Sony SRSXB23 Extra Bass Portable Bluetooth Speaker (Manufacturer Refurb)

I received my xb43 order this morning and have been listening to it for a few hours. Note that it comes in a plain brown box with an AC->USB C power adapter and nothing else. No retail packaging or any way to store, nbd for refurb but FYI. I will be looking for a carrying/storage case for it shortly.

First you will want to download the Sony Music Center app(same one for Sony BT headphones), which will update the firmware for you to version 3700 if the speaker needs it. I spent about an hour listening to it before I did this, and while using the "live" setting accessible with the button on top of the speaker made it sound fun, it wasn't my favorite but YMMV (it was "3d" but kind of hollow and unnatural, preference also depended on the kind of music, on some it sounded great and other music not so much). After connecting to the Sony Music Center and updating firmware its default sound signature improved dramatically, and now there was access to a new music setting (ClearAudio+) which is now my default setting, much better for most genres I listen to (everything except Tejano and most country, although I suspect it would sound fine with these too). There is a 3 band equalizer (low, mid, hi) which I played with for a bit and it did improve sound slightly with unique settings on a song per song basis, it disabled the ClearAudio setting. I found just leaving ClearAudio on was the best across most of my music without having to screw with anything.

It gets plenty loud IMHO (and being exNavy, a competition shooter, and having many loud concerts without hearing protection in my past, my hearing is probably not the best ).

The app also gives access to other features of the speaker including different lighting themes and a bunch of weird shit I will never use... like a thing where you can use your phone to play the speaker like a drum pad with different preloaded sound samples and other nonsense like that. I am thinking that Sony has some bored app developers or something...

I am not sure that it is the best you can do for $140 (after tax) given the plethora of BT speakers out there (several of which I have tried, but there must be thousands ), but I am happy with it so far. I have several of the Amazon/Chinese specials from SD over the years topping out at maybe $60 and I don't think any of them sound quite as good, get quite as loud, and none of them definitely have all of the features. The main issue with those has also been longevity, batteries that don't last long before not holding a charge, and issues with distortion as songs change since my library isn't volume normalized. This speaker seems to handle all music well at a high volume without distorting, who knows how long the battery will last, and I haven't checked but hope that I will be able to replace the battery in the future even if it takes some eBay replacement battery shopping and a bit of soldering.

I can post what I find for a carrying case if anyone here cares...

Thank you for your tips, I followed every bit of it and also find my self having Clear Audio as my pref......pls. update me if you find a case, most I see on Amazon are in the $30 range.

Received my XB43 today. It looks flawless. Did the update and played around with the lights and sound settings. The lights are probably the coolest part about it. The sound quality is decent, but not that loud. Going to use it at a small Halloween party and figure out if it's worth keeping.

Price is reduced by $100 everywhere brand new xb43 is $149 at bestbuy, bhphoto etc

I don't even want to look at this,LOL....even the JBL Xtreme 2 is at $199....smh

Well, you saved $20 if everything came in great shape. just a bit less of warranty time. Might still be worth it.

Good find - I'm ordering the 33!

Amazon has the 23 in black new for $58.00 (https://www.amazon.com/Sony-SRS-X...86DBR6T7). [amazon.com]