Customer Ratings & Reviews

Very nice great for work or by pool very well constructed good charge time glad I got for work or play

I've used tons of different Bluetooth speakers from many manufacturers. They all are compromises - sound quality, size, battery life, etc. - some better than others. This Sony unit is my favorite so far. Here's why. 1. Sounds pretty good. Nice balance between highs and lows. Best of all, and unique to the Sony compared to all the others I've tried, is that Sony's app has an EQ function that lets you tailor the sound to your tastes and environment. Makes me very happy. 2. Battery life is phenomenal. Claim is 24 hours; I've used it as long as 12 hours at high volume with the lights turned off and it still had power left. By far the longest lasting battery of any speaker I've tried. 3. Extreme water resistance. I got this primarily to use outside at my pool. And it is perfect for that. I don't care too much for the lights. They are fun for a little while but fortunately they are easy to turn off. The other "party" functions also don't serve a purpose for my needs but they stay out of your way if that's what you desire.

The build on this series is so rock solid. I get speakers for sound and quality, not bells and whistles, but this largest of the Sony portables has both. The waterproof--not splash resistant--waterproof casing is beautiful and can be rinsed off after a beach or yard day. The port cover is watertight as well. The lights are controlled solely by the app, which also controls sound settings. Lights are fun, but they do drain the battery much faster. Without light, you'll have an entire night and day of music, cut that in half with the effects. The separation of sound achieved by the angled speakers is impressive, although I prefer using the equalizer instead of the presets. Bass is amazing for a portable, beats any I have used. This thing does some party tricks like DJ effects that I could care less about, but some may delve into. It's solid, rich sound, EXCELLENT build quality, and attractive casing make it a winner. One drawback---you'll need to keep up with a charging cable that is not a standard USB charger.

You can't use the speaker Whit's low battery, and use the charger at the same time

I thought the XB in the model number was supposed to rent extra bass....not so much.

The speaker has good battery life when you turn the lighting off.

I have a lot of Bluetooth speakers and really didn’t need another one. But the Sony SRS XB41 piqued my interest and I decided to get “just one more”. Glad I did because this is easily the best sounding portable Bluetooth speaker I have ever owned or heard and it immediately became my “go to” mobile speaker. The sound -- is fantastic. I typically use the default “Extra Bass” mode, but Live mode does an impressive job expanding the soundscape to sound like a larger venue. My one issue with Live mode is that the lead voices, especially female leads, often get blended in too tightly with the music and would almost phase out completely for a few words here and there. If I listened to the same song in Standard or Extra Bass mode the same vocal phasing did not happen so I can only conclude that Live mode is just stumbling over what to do with those frequencies. It’s not a killer problem though, and usually obfuscates just a word or two here and there, but it intruded on the vocals enough that, as much as I liked the expanded soundscape, I won’t personally be using Live mode very often. The lights mode is fun but quirky and not as intuitive or flexible as I’d have thought. When I first unboxed the speaker it “seemed” to be in a light-to-the-beat mode. I say “seemed” because although the lights did kinda sorta seem to be responding to the beat at times, it appeared to mostly be more coincidental than intentional. Most of the time the lights just seemed to be doing their own semi-chaotic thing. Maybe that’s what you want, but it sure didn’t feel or look to me like the light algorithm was making much effort to actually complement the music. That’s not to say the lights weren’t cool, I love the lights, but it just wasn’t the coherent complement I was expecting. It came across as more like “hey there’s music so let’s randomly do something”. That sound though! Sony Music Center and Fiestable to the rescue! Sort of. I recommend getting the SMC first, see what it can do on its own, and then install the Fiestable module which adds some additional light and sound controls that you may be interested in. With the app you can flash the lights, pick a basic hue, play different “DJ” sounds, or set the sounds played by the speaker’s motion control abilities. It was the lighting controls I was personally most interested in as I love using lights for ambiance. There’s Rave mode for example which is more frenetic, several basic “calm” modes based on different core hues (lime, cyan, and red for example), and a few other modes in between. One light mode I really wanted, looked for, but couldn’t find was the ability to set the light to a single hue and for it to just stay that hue without changing. There are times when, for example, I want an LED light that just shines a particular color without variance. To just be still and stable. The “calm” modes were as close as I could get. And they’re nice, but sometimes I just want a light to be a color and not to blink or swell and that, disappointingly, doesn’t seem to be an illumination option at the moment. So when using this for home/office work I tend to either leave the speaker lighting off or in one of the “calm” modes so it’s not distracting. That sound though! You can also use the SMC app to control the EQ and even activate the line-in if you want. What’s weird though is that although I could activate the line-in from the app, I couldn’t find any way to then switch back to Bluetooth mode short of physically turning the speaker off and on again. I have to believe I’m just overlooking something, but I looked and looked. Either it’s not intuitive and obvious or somehow the ability to switch back to Bluetooth mode truly did just get overlooked and left out of the SMC app. Either way it can hopefully be fixed with an app update. Wireless Party Chain! One very cool aspect of these that I got just a tiny bit of exposure to is Wireless Party Chain, and with it you can sync something like 100 of these speakers and they will all wirelessly play the same audio. While that may be cool on paper, a more practical use may be to have just two of these in WPC mode, because then you have the ability to pick one of them to play just the Left audio while the other plays the Right audio. Or you can set them both to be mono. You may be able to set left/right/mono with more than two speakers in WPC mode, I just didn’t get to try it beyond that. That sound though! Yes, that sound. I keep coming back to that because, at the end of the day, that’s what a speaker is for and this speaker does it impressively well. I have an array of Bluetooth speakers that will now mostly be collecting dust thanks to the SRS XB41.

Good speaker for a 12 year old to have. I personally like higher quality sound like a Bose.

This is a cool speaker but the base is lacking. You I’m just a picky person

This speaker makes me want another one just like it. Price is about right at $149.

It's loud but lacks definition. My Bose Soundlink Mini still has better sound

Or my movies on the iPad Air it works good, but missing a little quality sound

Even though this is slightly larger than some of the portable speakers in this class, it still has much bigger sound than I expected. This is being presented as something ideal for a party, thanks to the light effects, and the sound is definitely there to fulfill that role. The light effects are also very impressive. The multicolored LEDs around the outside are somewhat timed to coincide with the music, and there are even lights that reflect off the speakers behind the grill. Add in the waterproof casing and easy to clean grill, and it's ideal for a party environment. The only caution is that to run off wall current (or to charge the battery), you need to open up the cover in back, exposing the connections and compromising its water resistance. However, there is plenty of battery capacity to make that optional. There is also an app you can use to customize the light effects to suit your preferences.

An item that was on sale and has great value compared to similar items in same category

I am just here for the points at this time. This is a nice speaker tho.

it is a very effective and excellent product and I recommend it

Great speaker but I only get about 7 hours of music at about 60% volume

I would buy another one ! I definitely would recommend this portable speaker

Wish you could adjust the trebile and base instead of just the live feature

Good price,excellent look and good sound, like conpatibily with other speakers.