one is powered on during playback while holding the Play button until a chime signals multi-speaker mode. Linking all 149 took about 30 minutes. The team paused at 100 to assess the volume, then continued to the maximum. Beyond 100 units, failures to connect on the first try became more frequent, but no speaker refused more than twice.

Sound and volume

Each speaker has a single 1.8-inch full-range driver, a 3-watt amplifier and Bluetooth 5.3. Together, the 149 units have a combined rated output of 447 watts, and the drivers' total surface area is roughly equal to one 22-inch driver. At maximum volume the noise was extremely loud and fidelity vanished. At moderate levels the sound was more composed but lacked depth and detail. The wall did not collapse.

For comparison, the journalists also tested the $500 LG Xboom Stage 501. It reached a similar volume but delivered fuller bass and a more musical sound. A wall of Kallsups would cost $1,490. The world record is 1,500 linked speakers, set by Majority Audio in March 2026. Wired concludes that anyone wanting high-quality audio should buy one better speaker.