Some real lows, but where are the highs?

Did the world need another $130 Bluetooth speaker? Between the JBL Flip 6 — the most recent in the company’s long-running series of mid-range speakers — and similarly priced products from Bose and Beats, it’s tricky to see where Sony fits into this audio madness. And yet, the Ult Field 1 arrived earlier this year, all to carve out a niche among the dozens and dozens of recognizable (and not-so-recognizable) Bluetooth speakers that line Amazon’s virtual store shelves.

Still, there’s just enough to keep things interesting, including a ULT button that kicks this speaker’s bass into overdrive. But really, whether you decide to pick up the Ult Field 1 will depend on how you feel about its portable design—and, perhaps even more so, how important premium sound quality is to you.

Price, specs, and availability

Sony has three speakers in its newly rebranded Ult Power series, and unlike the massive party that is the Ult Tower 10, the Ult Field 1 is priced as though it’s something you might actually want to buy. At $130, it’s priced fairly compared to the competition, with rival speakers from JBL and Bose available for similar prices. You can save some cash by opting for a budget-oriented brand like Anker — or spend a little bit more with the Sonos Roam 2 — but this one’s pretty perfectly in the middle of the road.

You can pick up the Ult Field 1 from Amazon, Best Buy, or Sony. It’s available in black, orange, off-white, and forest gray, which I have for review and quite like.

What’s good about the Sony Ult Field 1?

A couple of design choices help this speaker stand out from the crowd

Let’s start with Sony’s aesthetic, which manages to add just enough flair to what is otherwise a pretty basic Bluetooth speaker design to stand out. I find this speaker the perfect size. At a little over 8 inches long and around 3 inches wide and deep, the Ult Field 1 is small enough to throw in a bag for a summer day trip without much thought. Sure, you can find smaller speakers on the market, but none of them will get quite as loud as Sony’s output here.

Really, though, it’s the drawstring handle that does it for me. It’s perfectly adjustable to serve as both a way to carry the speaker and an easy way to clip it onto a backpack. It looks just rugged enough, just outdoorsy enough, to make you want to plan a picnic in the park, but simultaneously won’t look out of place at your next house party. It’s a tricky balance for Sony — or anyone, really — to strike, but I think it’s pretty much perfect. It’s not just a style, either; the Ult Field 1 is also IP67 dust and water-resistant.

Otherwise, this is a pretty basic-looking Bluetooth speaker, though I don’t necessarily mean that negatively. Along the top of the unit, you’ll find a series of controls: power, Bluetooth pairing, play/pause, volume controls, and a ULT button to enable Sony’s extra bass mode. Around the back, there’s a thick rubber door blocking the sole USB-C charging port from water damage.

Generally speaking, I found its base settings — that is, without ULT mode enabled — to sound pretty balanced to my ears. The bass on any given song was perfectly present, but didn’t outright drown out the mids or highs, a common problem when dealing with bass-centric audio products. This also makes it the perfect speaker for listening to podcasts around the house since voices (male voices, especially) don’t approach muddiness.

If you’re an audiophile, stop reading — this speaker is decidedly not for you.

Kick on the ULT setting, though, and you’ll immediately hear the difference. Despite its relatively small size, the Ult Field 1 is perfectly capable of pumping out some surprisingly deep tones. The thumping guitars that take over during Childish Gambino’s “Lithonia” really come to life with this setting, as do the sharp, droning synths on Charli XCX’s “Sympathy is a knife.” It’s not going to be a mode you want enabled for every genre, but it does a great job of accentuating beats in pop, hip-hop, and rock.

Sony rates the Ult Field 1 for 12 hours on a single charge, and while I haven’t had a stopwatch running every time I’ve turned the speaker on, that feels about right. Using it on and off through workouts, cooking dinner, and parties with friends usually meant I’d have to plug it in about once a week. If you intend to listen for hours, you’ll want to keep a cord nearby. Sony isn’t class-leading here, but it’s also not a total bust — even an all-day pool party shouldn’t be too much of a struggle.

What’s bad about the Sony Ult Field 1?

Sony’s barebones experience might leave some feeling cold

A few of the things I don’t like about Sony’s Ult Field 1 are, admittedly, nitpicks. This design suggests a 360-degree sound experience, but the audio is front-firing, with the tweeter and woofer behind the Sony logo. It’s not the end of the world, but if you’re looking for a 360-degree speaker, you’ll have to shop around for a different model.

I also found the response time when playing or pausing music from the speaker itself frustratingly slow. For whatever reason, there’s a surprisingly long wait time when using the built-in controls for your music, something I haven’t seen on other Bluetooth speakers I’ve reviewed in the past. It’s a long-enough delay to make you think, for a brief second, that something’s wrong with your device. You’ll need to reach for your phone if you’re after speedy controls.

Let’s talk about overall sound quality. To my ears, Sony’s latest portable Bluetooth speaker sounds perfectly fine. I wouldn’t say it stands out among the competition in this $100 to $150 price range, but it also doesn’t sound bad. If you’re an audiophile, stop reading — this speaker is decidedly not for you. Being realistic, though, most people are going to listen to music on this through Spotify, a service that already doesn’t sound particularly great, especially compared to the competition.

That said, I do have a couple of complaints. Overall, you’re better off listening to music with ULT mode enabled, even outside bass-heavy genres. Whenever I turned off that mode, practically any song I threw sounded tinny or empty. The chorus to Weezer’s seminal emo anthem “Say It Ain’t So” sounded like someone had stripped out the bass guitar entirely. At the same time, the percussion that makes up the opening few minutes of LCD Soundsystem’s “Dance Yrself Clean” was completely muted, to say nothing of my disappointment in the sound once the beat actually dropped.

Still, sometimes that default bass setting can feel a little too overwhelming, and that’s when you might feel tempted to dive into Sony’s companion app to tweak things further. Don’t give in to temptation. Sony’s speaker supports Fast Pair on Android, but as far as software goes, that’s the only positive thing I can say.

The companion app for the Ult Field 1, Music Center, isn’t necessary for use outside of software updates and custom EQ settings, and considering how dated it feels, you won’t really want to anyway. It delivers quick links to music apps like Spotify and YouTube Music and the ability to access local songs stored on your phone. It’s also the only way to pair two of Sony’s speakers together for true stereo sound, a trick I admittedly did not get to try out for myself.

The app feels too barebones, too slapdash to be anything you’ll want to rely on outside of those updates. Even the EQ settings, which should allow me to find the sweet spot between too little and too much bass, just don’t feel particularly impressive compared to what you’ll find on Sony’s rivals. It’s fine, but only delivering three sliders — one for bass, one for mids, one for treble — feels lacking, as does the absence of presets for various genres.

You also can’t tune the ULT mode here, meaning the button only works for the settings Sony provides out of the box. That’s a real shame because it would be great to use it to toggle between, say, my preferred music settings and my preferred settings for podcasts, audiobooks, or YouTube videos.

Should you buy it?

If you’re after a solid Bluetooth speaker from a reputable brand with a couple of design flourishes, sure. It’s difficult to recommend most speakers in this price range over others these days — the market is oversaturated to the point of being difficult to judge one speaker from another. At its default $130 price point, it does feel like the Ult Field 1 is a little overpriced for the sound quality you’re getting; it’s simply good, not great, making it a challenge to stand out among the crowd.

However, we’ve seen the price drop to $98 multiple times since its launch earlier this year, making its compromises a lot easier to stomach. While it’s unlikely to steal a ton of customers away from the JBL Flip 6’s of the world, I was perfectly content reaching for Sony’s Ult Field 1 for various pool parties and cookouts this summer, and really, that’s all you’re looking for with this sort of speaker anyway. If you’re after sound quality above all else, look elsewhere. If you’re after a rugged, portable speaker that can get mighty loud, this might be the one for you. Just maybe wait for its next sale before you hit that buy button.