Customer Ratings & Reviews

I first considered the ULT Field 7 for $499 which has a wider sound sound stage than the XV500 for the pool area and it’s waterproof. However with the $299 sale of the XV500, its water resistance rating and the ability to demo both side by side i couldn’t see the $200 difference in performance. The sound quality of the XV500 is actually very close ULT Field 7 with just a lower directivity, smaller sound stage. To solve that problem I thought the value would be to buy 2 XV500 to pair in stereo mode for just a $100 price difference for 1 ULT Field 7. This decision has transformed the entire area around my pool compared to having a wider sound stage just in one corner. I could t be more happier with this purchase. The lights on the front are a great effect. Depending on the setting they will change color and strobe to the beat of the music. You can also change color to match the ambiance of of the area. The speakers were easy to setup through Sonys music center app. The app will also send an audible voice message telling you which speaker is left or right. If you have it set up wrong you can easily change it through the app without having to move the speakers. The app will also allow you to adjust the sound field or use the EQ. With the speakers connected to Bluetooth, paired in stereo, lights on and in non-direct sunlight at 105 degrees I used 80% battery. I couldn’t be more happy with this purchase. These are excellent speakers.

Holds a charge for a decent amount of time. It's loud, the bass hits and it's not extremely heavy.

This is a perfect speaker for your home party with karaoke. I love the bass and how strong it is. It does weight quite a bit, but the build is top quality! That’s why it’s a bit heavy! Although from what others have posted saying bass isn’t as good as other brands, there’s a Sony app where you can raise the bass up to maximum. I’ve done that and it sounds like a Bose Home Theater System. Even without raising the bass and leaving on Mega Bass, sounds awesome too! Overall, I rate it a solid 10/10. I don’t think spending more money on the bigger ones is worth it when this speaker sounds fantastic. I’ve had 0 issues with this speaker.

Best Bluetooth speaker I ever bought!! Great sound, battery life!!!

This speaker had me doubt buying it. I bought the smaller x300 and i just fidnt like how quiet it was. Nothjng to complain about, yeah some individuals want remotes and other acessories but after this speaker you wont really need another one. The soeaker pairs perfectly to my other devices, like smart TV. The multi speaker option is a nice touch and sounds great. No regrets, 10/10, recommend.

The whole system is awesome! It is truly a party in my dance studio everyday! we love the lights and the sound effects. It is loud and the base could get really hard so make sure that you stabilize it.

This speaker has great sound clarity at full volume. No crashing sounds or anything. Great for family gatherings

I use this speaker in my garage. Its really nice for when I dont want to use my bigger speaker I also purchased from best buy! Sounds great as well.

I like the sound and it works great for my living room

very good on the high and low end sounds. very very good bass

I didn't expect that this simple speaker can do so much more. I just learned that it has alot of features for karaoke like key controls, and echo which I thought was only available on expensive ones. I am so pleaes with the decision to buy this.

This speaker works excellent and its perfect size to take it with you anywhere

The new line up of speakers from sony is WAY better then last generation. Bass wasnt to loud but it blended better with the already great mids and highs

Perfect size for the home gym in the garage. Killer bass.

Very nice speaker easy to use and loud aswell, so practical and handy for the outdoors with the fam. Recommended

The XV500 is a brilliant “party speaker” with some tiny flaws overcome by delivering good vibes for almost every genre of music – if (to my ears) in the Live Music setting. Truly, its “party speaker” title masks its flexibility. It’s more than a flashing big boom box built to push out heavy bass. I liken it to a Swiss Army Knife for music – its suitable for almost every area of the house, party time or not, from the backyard to the basement thanks to its musicality and robust feature set and unpretentious design. But while it’s terrific as a speaker, it’s supporting apps are a mess that detract from the fun. It’s for this reason I give the XV500 4-stars. Sony should rethink the apps to make it 5-stars. That is my quick take and here’s a few more details. DESIGN AND INPUTS The XV500 is a party animal in quiet guy clothes. Its all-black case fades into the background calling no attention to itself in, say, a family room. But bring it into the rec room and turn on its lights and it’s the life of the party. The case is solidly built – guessing ABS plastic -- while the speaker grille is metal. If there is anything objectionable it’s the large white embossed Sony branding on top front. It would be better if Sony left that unpainted. Two rubber strips on the right side allow the speaker to be used vertically which is a must have feature for any party speaker of the XV500’s short stature. It allows easy placement on a table or to put on the ground so that it doesn’t get tipped over. It’s rated at IPX4 water resistance, so it’s suitable to use near a pool and a light rain won’t short it out. However, the water resistance is diminished if the rubber cover that protects the speaker’s inputs is open which is required when the speaker is plugged to a wall socket or an accessory like a microphone or phone is attached. A decent set of inputs are available: a USB-A port that can also simultaneously charge at 1.5 A, a 3.5mm mini-jack, and two microphone jacks for Karaoke fans, one of which doubles as a guitar jack. Both microphone jacks have independent volume control. It’s curious a 2024 product doesn’t have USB-C input it’s the new standard for phones and will only become more ubiquitous during the XV500 model’s marketing life. The speaker’s onboard controls are all touch for water resistance. These are organized on a top panel and automatically illuminate when touched then fade off, a necessary feature for a product that will be used in a dark room or outside at night. The controls are: volume, play/pause/, “Mega Bass” on/off, and party lights on/off – more on lighting later. There is also an illuminated active input indicator: Bluetooth, USB, or Audio-in (mini-jack). An orange dot confirms charging. It disappears when the battery is fully charged. While the XV500 weighs around 25lbs but the incorporated handles at top and bottom make it an easy carry. I’m hardly “built” and never suffered carrying it from room to room, even upstairs. The power cord is detachable, so you don’t have that dragging around when moving either. ATTACK OF THE APPS While the XV500 is a terrific speaker I’m less enamored by its two, yes two, supporting apps, Sony Music Center and Fiestable. Technically neither of these apps are required to use the speaker but they are needed to access features like the equalizer and light options. It’s clunky juggling two different apps for one device. Even worse many of the features are bifurcated between the two apps. For example, Music Center is where you select pre-set illumination options, but Fiestable is where you customize them. And I did not love the XV500’s out-of-the-box sound so the app’s sound effects or manual equalizer make it come alive. While apps are now effectively part of a product manufacturers still often design them as an afterthought with no passion for a good customer experience. This is the case here. Besides having to deal with two separate apps, both are cluttered and awkward to use. For example, to sample the lighting options the user can’t just press, say, “strobe” to see what that looks like. Instead, one must press “strobe” then “done” which exits that portion of the app. If you want to see the next option the user has to go back into the menu. It’s very tedious. That said, in my use, the sound setting in Music Center was “set it and forget it,” and I didn’t use it again. Similarly, the Fiestable app is geared to customization and, in my opinion, niche features so I won’t be using it much either. For instance, you can give guests the opportunity to add songs to a party playlist, a fun idea in principle. But for it to work the guests have to have the app installed on their phone so to me that’s not practical. There is also a DJ feature for flange and isolation (also available in Music Center). I found that too gimmicky. Who has time to DJ their own party? Sony packed in similar features that feel like feature filler to me. I don’t find them worthwhile, so I’ll skip detailing them. At any rate the app situation here is a jumble. Hopefully Sony will get wise and combine the two apps at some point. SIZE:BOOM RATIO The XV500 is compact for a portable party speaker but projects big sound. Physically it’s a couple inches shy of 2 ft tall and 1 ft square but it’s packed with two good sized 5”x5” woofers and two 2.36” tweeters. The result is full-size sound that easily fills a moderate sized 500 sq ft. room. A tap on the “Mega Bass” button releases Bass like hounds ready to hunt. That said, to my ears, the speaker’s sound quality completely depends on which sound effect is active in the Music Center app. Four options are available: 1) “Clear Audio+” (Auto), 2) Mega Bass, 3) Live Sound, 4) Custom via a 3-band (bass, mid, treble) equalizer. I sampled an array of music genres including alt rock, pop/top 40, house, EDM, and folk. Listening to all of these my personal preference is Live Sound. It’s the only one that consistently sounds natural and true to the artist. Mega Bass and Auto sounded fine, but I’m just not a fan of bass-biased edits. Like cake, I enjoy the entire piece, not just one layer. Live Sound pumped out plenty of body shaking, dance inducing, boominess where Auto and Mega Bass ramped up the bass but diminished everything else. I absolutely love how the speaker sounds with Live Sound active which is why I’ll never bother mucking with equalization again. It sounds perfect no matter what is playing or what frequency or level of bass is in a song. (To be clear – when I say “perfect,” I mean for a small party speaker). That said, this speaker being a party speaker, performs best between mid and high volume. It’s adequate as a low-volume background music speaker, but I enjoy it more when the volume is front and center. Room filling sound is excellent in medium sized areas, both inside and outside. Playing a 320mbps AAC version of The Killers “From Here on Out” at full volume in a 500 sq ft room I measured a whopping 90dB level with no noticeable distortion at 2ft away and 80dB 20 ft away. The speaker is a solid performer outside too, though I was too polite to blast it, not wanting to disturb my neighbors. But even at 50% volume, I measured 65dB at 20ft away and that was competing with traffic noise. So, my take here is the XV500 is no shrinking violet. Sound quality of any speaker is dependent on the room its in – its shape, furniture, windows, flooring – and its placement. Being a portable “party speaker,” rather than one permanently placed, I also sampled it in a few different rooms in my house. It always sounded lively and clean no matter where it was sitting. In short, it’s a speaker I’ll enjoy daily, not just to play tunes at a party, or tailgate, or another event. Finally, I sampled music both with the speaker plugged in then on battery power. To my ears the XV500 did lose a tiny bit of “punch” on battery. Not anything anyone at a party would notice, but it does sound better plugged in. . LIGHT SHOW To me what differentiates a Party Speaker from an ordinary portable speaker is the former lights up. A lot of party speakers though go over-the-top there so what I appreciate about the XV500’s lighting is, as with its other aspects, it takes the middle road. It’s flashy with the best of them at a party, but it also knows how to take a beat and glow serene mood lighting during more relaxing moments. The XV500 has a bank of multi-colored lights at the top and bottom of the case. The Music Center app offers nine pre-configured lighting options, four which flash in sync with music played. The other five are motionless color combinations. The Fiestable app offers color customization and other lighting options. GOT THE POWER Dual power is a big “must have” in a party speaker. In addition to AC power the XV500 has an internal battery Sony claims can last up to 25 hours. In my unscientific test I found this to be true, though not in a “party scenario”. The 25 hours I got was with the lights off and the sound at 50% or lower. When I cranked the sound to 70-100% and the lights were flashing at full brightness the battery depletion was about 10% per hour which equates to about 10 hours of battery life under those conditions. Still, that’s pretty good to me – I’ve never had a party last 10 hours myself. To preserve the battery’s health the Music App has a setting to stop charging at 90%.

Great sound. Only down fall is the wheels are small to move arouns

Good battery recomendable good love my bosina love

I like it, we had a karaoke family last Christmas, it was awesome

The Sony Wireless Party Speaker is lots of fun for all. This speaker is about 21" tall and weighed 24.2 pounds, on my digital scale, and comes with an electrical charging cord and a few papers, including the standard pictorial quick set-up guide. It is all black in color with the touch controls on top and various other speaker-use items located in a water-resistant compartment with a rubber cap that opens and closes after making choices for use of the speaker. Although this freestanding speaker is no lightweight, it is well-grounded at its base so you can be comfortable that it will remain standing outside on your deck, patio, next to your pool, or somewhere in your yard. So, why did I request this piece? Like most of you, I have other speaker types that are used for various applications, mostly inside the home. After living in my home for almost 30 years, I decided to go all out and build the deck with accompanying pergola of my dreams. I have various other areas of interest in my yard with large ponds and a covered bridge, gazebo, and waterfall/collecting pond. Bottom line, I plan on doing more entertaining with my family and wanted a speaker with lots of sound and interest to put out on the deck that could nicely play the audio of my choice, whether that be songs, tv shows, or movies. This speaker does not disappoint. The directions advise that you charge it for 3 hours for 100%. The minute that I took it out out of its packing, charged it, and then pushed the power button on, the speaker automatically linked to my phone's Bluetooth and I was up and going with sound. Did I mention that this speaker not only can deliver "Mega Bass" (option on top), but also delivers a wide spectrum light show when you press the "Lights" button, also on the top that rotates or cycles colors of the rainbow to the beat. One more item of fun is that not only can you Bluetooth input, but in the back compartment there is a mic plug-in and a plug-in for a guitar or other electric instrument. Here we go with karaoke at a party, or speech/announcements at some sort of an event, indoor/outdoor, or a jam session from an instrument. So many activities, like I said, fun for all. By the way, I also have a Sony hand-held "Party speaker with lights" much smaller, hand-held water-resistant portable speaker, that came out years ago that was linkable to other like speakers. I have not yet tried to link these 2 so that they can then be placed at different locations playing the same input, but I will follow up on that soon. Bottom line, I find this an easy buy for all that you might and would do to entertain yourself and those close to you. There is a 1year limited warranty in the US and Canada, so register it and keep your receipt for proof of purchase.