Sony SRS XB 41 looks and feels fantastic with complete mesh all around. The entire speaker was more rugged but retained a clean look. Now keep in mind the auto drivers are still forward-facing and provide directional front-facing audio to clarify there are no speakers on the side or its rear, so you’re not getting the full 360-degree audio experience.
Sony SRS XB 41 is IP67 certified. Maybe this is dustproof, but more importantly, to me, this can now be fully submersible in water up to one meter for up to 30 minutes.
The additional buttons located behind the water-resistant flap is a slight nuisance, mainly to check the battery level. The other buttons are not too bad. There’s WPS for a wireless party chain; you can pair over a hundred of these speakers together if you want to fill up a room or an event and if your friends, neighbour or someone that also owns a new Sony speaker.
Sony SRS XB 41 is a sizable Bluetooth speaker not only is there a wall adapter that you used to charge the speaker, but it also includes a micro USB input to charge it. Now next up, there is a 3.5-millimetre input for physical connections, and last is your traditional USB port to charge your device. It’s using the speaker as a power bank.
Now at a topic of batteries, Sony claims up to 24 hours with the LEDs off, which is best-in-class bidding out. I did my test at 50% volume with the LEDs on. The result is 18 hours which is not bad.
Sony SRS XB 41 offers Bluetooth 4.0, which is perfectly fine for most average users.
Coming to the LEDs, now you can always turn them off if you want. The customization is done through Sony’s Fiesta Bowl app access through the music app, and it was an OK experience. Simply offering different colour choices to choose from, but nothing like having the lights scroll in directions that you want. The quality lights were already enough for me.
Sony SRS XB 41 is fitting for small rooms to the mid-size apartment at 50% volume. It was comfortable and still loud enough to be enjoyable, pushing it up to 70% and higher. It will surely fill large areas.