While Xiaomi might be better known as a smartphone manufacturer locally, the Chinese company has their fingers in a number of tech pies, including EVs. However, the Xiaomi’s Bluetooth speaker range is also available here in SA, and as an owner of Xiaomi’s portable Sound Outdoor Bluetooth speaker, I was interested to see what its bigger brother is capable of.

The Xiaomi Sound Party weighs about 1.2 kg, with a length of 255 mm, roughly about double the size of the Sound Outdoor speaker. As such, it’s still not a big speaker, allowing you to carry it around or travel with it. However, its size and sound quality ensures that the speaker can be used as your primary speaker system in a living room.

Top marks must go to Xiaomi for the striking design of the Sound Party. Visually it’s similar to its younger brother, with the black body beautifully lined with a vibrant orange strip, also hiding a carry handle. The showstopper here is the tunnel ambient lighting on the side of the speaker. This provides a gorgeously coloured reflected glow that creates a sense of depth, with the more subdued and atmospheric lighting effect preferable to its garishly lit party speaker competitors.

So, how does the Sound Party speaker fare when it comes to sound, and the party? Firstly, the Xiaomi is capable of a decent amount of volume, thanks to the 50 W of combined sound, coming from its 15 W tweeter and a 35 W woofer. The sound opens up the louder you go, although clarity is great at normal volume for listening during the day thanks in part to some fine-tuning using Harman AudioEFX. Yes, there’s also Bass Boost mode on here, but for the most part I actually enjoyed the sound without it, since it contains a fair amount of bass already.

As can be expected from 50 W of sound this speaker can go loud, and it will manage an average house party with aplomb.  However, keep in mind it’s only capable of that much, and a larger venue might require another Sound Outdoor (see below), or a beefier speaker.

Xiaomi notes TWS mode is supported, meaning you can connect another speaker to each other in order to play stereo sound. That said, this only applies to similar Sound Party speakers, which I found out much to my dismay trying to connect the smaller Xiaomi Sound Outdoor speaker. Similarly, up to 100 of the Sound Party speakers can be connected in Party Mode for a much louder (and costlier) event. 

What needs to be remembered is that the Sound Party is not controlled via app. This means there’s no tuning of the equaliser according to your unique listening preferences, nor pre-set soundscapes. It also means there’s no fiddling with an app, nor constant firmware updates to contend with. Switch on the Sound Party, connect your phone and press play – no mess, no fuss.

Finally, the 5200 mAh battery is great, with Xiaomi noting 26 hours of playback, although at higher volume and with lighting effects this will drop, but it will take care of a 12 party with no problem at all. Interestingly, the Sound Party can act as a power bank, seeing that it can reverse charge a smartphone in case of emergency.

The Xiaomi Sound Party next to the smaller Sound Outdoor.

I found the Xiaomi Sound Party to be a highly capable mid-sized speaker that prioritises quality design, ease of use and decent sound. There’s very little to fault here, except perhaps that the speaker doesn’t sync with other smaller Xiaomi speakers in the range, but that’s a minor bone of contention. The Sound Party feels like a more “grown up” speaker, focusing more on subdued lighting than colourful strobes, and an easy-on-the-eye design that compliments the sound of the unit.

At about R2 500, the Xiaomi Sound Party cuts an impressive price compared to some of the competition from Sony and JBL.