Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First of all the X3 really seems like a direct competitor of the Bose Soundlink Mini, they are even quite comparable sizewise, the Sony being only slightly higher, but otherwise nearly matching the Soundlink Mini to the last milimeter. Soundwise it is a matter of taste. You have to bear in mind, that both sound best at lower levels up to about 60% of their maximum volume. Both will play with about the same loudness, but both do not really sound well at their top levels introducing lots of obvious dynamic limiting without much bass left, which is not surprising looking at the small drivers, that just cannot move enough air for really high loudness. So if you are looking for a speaker that will wake your neighbours, look for something else. But if you are looking for a small speaker which nevertheless will give you a full-range sound at comfortable listening levels, the Sony beside the Bose might be the best choice. While there are still many who claim that a JBL Charge or UE Boom sound considerably better than the Soundlink Mini, this is just wishful thinking. I have tried all of them side-by-side, and maybe only the Klipsch GiG came a bit closer to the Soundlink Mini than the others, but it was still not in the same league. Now the Sony SRS-X3 seems to be the first which really can compete soundwise or finally even beat Bose! The Sony has extremely clear treble, especially directly compared to the Bose which can sound rather muffled. The problem is that the treble is rather thin and can sound pretty harsh especially on particular recordings, I even tried wrapping the Sony in some cloth to tame the treble a little bit. On the other hand the biggest problem of the Bose was the strong directional treble dispersion. The overall sound suffered considerably, when the Soundlink Mini was not aimed directly towards the listener. The Sony doesn't have this problem that much. You can even turn it around backwards, and it should still have clearer treble than the Bose. It is just the mids, that the Bose renders fuller and better, while piano-sounds, vocals etc can sound a bit lost and thin on the Sony. Bass is even slightly deeper on the Sony, which is surprising, usually being Bose the king of big bass in small speakers, but the Sony takes it even slightly further, pushing the bass response down below 60Hz, which is indeed surprising for a speaker of this size. The Bose has a more boomy bass, the Sony has some roll-off above 120Hz, which makes the bass sound deep and punchy, but sometimes can give the impression as if it was playing along beside the music. Good thing is, the Sony will not sound boomy, even placed in a corner, you will hear deep bass, but it won't drone or buzz, unlike the Bose which doesn't sound good in smaller rooms or when placed near a wall. For casual listening at home at lower volume levels I would definitely choose the Sony over the Bose, it might seem like blasphemy to some, but at really low levels I even preferred the X3 over the highly rated Sonos Play:1, which cannot keep its great sound level within its first 1/3 volume-range. The Sony is less critical with positioning, although it will sound better, if placed directly at the edge of some surface, not deeper inside in the middle of a table, as the drivers are so close to the base that it causes reflections with the base and results in combfilter effects which mostly affect the mids. It is better to either elevate the speaker slightly (put it on some small box underneath), or tilt it upwards, or place it at the edge to avoid these problems. But for outside listening I still prefer the Bose. The boomier bass is indeed an advantage outdoors, it comes better through, while the deeper bass of the Sony rather gets lost especially with some ambient noise present. Outdoors it helps a lot if you place the Sony near a back wall, I always avoided doing so with the Bose. But also the thin treble might sound sizzling outdoors, while the Bose will sound clearer, especially due to better defined mids, despite having a duller and more muffled sound. But it is the lower treble or uppder mids that become more obvious in noisy enviroments, which seem a bit missing on the Sony. A hi-hat on the Bose will always glare a bit down into the mids, while on the Sony it is only rather present in the upper frequencies. Maybe Bose really tried to tune the Soundlink Mini especially for outdoor listening, as it sounds just better like that than indoors. Other differences that might be important for some: you can charge the Sony through a standard micro-USB connection, while you need the proprietary charger for the Bose. But at the same time the Soundlink Mini seems to have a considerably stronger battery built in. When fooling around with the Sony and turning it up to the max to see how much it can handle, it happened to me that after less than 1 hour the maximum volume dropped to the half and the "charge" light started to flash on the Sony. I couldn't turn it louder anymore but had to turn it off completely and turn on again, only to notice that the maximum volume dropped again after 1 minute. The Bose can play for more than 4 hours at its top volume. I am sure you can get the promised 7 hours out of the Sony at lower levels below 50%, but I was able to get even 12 hours out of the Bose when listening with similar volume. The Sony also has hands-free built in, while the Bose has not, and the Sony is cheaper, although it doesn't give you this premium feel you get from the Bose. The Sony is pretty nicely built and looks very elegant and minimalistic, but when compared to the Bose it just doesn't feel that expensive, especially the thin bottom plastic-base gives a pretty cheap impression. I also noticed that the body of the Sony could be squeezed a little bit, which resulted in some slight crackling, which sometimes was also noticable when playing deep bass notes, i could hear the body resonate, while I never had this with the Bose, which has a massive unibody aluminium housing. While the Bose can distort on some bassheavy mixes already at half volume, where you would hear the bass starting to "fart" a little bit, the Sony doesn't have distortion-problems with the same tracks. Bose seems to push the bass as far as possible, which sometimes might result in being just "too much". Especially at levels from 55-65% this can become serious, but is not noticable at lower or higher volumes. Instead with the Sony you can hear a crosstalk from the bass into the treble, which results in some judder noticeable in hi-hats and cymbals. The Bose would also do the same, but it is not that obvious because it sounds more muffled, but as the Sony has such clear treble, you really hear well how the lower frequencies influence the treble. With loud piano sounds, guitar or such, the Bose will always sound clear and will never distort, but I noticed crackling and rasping on the same tracks with the Sony, which seems to have more distortion problems with mid-frequencies. Although both dial back bass quite much at higher volumes, the Bose still tries to keep the whole spectrum at the same level, while the Sony starts sounding different, with upper bass disappearing completely, while treble becoming even more biting. I also noticed quite a bit of dynamic compression on the Sony regardless of actual volume set, which you will especially get, if the volume on your bluetooth device is set to the maximum. I found the Sony to sound better, when the volume on my iPhone was lowered 4 notches, while increased on the speaker instead. I would have preferred a single and synchronized volume-control for both speaker and streaming device. Many companies do manage, why doesn't Sony or Bose. Because especially with their speakers you will notice a big difference in sound, depending on how much cranked it is on the speaker, and how low the volume is set on your player, this is mostly the result of dynamic equalizing, which tries to compensate for the natural loudness-effect of the human hearing. But the algorithms don't seem to rely on the real actual output-level, but rather seem to be also influenced by the absolute level the speakers are set to and the input level of the streaming device. These are just too many variables to make the loudness compensation to work properly! Which do I like more? I am not sure. On some tracks I still like the Bose more. It just sounds fuller and more dynamic, while on others I prefer the Sony, because it sounds more pleasant to listen to. Dull recorded tracks will sound considerably better on the Sony, while bright and bass-light recordings can alread sound overly bright and tend to sound better on the Bose. Both are not perfect, and both are rather meant for lower volumes, while the Sony will sound good even at the lowest possible step, the Bose will usually sound too boomy and muffled until a certain volume is reached. For outside listening I still like the Bose more. I had both side-by-side placed equally and switched between them whole the time for a whole day (it made my wife crazy). In 80% I definitely preferred the Bose, while the other 20% I thought the Sony to sound better. For outdoor the Sony is more critical with positioning, while for indoors it is the other way round, so it just depends on what your priorities are. It all depends on taste as well, and I am pretty sure that most will prefer the Sony, which seems to have the EQ tuned for the typical bathtub curve, while Bose seems to pay attention to good defined mids as well. It is just the treble, where Bose seems a bit shy in most of their speakers, not sure why! The weakest point of the Sony seems to be the battery though, which doesn't seem to be replaceable at all, and doesn't seem as powerful as that from the Bose. For my part, I will probably keep both :) In the comments I linked to some direct comparisons between both speakers. Both were carefully recorded under the same conditions with a Zoom H1 recorder. I hope this can give you an idea how both differ in sound relatively one to each other. Of course please listen with good headphones and choose highest stream-quality to really notice all the subtle details.