Left, front, and top sides of the Sony SRS X5.
The Sony X5 Bluetooth mini speaker has six buttons across its top panel and one button on its back, and we cover each one in detail in this guide.
Here we cover the entire compliment of buttons and touch pads on this portable Bluetooth speaker, and these include the following.
In the paragraphs and pictures below, we show where each control is on the speaker, explain its meaning and function, what any button combination presses do, when to press them, and how to use the buttons to operate the speaker in general.
There are two rows of buttons on the top of the speaker. They all have a square shape, although only two of the controls are actually physical buttons. The other six are touch pads that you do not actually have to press to get them to register. You just touch them.
Now we start with the front row of buttons on the speaker top, then the back row, and finally, we go around to the rear of the X5 and discuss the single button found there.
Find this button in the first position from the left in the front row of buttons, just to the right of center and to the left of the Pairing touch pad.
Tapping this touch pad expands the stereo soundstage as you listen, making instruments clearer. Plus, their sounds seem to come from places further to the left and right of the speaker than the actual drivers are located. It also appears to raise treble and mid range frequencies, and in so doing, effectively cuts the bass a bit. On other Sony speakers, they refer to this as Surround mode.
This function is normally OFF on a brand new X5 or after a hard factory reset.
To activate the fuller stereo sound, briefly tap the Sound button touch pad. Then the speaker goes silent for a short time, and when the audio comes back on, you’re hearing the Surround mode. The Sound lamp, located just behind / above the Sound button also lights up solid white.
Find this button in the second position from the left in the front row.
When pressed, the X5 goes into discovery mode. Then, you can find and connect to the speaker on nearby Bluetooth source devices. So this function lets you pair to the X5, and play your music through it.
With the speaker powered ON, you touch and hold the same touch pad until you hear two high beeps. Then take your finger away. The speaker is now in pairing mode, and the Pairing Status lamp pictured next begins fast flashing white. But when you actually connect to the X5, this lamp stops flashing and glows a steady white.
You need to do this anytime you want to pair the X5 with a never-before-paired Bluetooth source device.
When in this (a.k.a. Discovery) mode, the speaker sends out its name and other connection info over the Bluetooth air channels. Then, this allows nearby wireless devices to find and connect to it.
Note that touching this button pad starts up discovery mode whether or not the speaker is currently connected to a BT device.
Briefly press this button to switch the X5 from Bluetooth to Audio Input mode.
In audio input mode, the speaker receives audio via the 3.5mm stereo audio input port on its back panel.
When Audio In mode is active, any BT connections with this speaker stops, the Pairing lamp goes out, and the Audio In lamp lights up white as we see in the next picture.
In this mode, you can connect an MP3 player, CD, or other non Bluetooth music source via an audio patch cord. Then the X5 acts as an integrated stereo amplifier, letting you hear your device at room filling volumes.
To return the speaker to normal operation, where it accepts audio via a wireless Bluetooth connection, briefly press the Pairing button. When you do this, the Audio In lamp goes out, the Pairing lamp begins blinking, and the speaker attempts to pair with any nearby BT device that appears in its recently connected devices list.
The Phone / Call button has an icon of an old style telephone receiver in it. We find it at the fourth (rightmost) position in the front row of buttons. See it pointed out in the next picture.
Press and release the Call / Phone button quickly to answer a call when you have this unit paired with an iOS cell phone.
Rapidly press it again to hang up the call, and resume playback. The item you were listening to pauses when you pick up the call, and resumes when you hang up.
When paired with a compatible phone and you’re not currently in a call, you may touch this button pad and request that a call be made.
Briefly press button. The voice assistant then chimes. Then, make your request via the X5’s built in microphone. The assistant then places the call on the paired device, and then you’ll be able to hear the person you called via the speaker and talk to them via the X5 microphone.
Find the mic on the front grill, near the top edge, near the upper left corner, as we picture next.
Please not that the behavior of this touch pad is largely determined by the type of mobile device you pair this speaker with. So the comments in this section are not necessarily complete.
Now moving to the back row of top panel buttons, the X5 also has volume controls. The Volume UP and Volume DOWN buttons occupy the first two positions in this row. Plus, they have minus and plus symbols embossed in their centers for easy visual identification. Find them pointed out in the next picture.
When pressed, these lower and raise the loudness respectively, by reducing or increasing the volume setting of the amplifier in the speaker itself, but they do not change the volume setting on the source device as some other BT speakers do.
With the speaker paired and playing, press the Minus Volume Down button to decrease its audio output level. Press the Plus Volume Up button to increase audio output.
Note that these loudness controls have no effect when the speaker is not paired. Also, the volume setting may change from paired device to paired device. That is, each paired device remembers its own volume setting. So you might need to re set the sound output when you unpair the speaker from one source device and pair it to another.
No lights change on the speaker during volume adjustment, except when you reach the lower or upper ends of the volume range. Then the Power lamp fast flashes a few times. Moreover, no beeps or other accessibility sounds play when you change the volume.
Note that you can also change X5 volume by adjusting the controls on your source BT device. But be aware that this does not change the volume setting on the speaker. This can cause some confusion if, for example, you set the volume on the speaker very low. Then you turn up your source device to maximum and notice that the speaker isn’t playing nearly as loud as you expect. When this happens, be sure to set the control higher on the speaker.
The Power button is the last button on the right in the back row of buttons, as we point out with the green arrow in the next picture. Note power symbol shape embossed on it.
Press and release the button when the speaker is OFF, to power it on. Press and release it again, to turn the X5 back OFF.
The Power Status lamp lights up green when the speaker powers up.
Note that the X5 makes no sounds when you turn it on or off.
Furthermore, when the speaker is OFF, no lights on it should glow, except in the case where you’re charging the unit. When OFF in that scenario, the CHARGE lamp still glows solid orange.
Find this recessed button on the speaker back, just to the right of the Add button. To work it, insert a paper clip end and gently press.
Now unlike reset buttons on many other speakers, this button does NOT restore the unit to its factory default state. Instead, you press this only when the speaker becomes unresponsive or otherwise misbehaves. E.g. It won’t power ON or OFF, or the other buttons do nothing when you press them. Thus, pressing Reset does not clear the stored Bluetooth pairings from memory.
It does appear however, to disconnect the speaker from its battery by brute force. So pressing it causes a hard shutdown to occur. Further, releasing it applies battery power again. You can then turn the speaker on with the Power button.
The hope with this design is that the unit will again respond to other button presses when cold started after a Reset button press.
Should the speaker lock up or become non responsive to button presses, press and release this button. If the Power lamp is ON, it should shut OFF right away.
Note that this is different from the Reset button described in the last section. This method is how to actually hard reset the X5 to return it to factory default settings. The Reset button described earlier does not do this though. But it is possible to run a complete factory reset on this speaker, as follows.
With the speaker running, press and hold Volume DOWN and while holding that button down, press and hold the Power button. Hold them both until the Power lamp starts fast flashing. See these buttons pointed at by the green arrows in the next picture.
You may wish to reinitialize the speaker to correct any weird behaviors you notice from it such as failing to pair, sound distortion, failure to power off when you press the Power button, pressing the Reset button does not solve your issue, and so on. Note that resetting invalidates any saved connection info about this speaker on your source Bluetooth devices. So you’ll have to forget those connections on these devices, and re pair the speaker after a reset in order to play your audio content through it once again.
You can change the sound quality mode on the X5, to prioritize sound quality over Bluetooth connection stability, or vice versa. E.g. Connection stability over sound quality. The X5 defaults to prioritizing stable connections (SBC) over sound quality when fresh from the factory or after a hard reset / initialization.
How To Change to Prioritize Sound Quality Mode
How To Change Back to Prioritize Connection Stability Mode
Additionally, there are several lights in the button area. These lamps tell you what the speaker is doing as you work each of the buttons, as follows.
Both ports on the X5 we find on the back panel, near the bottom edge.
First, we have the USB DC output port as we see next. It’s the rectangular port just to the left of the Reset button.
Next, we have the audio input port as we see next. It’s the round port just to the right of the Reset button.
Finally, there’s the DC power input port just right of the Audio In port.
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