Sony SRS-XE300 Speaker Review

The Sony SRS-XE300 is a portable Bluetooth speaker with a sleek pentagonal design that blends into your decor. It's similar to the SRS-XE200, but it's a bit bigger. That said, it doesn't come with a removable carrying strap. You can find it in Black, Blue, and Light Gray.

The Sony SRS-XE300 is incredibly portable. While it's a bit larger than the Sony SRS-XE200, it's still small and light enough to easily hold in one hand and carry on the go. That said, it doesn't come with a carrying strap to help you transport it.

The Sony SRS-XE300 has excellent build quality that feels solid overall. Its body is tightly wrapped in fabric, and silicone covers most of its surface. Its charging port is protected by a solid rubber flap. It has an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance that certifies it to be fully dust-tight and immersible in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes, so you can take it outside without worrying about getting it a bit wet. While there's no official IK rating, Sony claims the speaker can withstand minor drops, bumps, and scrapes.

The Sony SRS-XE300 has a fantastic selection of easy-to-use texturized controls that are identical to those of the Sony SRS-XE200, with indicator lights to info you of the speaker's status and chosen settings. You can use its multi-functional play/pause button to answer and end calls, double-press it to skip tracks, and triple-press it to backtrack. You can also press and hold it to activate the voice assistant on your smartphone. There's a mute mic button to mute the speaker's microphone when you're on the phone, which causes its indicator light to turn red. The power button's indicator light flashes three times to let you know when you reach its minimum or maximum volume.

There's a Bluetooth button you can press to enter Bluetooth pairing mode. It causes its indicator light to slowly flash blue when it's in pairing mode, and it solidifies once it's paired. There's a battery button you can press to let the speaker audibly inform you of its remaining battery level. You can also press and hold this button to activate 'Stamina' mode, which cuts the Sony XE300's bass to conserve and elongate its battery life.

• Sony SRS-XE300 speaker
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Reference and Quick Start guides

The Sony SRS-XE300's frequency response accuracy is alright. There's a 'ClearAudio+' feature advertised to adjust the speaker's sound according to the audio it plays. With the speaker placed horizontally and with ClearAudio+ enabled by default, its sound profile is boomy overall. The overemphasis in the high-bass range adds extra punch and boom to the mix, while its balanced mid-range ensures vocals and lead instruments reproduce clearly and accurately. That said, while it produces a slightly more extended low-bass than the Sony SRS-XE200, it still lacks a thumpy and rumbling low-bass, like most speakers its size. Also, the underemphasis in the treble range causes higher-pitched vocals and instruments to sound dull and veiled at times. Fortunately, you can customize its sound to your liking thanks to the graphic EQ in its companion app.

Note: The speaker was tested with its 'Ambient Noise Sensing' power-saving feature turned off.

The Sony SRS-XE300 has an alright soundstage performance. It plays stereo content without downmixing it to mono. It means that instruments and sound effects in your audio move from one side of the speaker to the other, the way the sound engineer intended the audio to be heard. For example, if you play a song that normally has the keyboard on the right and the guitar on the left, you'll hear the keyboard coming from the right side of the speaker and the guitar from the left. That said, due to the Sony XE300's size, this distinction is hard to notice when listening passively.

However, its directivity is disappointing. Your audio doesn't sound as clear when you listen from different angles, like from behind the speaker, since it projects sound from one main direction. It results in a more narrow-sounding soundstage.

Note: The Sony SRS-XE300 doesn't automatically switch from stereo to mono when you turn it vertically. As a result, you hear the channel separation as coming from the top and bottom instead of from the left and right when you place it vertically. If you prefer having your audio in mono when placing the Sony XE300 vertically, you can make the switch from stereo to mono in its companion app.

The Sony SRS-XE300 has a fair dynamics performance. It gets decently loud, and fills most average-sized rooms with ease. That said, there's a lot of compression present at max volume that degrades audio quality as you bump up the sound, so your audio doesn't sound as clean and clear when you max out the volume.

The Sony SRS-XE300 offers a fantastic battery performance. Although it's advertised to last around 24 hours from a single charge, it lasted just under 17 hours from a single charge in our tests, which is still remarkable! You can enable Sony's power saving feature, 'Auto Standby', in the app. It turns the speaker off following 15 minutes of inactivity. You can also enable the 'Ambient Noise Sensing' feature, which saves battery power by cutting the frequencies you aren't likely to hear depending on the ambient noise in the environment the Sony XE300 is placed in.

The Sony SRS-XE300 doesn't come with any built-in voice assistants. It's compatible with Siri and Google Assistant through your paired smartphone. While there's a button to mute the speaker's microphone, you only use it for phone calls. That said, unlike other Sony speakers we've tested, it has no trouble hearing you when you're far away from the speaker or when you're in a noisier room.

The Sony SRS-XE300's Sony Music Center app is very good. It has a graphic EQ to adjust its sound profile to better suit your preferences. You can also use it to connect the Sony XE300 to other compatible Sony speakers when you want to create a stereo pair or when you want to amplify your audio across a larger area. The app also lets you access a few power-saving features. You can enable and disable its 'Auto-Standby' mode and its 'Ambient Noise Sensing' features. There's also a 'Stamina' mode which saves the speaker's battery by cutting the bass in your audio. The app lets you access Sony's 'Fiestable' app too, which you can use to access party sound effects of the speaker. You can also enable and disable its power and battery level indicator voice.

The Sony SRS-XE300 doesn't have any other inputs aside from its charging port.

The Sony SRS-XE300 offers outstanding Bluetooth connectivity. You can pair the Sony XE300 to up to two devices at once, so you can easily switch between audio sources without disconnecting your paired device. It has a fantastic range, so your paired device remains connected even when you're far away from the speaker. It also has low latency with iOS and Android devices, so there aren't any syncing issues between the audio you hear and the visuals you see on the screen when you use the Sony XE300 to watch videos and movies. Some apps compensate for latency differently, and your real-world experience may differ.