So for the past few months sony has been upgrading their box speaker lineup with their new XV family of speakers. And I personally really like the Sony XV900 and the XV800 is great as well. But now we have the newest addition to the XV family, the Sony XV500 and it does have some upgrades over the XP500 .
Regarding pricing, the Sony XV500 has a retail price of $400 which is average for a box speaker of this size, but knowing sony, I do expect this speaker to go on sale from time to time. Nonetheless, if you want to pick this speaker up it will be linked down below or you can always press on the YouTube shopping button.
Now first lets talk about the design of this speaker, the XV500 is slightly smaller and much more rounded than the XP500, and personally I like it. Up top, the control buttons are now capacitive, but more importantly, they light up which I think is super useful for at night use. But besides that, the XV500 is very similar to the XP500, both of these speakers are relatively small and easy to take on the go with you and they both weigh in at 25 pounds. However from a durability standpoint, both of these speakers are IPX4 rated meaning that some water or rain wont hurt them, but they both have mostly plastic bodies which can be scratch magnets, and they both have a thin metal grill on the front which can get dented easily. And unfortunately, the XV500 still doesn’t have a speaker stand mount on the bottom like with some other speaker out there.
And when it comes to the light feature on the XV500, its very similar to the light feature on the XP500. We’ve got a light bar at top that looks nice, and from Sony’s app you can choose from a few different lighting modes. But if you want to customize the color of these lights, you have to use the fiestable app. Overall, I feel the light feature on the Sony XV500 get the job done, but it isn’t as dynamic as the light feature that you’ll find on other box speakers out there.
However, when it comes to the battery on this speaker, this is something that has been upgraded from the XP500. Now the XP500 has an advertised battery life of 20 hours, where as the XV500 has an advertised battery life of 25 hours… a 5 hour increase which is not bad at all.
However, this advertised battery life of 25 hours on the XV500 is with it playing at 36 percent volume, and with the light feature turned off but with the mega bass feature turned on, which is good. However, 36% volume on this speaker is good for like ambiance, but not really for lisenting to music. And if you were to use it with the light feature turned on, than your battery life is going to go down all the way to 12 hours.
But real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume, with the light feature turned on and with mega bass turned on, its going to be good for about 8 hours of playback time which is around the same as the XP500. And at max volume, sony says that this speaker is going to be good for up to 4 and a half hours.
However, if you want to extend the battery life on this speaker, then you can always use it while in stamina mode, and stamina mode is going to turn off both the lights and the mega bass. However, since mega bass is turned off thats going to make this speaker sound very flat.
Now regarding connectivity, the XV500 can be connected to any two bluetooth devices at the same time so that you and a friend can both be DJ, latency is not an issue so you can watch videos with this speaker and when it comes to audio codecs, the XV500 has support for SBC, AAC and LDAC just like the XP500. However just keep in mind that if you want to use LDAC you do have to be an android user cause iPhone’s top out at AAC and LDAC does take an additional toll on the battery life.
But now lets talk about ports, now the XV500 has your standard 3.5 millimeter audio jack so that you can use it with a wired connection. However, the XV500 still doesn’t have an audio out jack, but more importantly, the XV500 doesn’t have an optical port like with both the XV800 and XV900. So you cant use the XV500 as sound bar, which I felt was a nice touch in Sony’s new XV family of speakers.
However, the XV500 still has a USB A port so that you can charge your own devices, or you can plug in a USB stick and play music off of it. Now I think this USB A Port is great for international markets, but here in the states, this port isn’t going to get much use cause most phones these days come with a USB C to USB C charging cable.
But also, the XV500 has 2 quarter inch inputs so that you can plug in 2 microphones for karaoke, and or you can plug in a guitar. And from the control panel on the back, you can add an echo to your microphone, and you can also adjust the key of your music. But personally I wouldn’t use any of these extra settings if im going to do karaoke with this speaker.
But with all of that out of the way, lets talk about sound. Regarding speaker set up there have been some changes here. Now both the XP500 and XV500 have dual frontward firing woofers and dual frontward firing tweeter… however the tweeters on the XV500 are a little larger than the tweeters found on the XP500… and also the exhaust port on the XV500 now shoots out the front instead of out of the back like with the XP500.
But before we jump into the soundtest, we do have to talk about the volume performance on these speakers. Now the XV500 has the same volume situation as the XP500. When these speakers are running off of their internal batteries, they can be a little quite… so you have to use them at higher volumes when compared to other box speakers out there. And at max volume they dont get as loud as with some other box speakers out there. However, if you use these speakers while they are plugged in, they get a very big performance bump. They get louder and they have more bass. Now a lot of other box speakers out there also see a performance boost when they are plugged in, but the performance difference on the XV and XP500 is much larger than with other speakers out there. But with that being said, we’re going to jump into the sound test. All of these speakers are playing at 75% volume, and we are going to use them while they are plugged in and while they are unplugged, and we’re also going to use the XV500 with its mega bass turned off.
Sound test
So like you may have just heard. There is a big sound difference when the XV500 is unplugged versus when its plugged in. So again with the XV500 if you’re going to use it while its running off of its internal battery you’re going to have to use it at higher volumes, but when this speaker is plugged in, it sounds and performs very well. Personally I recommend in you’re going to host a party with the XV500, you use it while its plugged in. But from a sound quality standpoint, the XV500 does sound different from the XP500. First, the XV500 sounds a lot more balanced than the XP500… its doesn’t put such a strong emphasis on the bass. But also, the XV500 has better instrument separation and its sounds more open than the XP500… and the XV500 has slightly more detailed highs than the XP500 and thats thanks to the newer, larger tweeters. But also, if you want a water sound signature from the XV 500, you can always adjust its EQ to your liking, but personally I like the stock EQ.
But finally lets talk about paring this speaker up with other speakers. Now the Sony XV500 is using Sony’s Partyconnect and you can wirelessly pair it up with other party connect speakers like the Sony XV900, XV800, XP700, or XP500 and you can get them to play in sync, and you can pair up too 100 speakers together… or if you have two of the exact same speakers you can get them to play in left and right stereo mode.
But the cool thing about Sony’s partyconnect is that you can connect your larger box speakers to any of Sony’s smaller more portable speakers that are also using party connect like the XG500, XG300, XE300 or XE200, or to the XB43, XB33 or XB23.
And in order to pair your speakers together you can do that through Sony’s app. Now personally I have seen that if you have up to 3 speakers paired together, things work just fine… however if you’re trying to pair 4 or more speakers together, I have seen that there can be some issues sometimes. Sometimes you have to go through the pair process multiple times and sometimes skipping can happen. But this usually only happens if you have more than 3 speakers connected.
But with all of that being said, the Sony XV500 is a refined version of the XP500. Most importantly it sounds better cause it has a more balanced sound signature and it sounds more open. Design wise the XV500 looks a little better in my opinion cause its a little rounder, but more importantly the buttons up top now light up. However, the XV500 still has the same max volume performance situation as the XP500, it can be a little quite when running off of its internal battery, but when plugged in, this speaker gets a big performance boost and performs jut as you’d expect.