Sony SRS-XB33 Speaker Review

The Sony SRS-XB33 has a trapezoid-like shape that slightly tapers down in the back. It has a passive radiator on both ends of the speaker and two lights that you can customize via the Fiestable app. You can also place it vertically or horizontally, depending on your preferences. It also comes in several colors to better suit your style.

Update: 03/19/2021: Thanks to user feedback, we identified an error in our previous weight measurement. We weighed the speaker again and updated our results accordingly.

The Sony XB33 is incredibly portable. It uses a battery so you can use it outside, and its small size makes it easy to transport, even with one hand.

The Sony SRS-XB33 has an excellent build quality. Most of the speaker is wrapped in a thick netting that doesn't seem prone to ripping easily. There's also a rubber cover to protect its rear opening, which has its inputs and some of its controls. Overall, it feels durable, and it's even rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, although we don't currently test for this.

The Sony SRS-XB33 has great controls. There are two sets of buttons. The first set of controls are located on the speaker's top side. There are call and music-related functions like play/pause and volume. Unlike the JBL Xtreme 3, the play/pause button can also be used to answer calls. You can skip tracks forward by pushing this button twice quickly and return to the previous track with three quick presses. There are also mini display lights for some of the buttons to show you the speaker's status. The second set of controls are located on the speaker's rear side. They control party mode, stereo pairing, turn the speaker's lighting on/off, and enter 'LIVE Sound' mode. You can also use the 'BATT' button to hear the battery level.

• Sony SRS-XB33 speaker
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• User Manual

The Sony XB33's frequency response accuracy is just passable. Even with the 'EXTRA BASS' and 'Sony ClearAudio+' features enabled, this speaker has an uneven sound profile. It struggles to reproduce bass, so audio lacks thump, rumble, and punch. Its treble is also underemphasized, resulting in dull and veiled vocals and lead instruments. That said, its mid-range is fairly well-balanced, so vocal-centric content like podcasts are accurately reproduced.

Note: By default, Sony ClearAudio+ is enabled when the EXTRA BASS feature is selected. The ClearAudio+ feature is advertised to automatically detect your audio content and adjust its sound field to better suit your audio. However, it can't be disabled if you just want to use the EXTRA BASS feature on its own.

The Sony SRS-XB33 has a mediocre soundstage. This stereo speaker's directionality sounds small and narrow. There's a lot of overemphasis in the treble range, so the soundstage is perceived as uneven. For a speaker with a larger, more open soundstage, check out the Marshall Emberton.

This speaker has an unremarkable dynamics performance. While it gets a bit louder than the Sony SRS-XB23, it's still not very loud, and may not be suitable for use in a large or crowded room. There are also quite a bit of compression artifacts present at max volume.

This speaker has excellent battery performance. We measured over 12 hours of continuous battery life. However, Sony advertises that it lasts up to 24 hours when its volume is set to 36, it's set to 'Stamina' mode, and its lights are turned off. The speaker also turns off after approximately 15 minutes when not in use.

The Sony XB33 has a bad voice assistant performance. It uses your smartphone's voice assistant. As part of our methodology, we use recorded voice commands to activate the speaker. However, it has some trouble registering these commands, even without ambient noise, and doesn't respond. While it can register commands from a normal speaking voice, this isn't part of our testing process. For a speaker that can understand you easily, even if you're far away or in a noisy room, check out the Bose SoundLink Color II.

The Sony XB33 has a very good app. It's compatible with the Sony Music Center app, which offers a basic graphic EQ as well as three sound settings so that you can customize it to your liking: 'LIVE' is advertised to help reproduce a more 3D audio experience, 'EXTRA BASS' gives it a heavy-bass sound, and 'STAMINA' is a power-saving setting. This app also allows you to pair two speakers together to create a stereo pair and connect multiple units to cover a large area.

This speaker is compatible with the Fiestable app. This app is another Sony app that works in tandem with the Sony Music Center App. It allows you to change the colors of the speaker's lights as well as control party-centric features like allowing smartphones to mimic the lighting effects of the speaker.

This speaker can't be used wired. It only has a USB port for charging or supplying power to a USB device like a smartphone.

The Sony SRS-XB33 has an outstanding Bluetooth performance. It can connect with up to two devices at once, and it supports NFC pairing for quick Bluetooth pairing. It also has low latency on both iOS and Android, which makes it suitable for watching videos. However, some apps and devices compensate for latency differently, so your experience may vary.

This speaker isn't Wi-Fi compatible.