Sony XB40 Portable Wireless Speaker with Bluetooth and Speaker Lights, Blue

I love these speakers. I got them for my flat screen TV since it's sound was terrible. They connect easily and sound great. The battery lasts a good long time. I've used it for the good portion of a day and have only run it down to about 70%. I also like that, in a pinch, you can charge your phone from this. And of course, you can use it while it's plugged in and charging. It feels solid. Very good quality. The only issue that I have is with the app that they have which can control the volume from your phone. My experience is that it works once and then I get an error message when I try again. And, once connected to my TV, I can no longer use the volume control on the remote for my TV (the volume control on the speakers still work). But those are minor concerns to me. Several people who I've shown these to were very impressed with the sound and have bought their own. I'm thinking of getting another one. I got this one for $168 and find them very much worth the money.

I have had the XB40 for a year. I recently bought the XB41 a half year ago. The price isn't too bad. It is expected compared to the other brands. Sony in my mind is a quality sound speaker producer. I know interesting way to describe it but if it gets my point across it does the job. The sound is fantastic, pretty loud. definitely can fill a room up. This thing can be loud. The bass is great you can really feel it being 5-8ft away, you can feel it in the furniture. Overall Good and worth getting for a portable speaker for around $100.Now compared to the XB41.I'm actually liking the XB40 more than the XB41. I find the XB41 not as loud or as strong bass as the XB40. XB41 has a longer battery life. the speaker placement on it is nice and it looks nice but the sound and bass is not good as the XB40. It is all up to preference. This is just another review and I'm not a professional also my hearing might not be as good as yours.Overall XB40 is a good portable speaker for its price. It is loud, full of bass, and it is nice.

Pros: After short break in period sound became best I've heard in portable Bluetooth speakersLights add some more energy to the musicKiller battery life to last a long timeCons:Software... Music center and Fiestable are slow.After changing lights to my preferences it resets after reboot to regular on each start.Would give 4.5 because of the software issues that make the speaker skip and wouldn't retain the reprogram of the lights. The sound at first was kind out a let down, for the first day it sounded rough and muddled. After it was broken in it was 100% cleaner sounding the second day of use. The other aspects of the speakers could be improved and that can be done if they redo their app and make it smoother and retain the changes made on the speaker.Overall I'd heavily recommend this speaker. Even over the Jbl charge 3 which was my favorite until now. At the price I paid I got a steal. Hope this helps

I have a Chromecast which I used to use for music listening in my room. I used my nice speakers and sub which sounded nice, and I had few complaints. However... it takes some time to start everything up: turn on the TV, turn on the audio system, make sure you're connected to the exact same network as the Chromecast, and then (if there are no random technical issues) you can go to the song you're listening to and hit "cast". Bluetooth devices, while maybe not delivering the highest fidelity audio, are very convenient... you turn it on, it auto-syncs to your phone, and then whatever you're listening to is automatically streamed. This is what I wanted in my room for my lazy ass.So far I've used this speaker to listen to various EDM, rock, jazz, funk, acoustic, classical, podcasts and audiobooks. I've had a pleasant experience with all of them, though it's a lot to get out at once. I'm gonna break this up into a few categories to more easily get my thoughts out.Sound:- The highs and mids sound really nice. I have yet to hear any harshness from the high end.- The soundstage seems way bigger than I'd expect from a relatively small stereo speaker. I wonder how they did that...- The bass is powerful for such a (relatively) small speaker. Don't get me wrong, you're not going to want to use this for a big house party or DJ set. But it's been pleasantly punchy for my bass-heavy music without giving me weird distortion / resonating vibration.- Apparently, you can sync this up with another one for a wide stereo setup (which I haven't tried). You can also sync 100 of them together for some reason?? If I had the money I'd try it, but WHY thoughVisual:- I got the plain black one because I thought it looked nicer. It's very unassuming which I appreciate... doesn't draw attention to itself if you don't want it to. But when you want it to...- Turn on the lights! They look really cool, and *attempt* to sync with your music. Sometimes it succeeds, but it's generally pretty slow and delayed. I get it, it's hard for a little speaker like this to do music visualization syncing, but it's a little disappointing. I still leave it on, though, because it looks cool.General:- The battery is great. I've used it on-and-off for a few days without charging, with the lights and "Extra Bass" both on. Not sure the actual number of hours, but it's been very convenient.- The interface for "next track" and "previous track" is NOT good. Press the play button once to play/pause. Press it twice to play the next track. Press it three times to play the previous track. I really would have preferred two more dedicated buttons for that...- I love being able to pick this up and put it anywhere. I'll listen to it in my room, then bring it into the bathroom so I can jam while I shower. I know that probably applies to any bluetooth speaker, but I love it.- I have "Extra Bass" on all the time. It basically just makes it sound better all the time. HOWEVER, you'll probably want to turn this off for spoken audio, like podcasts and audiobooks. It can make voices sound strange, and a bit harder to understand. Unless you really want a deep, bassy voice crooning at you, which I definitely understand.That's all I can stream-of-consciousness out right now. Thanks for reading my essay if you just read all that. If it was too much:TLDR: Great sound as promised. Cool lights that aren't quite as good as promised. Weird button UX. Great battery. Buy!

The Sony SRS-XB_0 series was the peak of their Bluetooth speakers. I own pairs of the 10 ,30 and 40. 6 years later they all still sound fantastic. I think a big reason is this generation isn't waterproof so there were no sound compromises.