Get Them Here
Both the new JBL Charge 5 and Sony XB33 are rocking all new speaker set ups from their predecessors. Specifically the Charge 5 is rocking a new tweeter over the Charge 4 where as the XB33’s speaker set up is drastically different from its predecessors cause it has new triangular drivers and passive radiators that shoot out its sides. Now both of these speakers sound good but if you’re looking into getting a mid sized speaker lets see which’s ones right for you cause the Charge 5 and XB33 do have some crucial differences.
One of which is going to be their pricing… the XB33 has a retail price of $150 but you can routinely find the XB33 on sale for $130. Which I feel is fair. Where as the Charge 5 has a retail price of $180 but I do expect it to go on sale for $150 on a regular basis. Now even though the Charge 5 is a little more expensive… it does feel more premium and has a better real world battery life than the XB33. But regardless if you want to pick either of these two speakers up they’ll be linked down below.
Now first lets talk about the designs of these speakers… like I mentioned earlier these are both mid sized speakers so you can easily throw them into your back pack and take them on the go with you. However I can’t help but notice that the Charge 5 is a little more compact than the XB33. Now minor size difference aside, the Charge 5 and XB33 still share the same design characteristics. They both have these exposed passive radiators on either side with these hard plastic end caps, they both have their control buttons up top and they both have a mostly fabric wrapped body which should be able to stand up to constant abuse without any problems. However I do gotta point out that the fabric weave on the Charge 5 feels more premium and much more tightly woven than the fabric on the XB33. So the charge 5 does feel more premium in your hands. Now this shouldn’t be a deciding factor for a speaker but it is an observation. Now even though the XB33 doesn’t feel as premium as the Charge 5… something that it does have going for it is this light feature. Now this isn’t the best light feature out there and you can barely see it when you're outdoors… but it is something. And from Sony’s app you can select from a few different lighting modes and you can even use Sony’s fiestable app to somewhat customize the color of this light feature. But regardless like I said, both of these speakers are mid sized speakers that you can easily throw into you back pack and take on the go with you… and you’re not going to have to worry about either of these speakers cause they’re both very durable thanks to their most fabric bodies, and since they’re rocking IP67 ratings they’re both water proof and dust proof.
But now lets talk about tech specs regarding battery life the Charge 5 has an advertised battery life 20 hours… but that 20 hours battery life is for when this speaker is playing at 50% volume, real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume the Charge 5 is good for about 10 hours of playback time. Not bad at all. But just keep in mind if you were to use this speaker at a higher volume than its battery is going to drain faster.
Now the XB33 has 2 advertised battery lives. It has an advertised battery life of 24 hours and an advertised battery life of 14 hours. Now the XB33 can hit 24 hours… but you gotta use it while at 50% volume, with its light feature turned off and while its in stamina mode. And quite frankly stamina mode makes this speaker sound very flat to the point where its not even worth using.
So real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume, while in extra bass mode which is how you should use this speaker and with its light feature turned on… its good for around 7 hours of playback time. Now if you were to use it with its light feature turned off you could stretch out its battery life a little but nonetheless the Charge 5 does have the better stamina here.
Now regarding connectivity both of these speakers can be connected 2 two devices at the same time so you and a friend can both be DJ. And performance wise both of these speakers have zero latency across the board when watching movies or videos on your phone whether you’re using an iPhone or an android device… but when it comes to audio codecs the XB33 does have support for higher quality audio codecs like AAC and LDAC where as from what I can tell the Charge 5 is still only using SBC.
But this now leads us to the ports on these speakers. Now both of these speakers charge via a USB C port as they should. And they both have a USB A out port so that you can charge your own devices. However neither of these speakers have an audio jack and you can’t use a wired connection with these speakers period cause the USB C ports on these speakers are strictly used for charging.
Personally I think it would be better if Sony and JBL traded the USB A out port for an audio jack cause I feel mid sized speakers like these should still have an audio jack just in case… and allow the USB C ports on these speakers to be used for both charging the speakers and for charging your own devices like the USB C port found on the Xtreme 3.
Cause I feel USB A isn’t going to be as popular in the near feature cause a lot of phones these days now come included with a USB C cable. Even iPhones now come included with a USB C to lighting cable. So I think it would be more beneficial if we kept the audio jack than holding on to the USB A port when we’ve got a perfectly good USB C port thats being under utilized. Cause for right now you can only use these speaker wirelessly.
But now lets talk about actually listening to music with these speakers. The XB33 has dual frontward firing triangular transducers and dual passive radiators that shoot out its sides. This is very similar to older JBL speakers like the Charge 3 and its similar to a lot of current speakers on the market. And the XB33 is has an output of 30 watts. Where as the JBL Charge 5 has a slightly different speaker up. The Charge 5 has a 30 watt woofer, a new 10 watt tweeter, and it has your typical dual passive radiators that shoot out its sides. Now the new tweeter on the Charge 5 is a pretty big deal cause it does help the Charge 5 sound more open and have better instrument separation cause the highs are handled by the tweeter and the mids are handled by the woofer. But let me just show you.
So like you may have just seen, both of the drivers on the XB33 are doing the same type of work. Where as with the Charge 5 the tweeter is taking care of the highs and the woofer is focusing on the mids. So over all the Charge 5 does sound noticeably more open than the XB33. But this time around the Charge 5 does have a slightly brighter sound signature to it very similar to the Xtreme 3.
So like you may have just heard these speakers sound very different from one another. From an instrument separation standpoint, the charge 5 sounds noticeably more open than the XB33 thanks to its new woofer and tweeter setup. However the Charge 5 does have a brighter sound signature to it which really likes to bring the vocals out. Where as the XB33 has a warmer sound signature to it… so vocals aren’t as pronounced but it does have more kick to its bass. Now the Charge 5 also has a good amount of kick to its bass but you do feel the bass a little more with the XB33. But when it comes to max volume the Charge 5 does get noticeably louder than the XB33 in part cause of its brighter sound signature. Now both of these speakers get more than loud enough for indoor use, but if you are looking for a speaker to mostly use out doors than you do want to go with the Charge 5 cause its brighter sound signature is also going to allow you music to travel out farther. But finally there are two key things to keep in mind about these speakers when it comes to sound. For starters the XB33 does allow you to adjust its EQ… so if you want you can bring out the mids a little bit. But no matter how much you play around with this EQ you’re not going to get the XB33 to sound like the Charge 5. And second neither of these two speakers are going to get you a performance bump in you use them while they’re plugged in like with the Xtreme 3 which also charges via a UBC port. Overall I think both of these speakers sound good, but personally I do prefer to listen to the Charge 5 cause of the better instrument separation. And I like that it get louder.
But finally lets talk about speaker pairing protocols… the Charge 5 is using JBL PartyBoost meaning that you can pair it up to other JBL PartyBoost speakers like a JBL Boombox 2, an Xtreme 3, a Flip 5, another Charge 5 or to a JBL Pulse 4. And like ive mentioned in the past JBL does speakers pairing protocols very well. You just press one button on each speaker, they pair themselves up, you don’t gotta open any apps, you can pair up to 100 speakers together which is over kill… but more importantly it just works.
However just keep in mind you can’t pair any JBL PartyBoost speakers to any other speakers that are either using JBL Connect or JBL Connect plus. So you can’t pair a Charge 5 to an original boombox, Xtreme 2, Flip 4, Charge 4, a charge 3, or a JBL Pulse 3. And you also can’t pair any JBL PartyBoost speakers to any JBL Partyboxes. So even though Partyboost is great there is some fragmentation to look out for.
Now sony also has some fragmentation to look out for. The XB33 is now using Sonys new Partyconnect, so you can only pair an XB33 to other Partyconnect speakers like either an XB43, another XB33 or an XB23. And unfortunately you can’t pair a Partyconnect speaker to any of Sony’s older speakers using Wireless Partychain.
And over all even though Partyconnect is a little more reliable than wireless party chain… party connect still isn’t as reliable as JBL’s Partyboost. It doesn’t connect as fast, sometimes it get disconnected from your phone, or sometimes it doesn’t pick up some speakers. So if you are planning on buying multiple speakers and constantly pairing them up I would recommend that you go with JBL cause party boost is easier to use and you have a wider range of speakers to choose from.
So with all that being said… when it comes to choosing between the JBL Charge 5 and Sony XB33 for me the clear winner here is the JBL Charge 5. Even though the Charge 5 does have a brighter sound signature this time around… thanks to its new Tweeter and Woofer speaker set up the Charge 5 has much better instrument separation than the XB33. But sound quality aside the Charge 5 does have the longer lasting battery life here without any compromises, it has the more reliable speaker pairing protocol and it also doesn’t hurt that the Charge 5 does have the more premium build quality. The only thing that I fell is missing on the Charge 5 is an audio jack cause you never know.