Sony Extra Bass Line Expands With New Speakers, Headphones

Sony has announced an expansion to its Extra Bass audio lineup, adding news headphones, speakers, and an audio system. The lineup, as its' name suggests, is targeted at those with heavy bass audio tastes; those who find themselves often disappointed by the bass from most consumer audio devices. Sony plans to launch all of the products in Spring, though prices haven't been stated yet.

First among the new products is the MDR-XB650BT, a pair of wireless headphones with Bluetooth and "deep sound" transmitted at any audio volume. The headphones have a bass booster and feature 30mm drivers. Features including Touch Screen and NFC for quick pairing; says Sony, the model supports many audio codecs like the common aptX and AAC.

Those who prefer their music to be a little less isolated have a pair of new speaker options, the SRS-XB3 and the SRS-XB2. Both are cylindrical and offer what Sony says is a "light weight diaphragm." Sony has used its DSP signal processing tech to help achieve the deep and overall rich sounds, of which both are ample.

The XB2 in particular has a passive radiator while the XB3 has dual passive radiators. Both of the models, though, have LDAC audio coding, NFC, and Bluetooth. The XB3 is notable among the two for having a USB-A port for connecting a smartphone, though, letting the speaker to double as a power bank. Those with more than one speaker can use Speaker Add for using two speakers simultaneously.

Those who need something more substantial for parties and outdoor events also have the new GTK-XB7, a speaker more boombox sized than the aforementioned portable models. As with the others, this larger offering has the Extra Bass technology, but with a pair of large gauge 16 centimeter woofers to increase the bass notes. The high acoustic range, meanwhile, is produced from compressed audio via Digital Sound Enhancement Engine, adding to the overall audio quality. The speaker has Bluetooth and NFC for wireless audio and a USB port for tethered playback.