So I will be the first to admit that the last few speakers from sony have been rather lackluster. However, this new box speaker from Sony, the XV900… is actually pretty impressive. Its very large, it sounds good, it has a built in battery and I actually enjoy its light feature cause it has a large area of affect. If you’re looking for a larger box speaker for your man… but you also want the flexibility to use your speaker outdoors and not have to worry about a power outlet, then the XV900 is might be up your ally.
Regarding pricing, the XV900 has a retail price of $900. Now this is up there because for comparison sake, the Sony XP700 has a retail price of $550. But with the XV900 you’re paying for more sound. And then there’s the JBL Partybox 710 which has a retail price of $800… but with the sony, you’re paying for that built in battery. Overall, the XV900 is pricey, but im not mad at it. So if you want to pick this speaker up, it’ll be linked down below.
Now first lets talk about the design of this speaker cause there’s actually a lot to break down here. For staters this speaker is pretty big. It has a hight of 2 feet and 10 inches and a half, however it doesn’t have a huge foot print cause it has a base that is 16 inches by 17 inches. And the XV900 weighs in at almost 59 pounds. Now given that this speaker has a built in battery, its meant to be portable, and that’s why Sony was kind enough to throw in some built in wheels. But the problem here is that these wheels are very small and they have very little clearance. So unless you’re going to be rolling this speaker on a very smooth and flat surface… I advise that you pick this speaker up from the its handles. Case these wheels aren’t going to do much if you’re on carpet or asphalt. And personally, I really wish there there was a handle on the side of this speaker. Now again, given the built in battery in this speaker, you’ll might want to take it on the go with you… but durability wise, this speaker has a mostly plastic body with a metal grill on the front. And unfortunately, this very soft plastic simply loves to collect scratches. But scratches as aside, the main thing that you have to be worried about this speaker is simply water. The XV900 is rocking no IP water resistance what so ever, and its ports panel and charging port on the back have no rubber grommet to protect them from accidental water. And then, there’s the control panel up top. Now this control panel is elegant and its great for night time use… however, it doesn’t work as well if your fingers are wet. So even though yeah, this is a portable speaker cause of its built in battery… if you do plan on taking it somewhere or simply using it in your backyard… you’re really going to have to baby this speaker.
However, something that I really do like about this speaker is its light feature. Now personally I have always felt that Sony’s light feature fell short when compared to JBL’s light features… but I really like the new floor lights.. The floors lights just give this light feature a much larger area of affect… plus this light feature goes all around the speaker… it isn’t just in the front panel like with JBL’s light feature. Now from Sony’s app, you have a few different lighting modes to choose from. Now this app isn’t as sleek as with some other apps out there… but at least it gets the job done. Now you can also use Sony’s Fiestable app to customize this light feature… however, this app is a disaster… and thankfully you don have to use this app to change the color of this light feature cause you can choose what color you want directly from the control panel up top. But overall, I still feel that JBL’s light features are a lot more dynamic than the ones found on Sony’s speakers… and the light features on Sony’s speakers aren’t super visible during the day time… however, I really do like the XV900’s light feature cause it goes all around… and the floor lights really gives this light feature a much larger presence.
However, if you do decide to use the light feature on this speaker, that is going to affect your overall battery life. Now the XV900 has an advertised battery life 25 hours and I feel that that is very impressive. However, this advertised battery life of 25 hours is with this speaker playing at 30% which is already a decent listening volume… with its mega bass feature turned on, which is good… but with its light feature turned off. However, if you were to use this speaker with its light feature turned on then sony claims that its going to be good for 12 hours… a pretty big sacrifice if you ask me.
And at max volume, with the mega bass turned on and with the light feature turned on… Sony is claiming a battery life of 4 hours… but if you were to use this speaker with its light feature tuned off, then you’ll might get battery life of 5 hours. Basically what I am trying to say here is, sony always loves to put these big headline numbers when it comes to their battery life… but if you look at the fine print, it is not as outlandish as you’ll might think.
But in general, battery life on this speaker varies a lot depending on how you use it. If you use this speaker at a higher volume, that’s going to drain your battery life, if you use it with its light feature turned on, that’s going to drain your battery, or if you use it with its mega bass feature tuned on… that’s also going to drain your battery life.
Now the XV900 also has a stamina mode where it will turn off the light feature and turn off the mega bass feature… and this is going to help extend you battery life by a lot. Now just given the sheer size of this speaker… even if you use it with its mega bass feature turned off… you’re still going to have a lot of bass… but for the most dynamic listening experience… you do want to use this speaker with its mega bass feature turned on.
And when it comes to fast charging, sony claims that a 10 minute charge from a dead battery will get you 3 hours of playback time… granted, that with this speaker playing at 30 percent volume, with mega bass turned on, and its light feature turned off. But if you use this speaker while in stamina mode, you’ll be able to get more battery life out of it.
Now when it comes to connectivity, this speaker it using bluetooth but more importantly, it can be connected to two devices at the same time so that you and a friend can both be DJ, latency is not an issue if you’re going to watch a movie or video with this speaker… and when it comes to audio codecs it has support for SBC, AAC and Sony’s own LDAC.
But if you want to, you can always just use a wired connection with this speaker cause it still has a 3.5 millimeter audio jack, but unfortunately, the XV900 doesn’t have an audio out jack. So you can’t daisy chain any other speakers to this speaker. And personally I do feel that this is a let down, cause audio out jacks are pretty common for box speakers like this one.
However, the XV900 does have an optical port and it also comes included with an optical cable. So if you want, you can always connect it to your TV and watch a movie with it. Now I would have preferred an HDMI port, I think that would have been very impressive… but I guess the optical port is nice too. I just wonder how many people will actually use it.
Now the XV900 also has a USB A port so that you can charge your own devices and you can also plug in a USB stick and play music off of it. Now personally I just find it odd that this speaker only has 1 USB A port, cause XP700 has two USB A ports… but that doesn’t really matter to me… but like I alway say… I really wish these speakers also has a USB C port that would allow me to charge my own devices and use it as a wired connection if I wanted to.
But finally, the XV900 has dual quarter inch inputs, so if you want you can plug in a pair of microphones and do karaoke or you can also plug in a guitar. Now from Sony’s app you can also adjust the sound of these microphones… but personally I never touch them.
But now, lets talk about actually listening to music with this speaker. Regarding speaker set up, the XV900 has a giant frontward firing subwoofer with exhaust ports that shoot out the front… more on this later. It also dual frontward firing mid range drivers… and there’s a total of 6 tweeters on this thing. Two you can easily find on the front panel, but there’s also one on each side and there’s a second pair on the top of this speaker that shoot out the rear and upwards. Overall, I like how this speaker sounds… it doesn’t sound super warm like Sony’s other speakers… but so that you can hear for yourself, we’re going to jump into the soundtest. The XV900 is playing at 75% volume, we’re going to use it with mega bass turned on and we’re also going to use it while in stamina mode… and to make things a little more interesting, we’re also going to be including the super popular JBL Partybox 310. Except its playing at 87% volume and with its bass set to punchy.
So sound quality wise, I like how the XV900 sounds. It doesn’t sound shallow like with Sony’s other speakers cause first off, the XV900 just has a mess of tweeters that are constantly firing… but it also has those dedicated mid range drivers. Now the Sound quality difference between having Mega Bass turned on and stamina mode isn’t huge. Just given the XV900’s sheer size, you’re going to have a considerable amount of bass coming out of this speaker. However, if you have mega bass turned on, that bass is going to resonate more and punch harder. However, even while in stamina mode, the XV900 doesn’t get super flat like with Sony’s other speakers. Now even though the XV900 has an impressive amount of bass with its mega bass feature turned on… personally I did expect more bass out of it. Because when compared to the 310… the bass on the 310 did a really good job of keeping up with the bass on the XV900 and at times it did hit harder. And this is cause with the 310, you have your exhaust port shooting out the back. But also, thanks to this rear firing exhaust port, you can alway amplify the bass on the 310 by placing it against a wall. Where as, you simply can’t do that with the XV900 and its frontward firing exhaust ports.
Now when it comes to max volume, the XV900 gets very loud. Its gets noticeably louder than the XP700, it gets way too loud for indoor use and for outdoor use, the XV900 is going to be a great option. However, relative to its size, I can’t help but feel that the XV900 doesn’t get as loud as I would expect it to. Because to be straight up, the JBL 310 does a really good job of keeping up with this speaker at max volume. And thanks to its slightly brighter EQ… it does sound little louder as well. Ultimately, the XV900 sounds fuller, but the 310 isn’t far behind. And when compared to some of its direct competitors like lets say the Soundboks 3, or JBL Partybox 710… the XV900 is the quite one in the group. However, if you were to use this speaker while its plugged in, you are going to get a noticeable performance bump. Its going to get louder and its going to have more bass. While its plugged in, the XV900 is going to have no problem out preforming the 310. But the 710 and soundboks 3… the XV900 is going to struggle to keep up.
Now something that you could do so that the XV900 has a better shot of keeping up with the likes of the 710 and soundboks 3… which aren’t 1 to 1 comparisons… but I still feel the XV900 is still going to get compared to them… is you can go in and adjust the EQ on this speaker. And if you want to make is sound louder for outdoor use, then you could raise the mids and treble. But overall, the XV900 is a good sounding speaker that doesn’t sound super shallow like with past Sony speakers, and it gets incredibly loud. This thing gets more than loud enough for personal use. And it does out preform smaller options like either the JBL Partybox 310 or Sony XP700. However, when compared to similarly priced options… the XV900 does trail behind a little bit. But even though the XV900 does trail behind these other two speakers when it comes to max volume performance… the XV900 still has its reasons as to why you’ll want to go with over these other two options.
Now when it comes to pairing this speaker up with other speakers… the XV900 is using Sony’s party connect. Meaning that you can pair this speaker to other Sony party connect speakers like either another XV900, or to an XP700 or to an XP500… and you can have up to 100 speakers paired together which is obviously just ridicules.
But the real neat thing about Sony’s party connect is that you can pair your larger box speaker to Sony’s smaller more portable speakers that are also using party connect. So if you’ve got an XV900, you can also pair it up to either an XG500, XG300, XE300, XE200, XB43, XB33, or even an XB23. And this is very important to point out, cause you don’t have as much flexibility with JBL’s Partybox’s and Partyboost speakers.
But even though Sony’s Party connect gets the job done and its very accommodating… personally this is not my favorite speaker pairing protocol to use cause it can be a hassle sometimes. Sometimes it takes forever for all of your speakers to get paired up, sometimes all of your speakers don’t get paired, and sometimes echos do form. Now Party connect does fix these echos after awhile, but its only a matter of time before they come back.
But overall, Sony’s Party Connect is very accommodating and it gets the job done. But just be warned… if you plan on using this feature on a regular basis you could run into issues. And if you do run into issues, just know that its not just you.
But with all of that being said, the Sony XV900 is a very big portable bluetooth speaker that isn’t super durable. So if you do plan on taking this speaker with you someone where, you are going to have to baby it. Even though the XV900 has an advertised battery life of 25 hours… don’t expect to get anywhere near that kind of battery life if you’re trying to shake the walls in your house and have that light feature turned on. And even though I think this speaker sounds good and gets more than loud enough… when compared to its direct competitors… the XV900 doesn’t get as loud or have as much bass. Comparatively. But regardless, I still like and recommend the Sony XV900. The XV900 is a great option if you’re looking for a larger box speaker to single handedly fill your man cave with sound. The new expanded light feature also gives the XV900 a very large presence. And if you want to take it out of your man cave and you want to use it on the porch or backyard… the XV900 is game and you’re not going to have to go hunting for an outlet or an extension chord. Depending on your needs, the XV900 can make you very happy or a little disappointed.