The Sony SRS-RA5000 is a sleek and elegant speaker with three up-firing speakers on its top, three drivers in its middle, and an integrated subwoofer. It supports Sony's '360 Reality Audio' virtual surround format, though you can only use it with premium music streaming apps like Amazon Music HD and TIDAL. It also has an 'Immersive Audio Enhancement' feature you can use when '360 Reality Audio' isn't available, advertised to enhance your stereo audio content and make it more immersive; we don't currently test these features. This speaker has great directivity, resulting in a wide and open-sounding soundstage. It also comes with a graphic EQ and presets to customize its sound to better suit your preferences.
Our Verdict
The Sony SRS-RA5000 is alright for music. With its room correction feature turned on, it has a relatively well-balanced sound profile, making it suitable for listening to a wide variety of music genres. Its well-balanced mid-range ensures vocals and lead instruments sound present in the mix. However, it struggles to reproduce low-bass, so you can't feel the deep thump and rumble typically present in bass-heavy music. That said, there's a graphic EQ and presets you can use to tweak its sound to your liking.
- Graphic EQ and presets.
- Great directivity.
- Compression artifacts at max volume.
- Poor portablity.
The Sony SRS-RA5000 is unremarkable for movies and videos. With its room correction feature turned on, it has a well-balanced mid-range, so voices and dialogue in your movies and videos sound clear. However, it struggles to reproduce low-bass, so you can't feel the deep thump and rumble in action-packed scenes. Fortunately, there's a graphic EQ and presets you can use to customize its sound to your liking. It also has great directivity, resulting in an open-sounding soundstage, and there's an 'Immersive Audio Enhancement' feature that's advertised to provide a more immersive sound, though we don't test for this.
- Room correction feature.
- Low latency with iOS and Android devices.
- Compression artifacts at max volume.
- Poor portablity.
The Sony SRS-RA5000 is passable for podcasts. It has a well-balanced mid-range with its room correction feature turned on, so voices and dialogue reproduce clearly, making it suitable for listening to dialogue-centric audio content like podcasts and audiobooks. Its directivity is also very good, so your audio remains clear from most angles. That said, while it can get loud, there are compression artifacts at max volume that can affect the clarity of your audio at louder volumes. It also isn't very portable due to its wired design.
- Room correction feature.
- Great directivity.
- Compression artifacts at max volume.
- Poor portablity.
The Sony SRS-RA5000 doesn't support voice assistants. While it's advertised to be able to be controlled by an Alexa-enabled device, we don't test this since it requires the purchase of a third-party device.
The Sony SRS-RA5000 isn't designed for outdoor use, since it needs to remain plugged into a power source for it to work.
Changelog
- Updated Jul 20, 2021: Updated the text to provide more information regarding Sony's '360 Reality Audio' and 'Immersive Audio Enhancement' features.
- Updated Jun 22, 2021: Review published.
- Updated Jun 17, 2021: Early access published.
- Updated Jun 14, 2021: Our testers have started testing this product.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Sony SRS-RA5000 comes in one color variant, 'Black'. You can find the label for the model we tested here.
If you come across other variants of this speaker, let us know in the discussions below, and we'll update our review.
Popular Speaker Comparisons
The Sony SRS-RA5000 is an elegant speaker that's much larger than the Sony SRS-RA3000. It has three up-firing speakers on its top, three drivers in its body, and an integrated subwoofer. It supports Sony's '360 Reality Audio' format which can be found on premium music services like TIDAL, Nugs.net, and Amazon Music HD, though we didn't test this. It also has an 'Immersive Audio Enhancement' feature, which is advertised to enhance the speaker's soundstage when playing stereo content, and to create a more immersive experience, though we didn't test this feature either.
Check out our recommendations for the best Bluetooth speakers, the best Alexa speakers, and the best home speakers.
The Sony SRS-RA3000 is a slightly better speaker than the Sony SRS-RA5000. While the RA5000 didn't display a clear separation between left and right channels when playing stereo content during our testing process, the RA3000 can play stereo content without downmixing it to mono. The RA3000 also has better directivity, resulting in a wider-sounding soundstage. However, the RA5000 is a larger speaker that can get somewhat louder than the RA3000. It's important to note that we haven't tested these speakers' '360 Reality Audio' and 'Immersive Audio Enhancement' features.
The JBL PartyBox 310 is a better speaker than the Sony SRS-RA5000 overall. The JBL is more portable than the Sony since it's battery-powered and doesn't need to remain wired to an outlet to work. It can produce deeper bass and gets louder with slightly fewer compression artifacts at max volume. The Sony has much better directivity, resulting in a more open-sounding soundstage.
Depending on your listening habits, you may prefer either the Sony SRS-RA5000 or the Sony SRS-XB43 overall. The SRS-RA5000 has a better-balanced sound profile and can get slightly louder than the SRS-XB43. It also has better directivity, so its soundstage is perceived as wide and spacious. The SRS-XB43 is smaller, battery-powered, and is better built, making it more portable than the SRS-RA5000. It also supports voice assistants through your smartphone, though its performance isn't good.
The JBL Boombox 2 is a better speaker than the Sony SRS-RA5000 overall. The JBL has a better-balanced sound profile and can get louder than the Sony. While it's slightly larger than the Sony, it's battery-powered and has a built-in carrying handle making it more portable. It's also better built with an IPX7 rating for water resistance, though we don't test for this. That said, the Sony is a sleek-looking speaker that's designed to be used at home, and supports Sony's '360 Reality Audio' virtual surround format.
Test Results
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