You can change how loud the bass is on the Sony XB 21, by turning on and off its bass boost mode. When switched on, this mode makes this speaker vibrate much more. Plus it adds a low rumble quality to the playing program, that travels pretty far from the unit. So, for you boom lovers, this post shows how to bass boost this speaker, to get that extra umph in the sound.
You can control bass boost on the XB 21 in a few ways as follows.
We’ll cover all of these options below.
By default, this speaker has bass boost mode (EXTRA BASS) turned ON when fresh out of the box or after a reset. So any time you run this speaker, and you haven’t switched OFF this bass boost, then the Power lamp glows white, as we see in the next picture.
When the 21 is running, and this light is green, then that means that bass boost mode is inactive.
Now when active, bass boost also adds a bit of treble in addition to lots of extra bass to the audio output as compared to when this mode is OFF.
You can turn bass boost mode OFF by pressing and Volume Down and Play-Pause buttons at roughly the same time. But to avoid accidently pausing or starting music play, press the Volume Down button slightly before you press Play-Pause.
Then hold in both buttons for approximately three (3) seconds until the Power lamp changes color. See the locations of these buttons as pointed out by the pink arrows in the last picture. They are the first and second buttons from the left on the top buttons panel.
Doing this deactivates bass boost and switches the speaker into STANDARD mode, which gives a flatter frequency response. Now if your speaker doesn’t have as much bass as before, then you may have accidently switched it in to this STANDARD mode.
Note that if the Power lamp is green, then bass boost is not active. So to enable bass boost, press and hold in the Play-Pause and Volume Down buttons for about three (3) seconds until the light color changes to white. Bass boost resumes once again at that time.
In addition to by way of the EXTRA BASS button on the speaker itself, you can also control bass boosting in Sony’s Music Center app too.
So first, download and install this app on your source Bluetooth device (phone, tablet, computer, or media player). We did this on a test iPad Air.
We did this as we show next.
Upon startup, Music Center looks for any compatible Sony products. And since the XB 21 indeed works with this app, the app does indeed find the speaker. Then it displays the Home page for it as we see next.
Then, scroll the screen down to the Settings item at the bottom of the options list.
Next, tap Settings, and you’ll get the Settings screen, as we see next.
Tap the Sound option, pointed out in the last screenshot. You then get the Sound page, as we see next.
Tap the Sound Mode option that we see in the last picture.
Then, the Sound Mode page comes up, and looks as we see next.
Note that depending on which speaker model you’re working with, you’ll see different sound effect options on this page. Thus the screen we show next is specific to the XB 21 speaker.
Now on this screen, note that the STANDARD option is active. While this setting is not the default after a speaker reset, we need to change this back to the default EXTRA BASS mode for maximum bass boost. So we shall do so here.
Touching this item brings up the Preset Mode page as we see next.
Note that the STANDARD option is checked. So we will change this in the next step.
Tap the EXTRA BASS option on that page, and notice that the check mark moves to this item.
Touch this button to apply this selection to the speaker. Find this button in the top right corner of the page as we show in the next shot.
Pressing Done takes you back to the Sound Mode page as follows.
Note that the Preset Mode option value is now EXTRA BASS. Also you may notice more bass coming from the speaker. Well, hope you like that, because we’re not done yet. While this extra bass boost indeed gives you more bass, there is still more bass to be had. For that, go on to the next step.
Tap the BASS / MID / TRE option on the Sound EQ page. We highlight it next.
Touching this option brings up a three band graphic equalizer page. Now by default, this EQ is set to FLAT for all frequency bands, as we see next.
But you can get maximum bass boost by moving these slider controls as follows. For example, lower the Middle and Treble frequency bands to minimum, but raise the Bass one to maximum, as we show next.
When set this way, you get the highest amount of bass that the XB 21 speaker is capable of producing. But be careful !
The drivers really thump when bass boost is active, and especially so when you adjust the equalizer as described above. So be cautious in how loudly you play the 21 with the bass enhanced like this, to avoid damage to the speaker drivers. If the bass is crackling, tapping, or otherwise distorting, turn it down or readjust the EQ !
So we have now shown you how to get the most boosted bass from your Sony XB 21 mini party speaker. So do enjoy this at your next bash !
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