Personally, I really enjoy the new Sony XV900. Its a large portable box speaker that’s a good option for your man cave… and if you want you can always take it out doors and use it around the house, without having to rely on having a wall outlet nearby. However, the XV900 is pretty big… so today we’re going to see how its smaller siblings, the XP700 and XP500 stack up.
Now when it comes to pricing… the XP500 is the most affordable speaker here retailing for $400. The XP700 has a retail price of $550 and the XV900 has a retail price of $900. However, in sony fashion all of these speakers like to routinely go on sale. Nonetheless, if you want to pick any of these speakers up, they’ll be linked down below or you can always press on the YouTube shopping button.
Now first lets talk about the design of these speakers. Now if you need something portable, the XP500 is going to be the most convenient option here cause its the smallest and lightest speaker here weighing in at 25 pounds. Now the XP700 is relatively easy enough to travel with as well and a single person can manage to move this speaker all by themselves cause it weighs in at 37 pounds. Where as with the XV900… this speaker is significantly larger than these other two speakers and moving this speaker around can sometimes be a two person job cause of its size and cause it weighs in at 59 pounds. Now the XV900 does have built in wheels… but these wheels are really only useful if you’re on a flat and smooth surface. Cause if you try to use these wheels while you're on asphalt, you’re just better off carrying it. Now even though all of these speakers are technically portable… they aren’t the more durable speakers out there. All of these speakers are using relatively soft plastics and they are very quick to collect scratches… and they all have thin metal grills on the front which are easy to dent. However, with both the XP500 and XP700, these smaller speakers are IPX4 rated meaning that they are water resistant… so a little bit of rain or a spill won’t hurt them… Where as the XV900 has no water resistance to it and it doesn’t even have rubber grommets on the back to protect its port panel and charging port. So with all of these speakers… if you plan on taking them somewhere, you are going to have to baby them… but especially the XV900. And also, I do have to point out that none of these speakers have a top hat mount on the bottom. So you can’t use a speaker stand mount on either the XP500 or XP700 like you can with some other speakers out there.
But next up there’s the light feature on these speakers. Now personally I am not very impressed with the light feature found on both the XP500 and XP700. They’re small, they aren’t all that dynamic and sometimes they can be hard to see. But personally, I do enjoy the light feature found on the XV900. This light feature goes all around the speaker, its a little more dynamic… but more importantly, it has floor lights which gives this light feature a much larger area of effect. Now you definitely shouldn’t pick up a speaker cause of its light feature… but I do like the light feature on the XV900 and I really hope that Sony’s future box speakers also have floor lights.
However, if you do decide to use the light feature on these speakers, that is going to take its toll on the battery life. Now when it comes to the battery life on these speakers, sony loves to put these large headline numbers… but in reality you’re not going to get as much battery life as what’s advertised on the box, depending on how you use these speakers.
Now both the XV900 and XP700 have an advertised battery life of 25 hours… however that advertised battery life is with both of these speakers playing with their light features turned off, but with their mega bass turned on. And with the XP700 that is with it playing at 25% volume, which is an okay listening volume… and with the XV900, that’s with it playing at 30% volume which is a really good listening volume.
However, if you were to use both of these speakers at max volume, with their light features turned on and with their mega bass feature turned on… the XP700 is going to be good for about 5 hours of playback time and the XV900 is going to be good for about 4 hours of playback time. So battery life on these speakers really varies depending on how you use them… and if you’re trying to use these speakers at higher volume and if you’re trying to shake the walls in your house… don’t expect to get anywhere near the advertised battery life of 25 hours on these speakers.
But then there’s the XP500, now this speaker has an advertised battery life of 20 hours and that’s with this speaker playing at 30% volume, with its mega bass feature turned on but with its light feature turned off. However, 30% volume on this speaker is very quite… its good for like maybe ambiance, but its not good for actually listening to music. And even at max volume, this speaker does sound underwhelming when its running off of its internal battery. So, since I feel that most people are going to have to use this speaker at like 80 or to 100% volume on a regular basis… that’s going to cause you to drain this battery super quick.
Now when it comes to bluetooth connectivity, all of these speakers can be connected to two devices at the same time, so that you and a friend can both be DJ, they all have zero latency across the board when watching videos with them… and when it comes to audio codecs, they all have support for SBC, AAC, and LDAC.
But if you want to you can always just use a wired connection with any of these speakers cause they all still have a 3.5 millimeter audio jack. But unfortunately, none of these speakers have an audio out jack, so you can’t daisy chain any other speakers to these speakers like you can with some other box speakers out there. However, something that the XV900 does have going for it is that it has an optical port, and it comes included with an optical cable… So if you want, you can always connect this speaker to your TV.
And finally, all of these speakers have USB A ports on them so that you can charge your own devices… or you can also plug in a USB stick and play music off of it. But like I always say, I really wish that these speakers had USB C ports on them that would allow me to charge my phone and or use it as a wired connection.
But more importantly, all of these speakers have dual quarter inch inputs so that you can plug in a pair of microphones and do karaoke… or you can also plug in guitar. The only thing to keep in mind here is, you can’t adjust the sound of this microphone like you can with some other speakers out there.
But now, lets talk about actually listening to music with these speakers. Regarding speaker set up, all three of these speakers are fairly different. The XP500 has your standard dual frontward firing woofers with and exhaust port that shoots out the back and it has dual frontward firing tweeters. Pretty standard if you ask me. Where as with the XP700… it also has dual frontward firing woofers with an exhaust port that shoots out the back… but this speaker has a total of 4 tweeters on it. Three of which are found on the front and there’s one that shoots out the back and upwards. However… all of these tweeters aren’t always firing. If you have this speaker standing up right it’ll use these two tweeters and the one on the back… and if this speaker is on its side it’ll use these two tweeters. And finally there’s the XV900 which I feel has the most interesting set up here. This speaker has a huge frontward firing woofer with exhaust ports that shoot out the front… there’s dual mid range drivers… and this speaker has a total of 6 tweeters on it that are shooting all of the time. There are two tweeters on the front… there is a tweeter on each side, and there are two more tweeters that shoot out the back and upwards. But now, we’re going to jump into the soundtest. All of these speakers are playing while running off of their internal battery and they’re all playing with their mega bass feature turned on. However the XV900 is playing while at 75% volume where as these other two speakers are playing at max volume.
So sound quality wise, in general Sony’s speakers lean more towards a warmer sound signature. But peronsally, I can’t help but feel that the XV900 doesn’t sound as warm as these other two speakers and it sounds more open… thanks to the mess of tweeters found on this speaker… and also the dedicated mid range drivers which helps give this speaker more definition in the mids and vocals than with these other two speakers. So with the XV900, I do feel that you are going to get better sound quality out of it when compared to these other two speakers. But more noticeably with the XV900 this speaker is going to get much louder and have more wall shaking than these other two speakers. Now with the XP700… I feel that this speaker gets decently loud and has a decent amount of bass while its running off of its internal battery. Where as with the XP500… like I mentioned earlier… this speaker just doesn’t get as loud as you’d expect when its running off of its internal battery. However, if you were to use any of these speakers while they are plugged in, you are going to get a performance boost out of them. They’re all going to get louder and they’re all going to have more bass. And when you use the XP500 while its plugged in… that’s when this speaker preforms as you’d expect. But obviously, the XP700 is going to be louder and the XV900 is going to be even more loud. So overall when it comes to sound quality… all of these speakers lean towards warmer sound signature… now if you want to get a brighter sound signature out of these speakers, you can always customize their EQ to your liking… But sound quality wise, obviously the larger the speaker the louder and more bass its going to have… however with the XV900 I do feel that this speaker has better instrument separation and better definition in the mids thanks to its mess of tweeter and dedicated mid range drivers.
But finally lets talk about pairing these speakers up with other speakers. Now all of these speakers are using party connect… so you can wirelessly pair your XV900, XP700, or XP500 to one another and get them to play in sync and you can have up to 100 speakers paired together. However, if you want to get left and right stereo sound going, you need to have 2 of the same speakers.
However, the really cool thing about Sony’s party connect if that you can pair your larger box speakers to any of Sony smaller speakers that are also using party connect. So you can always pair any of these box speaker to either the Sony XG500, XG300, XE300, XE200, or to an XB43, XB33 or to an XB23.
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.
So 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, personally I really like and recommend the Sony XV900. I think the XV900 is a great speaker to consider if you need something big to fill your man cave with sound… but also if you want, you can always use it around the house or outside without having to worry about needing a power outlet. And thanks to its speaker set up, I feel that the XV900 has better instrument separation and better defined mids than these other two speakers. But then there’s the XP700, now this speaker is more portable than the XV900… but personally it is very hard for me to recommend this speaker as strongly as I recommend the XV900 cause the XP700 does get outshined by its direct competitor. However, if you’re someone that’s already heavily invested in Sony’s speaker eco system… it could make sense to go with the XP700. And finally there’s the XP500. Again getting this speaker really only makes sense if you’re already heavily invested in Sony’s speaker eco system… but just be warned, if you do deiced to pick up the XP500… its volume performance can be a little underwhelming when running off of its internal battery.