Sony - SRS-XB43

Do you reckon it’s worth an upgrade over the XB-43? I’ve had mine for over 4 years now and thinks it pulls its weight pretty well for what I do with it, but since I would be able to get a ult 7 for around £270 new would it be worth the money to feel an upgrade or should I wait for the next gen?

I have a pair of XB43s and I use them everyday of up to my TV and stereo pair they actually have really good bass and good for watching movies I just wish you can hook up a wireless subwoofer to them But I did find a work around I have a edifier subwoofer with volume control I use the digital output of the TV which is on all the time But I have to match the volume of the sub every time I turn up the TV with the remote which isn't really a big deal cuz once you said it you can just leave it for the movie but I wish there was a way to hook up a Sony wireless subwoofer hint hint Sony come on that'd be the first of its kind feature on any Bluetooth speaker 🤷

I have the Sony SRS-XB43. Been using it for a few years and I love it. I don't think they sell it anymore though. I believe it was replaced by the SRS-XG300 which I have heard is also very good. It's also 50% off right now.

I have the Sony xb33 and xb43 … great speakers and sound quality and loudness was great. I purchased a xe300 a few weeks ago and was really unhappy and returned it. Not the same brand as my older speakers that’s for sure. I’m also in the market and have looked at the Harmon Harmon as one of my top options

I got the ULT 7 a week a go and har time to test it indoors and outdoors. **Build quality** is great and makes a high quality impression. The **design** is nice, it looks good. The lights can only be seen from the side, but they look beautuiful, too. **Construction:** the construction with no normal handle but the added rings at the side, is genius. While the speaker is a bit longer than similar speakers, you can easily use it vertical as a tower and it will look great and stand sturdy. You can even use it as a stool and get a butt bass massage ;-) Also wenn standing, it takes up little space, and you can easily pick it up without bending over. The sound changes somewhat when vertical (warmer, more boomy bass) so it also gives a a sound variation). After the XG300 with its super nice extractable handle and the Ult 1 with its versatile strap concept, Sony is again really innovative here and bringing new, well designed ideas into the speaker market! **Features** apart from the usual, the ULT 7 also has mic/guitar in and karaoke function (havent tested it). The app now gives you an 7-band equalizer. Also there is batttery care mode (charging limit 90%, which will reducing draining battery over the time). There are no buttons for pairing, but the pairing via app seems to work quite well now. Unless you do special things like removing speakers from a group, turning off bt on a device and trying to pairwith another device and such stuff, which can lead to temporary malfunction of the pairing. But normal paring with 2 or 3 speakers works fine. You got a great number speakers to pair with (smaller ones and bigger party boxes), an you got good range, even utdoors with 3 speakers paired, you can playce them several meters apart from each other with stable conncetion, which gives you a lot of flexibilty. Latency via bt is rather low and well suited for video (haven't tested aux in, but i guess that will be even better). So, from design, handling and features, this is a great, outstanding and innovative boombox speaker, which easily beats everything else in the market afaik. But now the maybe most importnat question: waht about **sound quality** You get 4 sound modes (+ vertical placement options so you actually get 8 variations). Off: sound quite balanced, but with not so much bass, rather bright and open. Can be good if you dont want strong hard htiing bass, for some relaxed listening ULT 1: quite balanced but with stronger and deep bass ULT 2: this increase sound pressure (and bass) and makes the sound seem more powerful and punchy Custom: here you can use the 7-Band Equalizer of sony app. Interesting: even without changing anything in the custom mode it sound different than all the other modes, roughly it is a mix between off and ULT 1. A) Indoor at low to medium volumes Here the ULT 7 sound very good. Good soundstage, good details and clear highs, but also big, full sound. The bass is deep but also clean and precise. Quite impressive. It doesn't have any of the muffledness, which previous Sony speakers were critisized for. Voices are also well presented, though a tad less warm & rich than on xb43/Xg300/500. I've read it has a 15khz dip, and indeed when playing around with EQ, I could get a bit more of the super-highs out of it (not a big deal imho). When vertical, it gets less bright and more bass-heavy and bit boomy, depending on the placement. Overall I'm quite satisfied with the indoor sound at 10-40 % volume. Which with this speaker, is totally enough for normal casual indoor listening (40% on ULT 7 is like 80% on an xb33) if you are alone or with a handful of friends, unless you want to blast yourself. B) Indoor Higher volumes Now here come the problems: when you crank up the volumes, the focus shifts more towards highs and upper mids, and lower mids vanish. You can use the custom mode to mostly fix it you want. But then there is another problem: with higher volumes you get some kind of metallicness and sharpness to the sound (in the upper mids and highs, espec. around the 3-7 khz range), which is a unpleasant to my ears. You can mitigate it with the EQ, but you cant get complety rid of it. I haven't found this critical aspect on any written review and only one one youtube review (Dominik), maybe because im quite sensitive to harshness, most others might not see it as a big problem, as all the other reviewers dont mention it. C) Outdoor Outdoor the speakers doesn't sound very different to what I wrote above, except what is generally true about all speakers. Off-axis sound is quite good for a directional speaker. One thing that I noticed, though, is that the unpleasant harshness disappears, if you move more far away (roughly 5 meters distance is enough to fix the problem mostly. Of course you loose volume also then. I also noticesd that the speakers doesnt have a super far reching sound and bass like a partybox or soundboks, so while the speaker gets very loud (really very much louder than my xb43s), it will not blast a very large open area. **Sound Overall** I really like the sound at low to medium volumes, it is also good ( but not great) at high volumes outdoors to entertain 10-20 people, if noone who is harshness-sensitive like me, has to stand close to it. With custom EQ and paired wit 2 xb33 or xb43, it sounds pretty good even outdoors at higher volumes, as long as you don't stand very close, because the very different warm and mellow sound signatures of the former sony speakers blend together with the brighter/harsher sound of the ULT 7 well, making the combination more well balanced than the ult 7 or 2 xb33/43 alone. **Conclusion:** The ULT Field 7 is cleverly designed prduct with lots of features, some of which are quite unique, and great versatilty and its fun to use. It sounds great at low-to-medium volumes and has different soundmode for different situations. At higher volumes sound gets quite bright and harsh, though, if you are close to the speaker. So it is not for people who are harshness-sensitive or people who really want to blast theselves with high-volume-sound. Or for people who liked the super-warm (or muffled if you want) sound of previous Sony speakers like XG300/500.

Depends on what you are looking for. The Ult is much bigger, can get much louder and has much stronger and deeper bass. Yet it changes its sound balance more depending on volume, so i felt the need to adjust the eq more often. Also the sound signature is different: while the xb43 is warm and mellow, the Ult 7 sounds more crisp and punchy, at higher volumes even harsh. If you like it mellow and natural sounding the xv500 is better, it is also very consistent over vall volumes. If you are looking for sth for intensive music listening, the best idea, and also the cheapest, is to get 2nd xb43 for stereo pairing. If you want sth mellow like the xb43, but bigger, louder and deeper bass, xv500. if you want sth stronger with real hard hitting punch, impressive bass and crisp sound, ult 7.

I have 2 xb33 and xb43s each. The xb43 is great, but only available used and its a bit chunky & heavy. If you get one 2nd hand or refurbished for 100 it would be a great option. If buying new, probably the motion +, but havent tested it myself though, but reviews are good.