Sony’s SRS-XB40 is a portable wireless speaker designed to take your party to the next level with Sony’s signature bass boost technology, rugged build and a customisable flashing light to add to the life of your party – you can even link up to 10 of them together to make it louder.
Most portable speaker manufacturers concentrate a lot on the portability aspect of their speakers, but not many think about what the other elements of what a party is all about, or at least give us that option. Sony has managed to create something that is easy to carry everywhere, sounds good and playful/enjoyable.
Sony SRS-XB40 Portable Wireless Speaker Design
The XB40 is pretty simple if that’s every a way to describe a product design, but the reason I call it simple is because it doesn’t have a lot of complicated buttons placed all over it, but a few buttons that do exactly what it says. If anything all that’s missing is probably a mini LCD display to show the time or something, but then again, this is not that kind of wireless speaker.
On the top area, you have the play/pause, call, add, Extra Bass, volume up/down and power buttons, and if you have an NFC-ready device, you can tap to connect very quickly which saves time going into your phone settings first to pair it up, although that doesn’t take long to do either – the pairing process only needs to be done once.
Having a call button there is quite obvious; you can use the speaker for calls too which could be useful for conference calls or group Skype calls. The two buttons worth focusing on a little more are the Extra Bass and the Add buttons; the Extra Bass just adds a punchier bass to your songs (more on this in the performance review section) and the Add button allows you to add other XB40s’ to create a party chain or you can use to create a Left and Right combo.
Moving over to the back of the XB40, you have some connection ports concealed under a flap -it’s there for water resistance; there’s a slight dip to place your fingertip to lift open the flap. Under the flap, you have the charging, aux and full USB ports; there’s also a little reset button there that requires a pin to press it, should you want to reset the XB40’s settings completely. Having a USB port is very useful as you can use it to charge your phone if the battery is running low.
On the front, though, is where the magic happens. Under the speaker grille, you have dual passive radiators that work together with two full-range speakers to enhance low-end tones, giving the bass a boost, and even without hitting the Extra bass button, you still get a solid performance from the drivers.
Elsewhere, under that same grille, you have strobe lights; this is where it gets exciting and becomes extra useful and fitting for parties. You can almost act like a professional DJ once you have the free Song pal app. The built-in multicoloured line light, speaker lights and a flashing strobe can be controlled to follow the beat.
Sony SRS-XB40 Portable Wireless Speaker Performance
It was actually incredible how loud and vibrant the XB40 is when it comes to its sound quality. Bass sounds punchy and you get no rattling or excess vibrations no matter where or which surface you place it. Battery life is quoted to last 24 hours on a full charge and you can’t dispute it – I got 22 hours out of it easily with its strobe light in action too. Battery performance varies depending on if you use the flashing lights and the temperature where you are.
Whether it’s battery or sound performance, the XB40 is definitely high up there on my list of wireless portable speakers to consider. It’s loud enough to fill a room on its own and when that’s not enough you can link up to ten of them together for a wireless chain party.
Sony SRS-XB40 Portable Wireless Speaker – Is It The Ultimate Party Speaker?
When push comes to shove, the XB40 is not just another wireless portable speaker on the market, it’s something that has more to offer. You can get creative with the SongPal app and pretend you’re the world’s best DJ at parties or get louder with up to ten XB40s’ – it’s light and very portable with a long battery life too.
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