Customer Ratings & Reviews

Sony's packaging is always boring but they use minimal materials so just about everything can be recycled. The speaker at first glance is solid and we'll built, great quality feel to it and very portable. Sony's line of SRS-XB speakers are fun and well built with the quality sound to back them up. This one doesn't let you down either. At about 5lbs it's simple to move around or take with you on the go with the integrated handle. Can be plugged in or charged and ran wire free. Also has type c port for charging speaker or use to charge your phone. Audio sounds great and the LED lighting that synchs up with the beat. The live sound and extra bass and to the fun. Great for by the pool or on the beach, even toss it in the shower without worry. Also a great feature is that you can synch these type of Sony speakers together for a great party or whole home audio. The built in Google is nice and was easy to synch up with my other Google speakers throughout our home.

Pros: Excellent battery life, great sounding portable smart speaker with nice extension into lower frequencies, USB-C port for charging devices. Cons: Needs Sony companion app to change lighting program, no custom light color selection. I've listened to all of the Amazon Echo and quite a few Google Assistant compatible speakers and this one is in a league of it's own when it comes to sound quality and extended unplugged use. I own 7 Insignia Voice portable speakers for every room in my house and while they are portable, they remain stationary in each room. I use the Sony SRS-XB501G as a roaming speaker within my home network and as a bluetooth speaker for family outings away from the house. Compared to my Insignia Voice speakers, the Sony's output a cleaner and tighter sound with wider frequency response. Caveats, it's bigger, bulkier and the sound is unidirectional. Sound is softer when you are behind the speaker whereas with the Insignia, sound coverage is pretty even omnidirectionally. I had originally planned on keeping the LED lights off all the time and thought the light show feature was tacky and gimmicky. Surprise surprise, I actually keep it on 90% of the time as my 1 year old son loves dancing to his favorite songs along with the lights flashing and strobing. If I were to nitpick, I wish I had the ability to select a custom color or color range to cycle through, but unfortunately we can only choose from preset algorithms for music genres. Furthermore, changing through these preset programs have to be done through Sony's Music Center app. It would've been great if users could cycle through a single color mode or range (example: blue, green and purple only) or at the very least toggle lighting presets directly on the speaker unit. Battery life is great and easily lasts days at a time with intermittent use throughout the day. The threaded tripod mount at the base is a nice touch, but you'll need a beefy tripod to support the weight of this speaker. I don't see myself using this feature, but can see where it would come in handy in a party setup where you need the sound to carry farther. I usually place the speaker on a table or on the floor.

The speaker has good Bass sound. It is too large for putting it in a backpack and hiking it to a river or lake. Great for use around the house or car access points.

Upon receipt of this speaker, included documentation instructs you to install the Google Home app to interface with the speaker. I already had the app installed on my phone, so I was good to go. I plugged the speaker in using the included power wall charger and left it alone. Within minutes, the speaker – without any prompting – initiated the setup cycle. Using the Google Home app, it had me identify my home network and to specify where in my house the unit would be located. For me, that was the backyard. I selected “Backyard” in the app and that’s how it will be known. The speaker was setup and working in just minutes. The documentation offered some helpful insights, like that the Live Sound Button when turned on gives you a real 3-dimensional listening experience. With Live Sound turned off, the music seemed directional and flat. With Live Sound turned on, it sounded great. It sounded much more dispersed and well – 3D’ish. Internal speakers are angled to disperse the sound/music to a wider area when Live Sound is used. That certainly proved true in my testing. The sound remained crisp and clear even as I turned up the volume. The unit has an IP65 rating, making it splash resistant and dustproof. I normally wouldn’t place a speaker where it would get wet, but this is Florida and it does rain a lot. Being dust-proof makes a whole lot of sense and is more applicable to my situation. Lastly, the documentation noted that the speaker has an array of lights around the face of the unit. The lights sync with the music, they say, creating a party atmosphere. I’m looking forward to our next party to see how the lights sync with Rock music. No Disco music here! The documentation recommended downloading the Sony Music Center app from the Google Play store, which I did. The Sony Music Center is also available on the Apple App Store, for you iPhone users. Once installed, the app went through a setup procedure, which included syncing the speaker’s Bluetooth to my phone (Pixel 2XL). I don’t normally have my phone’s NFC turned on but turned it on for the sync’ing process. Touching my phone to the top of the speaker immediately linked speaker and phone. Funny enough, the speaker automatically began playing the Audiobook I had been listening to. Got a strange look from my wife when the voice actor on the audiobook started screaming. Uh, sorry dear! In running the Sony Music Center app, it listed for me all the streaming music apps I had installed on my phone. I could then stream music to the speaker from any of these services or using music files already installed on my phone. From a battery-life perspective, Sony suggests that it will have a 16-hour life. Over time, battery-life will shorten as the batteries get older. Still, that’s a good bit of time. Google Assistant is built into the speaker thus permitting you to ask the speaker questions. For example, first prompt it by saying “Hey Google”. Then say: “How’s the Weather?” or “Increase or Decrease the temperature (if you have a Nest or other compatible Thermostat) by 1 degree”, or any number of other Google Assistant commands. You can also say things like: “Play the best of Journey” or “What’s the score in the ‘Name of team’ game”. I use Google Assistant for many things, so this fits well in our growing home network. There are also preset buttons on the top of the speaker. When pressed, the button titled “Battery” will tell you how much battery power is available. There’s a button that looks like a microphone with a line through the image, meaning that this is how you’d turn off Google Home from listening for the “Hey Google” command. There is a Bluetooth Button that lets you turn on/off Bluetooth for the speaker. Remember, if the speaker isn’t playing the music streaming from your phone make sure that the Bluetooth Button is turned on. In addition to the Power Button, Volume Up/Down Buttons and the Live Sound Button, there is also a Light Button that turns the front facing lights on and off. I’m sure turning these off will save battery life if the speaker is running short on power. For me, this is a well thought out speaker. I have some other Sony products and I think all the latest products from Sony continue to amaze. I highly recommend this speaker!

I didn’t care for this Bluetooth. I was looking for more bass and loud sound & it just didn’t have it

Charged the unit to 100% a day before I planned to use. I turned it on the next day to only get a “battery low” message. Perhaps the specific unit I had was defective. I returned the item.

It's okay....don't expect a concert hall, but this things come in handy

When I bought it I though it's too loud buts its not

Purchased for a gift , I really liked the speaker when I saw it at Best Buy’s , unfortunately they were out of stock , I ordered one on line from Best Buy’s , I picked it up on the 6 th of July in Salem NH got it home it wouldn’t connect to any phone , we tried different ways but failed , ended up returning it after so much hassle blue tooth never turned on it came in defective I guess , I WAS VERY UPSET

WOW - this thing sounds fantastic , plus has the "extra-bass" without being too much! NOTE - the 16 hours that it's rated for is only without the lighting ! The Google Assistant is a great additional as well. It's nice to be able to be in the pool and tell it to play a song without having to get out and grab your phone!

The speaker is very loud but only lasted 6 months. Won’t turn on at all.

Wasent satisfied with the sound! Looks nice with the colors but quality sound is not what you expect for the large size speaker

This is a good package to take on the go. I brought mine to the park and to the beach and had absolutely no issues. SONY lived up to the hype that the  SRS-XB501G is water and dust proof. I would not recommend testing that beyond a day or evening on the beach. :) I typed that I went to both the park and beach, well I also had a good 2 hours play later that evening on my patio.... ALL ON THE SAME CHARGE!!!! The  SRS-XB501G has a pretty remarkable battery life for a package this good, and coupled with the different sound modes and extra BOOM from the sub, it's pretty darn cool. I love the responsive LED lighting, it completes the experience and of course Google Assistant is integral. Grab one and go 4 wheeling, to the beach camping or fishing. When it gets dirty, just rinse it off and the  SRS-XB501G is good to go again.

This big little speaker is the life of the party. It produces great sound and is great for backyard partying. I really like how light weight this thing is and how clean the music sounds even at high volume. As far as set up make sure you follow the provided instructions and download the music center app. Once you’ve set that up every follow on step is easy. I like that it has the google home feature which allows you to ask it question such as the outside temp or request songs for it to play. All in all this is a great little speaker that makes it convenient to DJ a party. Another big hit for a sound system by Sony.

Sony makes really good quality speakers and this one is no different. I love the fact that its loaded with features. Almost all of my electronics and even my lighting system is operated with Google voice and i really love and appreciate the fact that Sony included this feature in these speakers. The sound is crisp and clear with a nice base. Setup was easy enough I think even a person who may not be tech savvy would have no problems setting up. I also LOVE the lightup feature its going to make having gatherings at my condo come to life I'm very excited for my next gathering. The fact that its water resistant is just the cherry on top.

Would be a good speaker if the battery life was better.

I rated this fair because I didn’t like google voice assistance.

A speaker with Alexa or Google Assistant is all that I will get now. Most people go with one or the other, but I have both Alexa and Google Assistant devices and I like both. The convenience of the speaker functioning without needing a phone or tablet is well worth it. This speaker has Google Assistant built in and it sets it apart from the other Sony speakers that I have. I or anyone else just says, "Hey, Google. Play..." and it plays. You can also ask it questions and play games on it as you could with a Google Home. But that would be a waste, in my opinion because the sound that this thing puts out is awesome. As a speaker, it's the best portable speaker that I own. I have many Bluetooth speakers without Alexa or Google Assistant and this one surpasses them all in sound and convenience. You can customize the sound in the app after you download it. To get the speaker going, though, you actually need to connect to the Google Home app because of the built in Google Assistant. I turned on the speaker and opened the app (which I already had) and it appeared right away. I added it and ran through the setup and was asking for music right away. I did test it with all the other Google Assistant functions, like what's the weather and what happened in the stock market, etc. It works just like it should. But for me, this speaker is all about music. Great sound and the lights add a nice touch. My complaints are minor. The battery life when it's not in use could be better. When my other speakers are off they rarely lose battery life. This one will have lost 5-10% when not in use for a week. Not horrible and maybe I'm spoiled by the others, but I didn't expect that. I also could not group it with my other Sony speakers in the Music Center app, but that's a minor fault and does not really reflect on the speaker. More on Sony. But it would be nice to place this as the control with my others that I can group together. But as far as this speaker, I highly recommend it.

Sony is never the "low cost" alternative, but you get what you pay for. This speaker is simple to connect, clear sights and booming bass. The party lights are a nice touch About the size of a bowling ball, but obviously much lighter Love this for gym workouts and simple get together - fills the room with a balanced sound Pay a little more, and receive much in return

Quit connecting to wifi after 7 months. Will connect for 5-10 minutes, at most and then drop connection. Plan to return under warranty.