Sony ULT Field 3

Introduction

The issue with even the best outdoor speakers is that not all are great at bass. This is an area Sony’s ULT series hopes to change.

Bass-boosted wireless speakers can be an acquired taste – some like them, others don’t – but if ever there was a product in need of more bass, it’s the portable outdoor speaker. In an indoor environment you’d be fine with walls and surfaces causing reflections and reinforcing the bass. Outdoors? Not so much.

Sony’s ULT range of speakers and headphones aims to bring more bounce to the ounce, but reaction has been mixed so far. Where does the ULT Field 3 fall on the scales?

Design

• Relatively low-key looks
• Waterproof design
• Shoulder carry strap

The look of the ULT Field 3 is sleek and minimalist. The colours it comes in are reserved: black, off white (whatever that means) and forest green. Despite the youthful look to the series branding, the ULT series tailoring is tasteful rather than garish.

The rectangular shape of the ULT Field 3 might fool you into thinking it’s a speaker to be positioned horizontally, but it works vertically too (in fact, bass might be even better in that position). You can carry it with one hand or use the detachable shoulder strap on your outdoor adventures.

The IP67 rating makes the speaker water- and dustproof, and it’s been tested against shock. No, that doesn’t mean it can survive lightning strikes but references drops, knocks and scrapes.

On the top surface are the latches for the shoulder straps and the controls that cover power, Bluetooth, Party Connect, volume and the ULT Power button that unshackles the bass performance.

Battery Life

• Up to 24 hours
• Battery Care mode
• Can be used as a powerbank

Sony promises 24 hours of battery life from the ULT Field 3, but that’s 24 hours with the ULT Power on and volume set to 22.

Performing a battery drain at 50% volume with the ULT Power mode on, the battery dropped to 80%. That suggests five hours at half volume, which is not particularly close to 24 hours.

Fast-charging provides two more hours of playback from a 10-minute top up, while in the Sound Connect app there’s a Battery Care feature that prolongs the battery’s life.

There’s no wireless charging support – charging is done through the USB-C input. The speaker can act as a power bank, charging other devices over its USB-C connection.

Features

• Google Fast Pair
• Sound Connect app
• Stereo pairing support

Wireless connectivity amounts to Bluetooth 5.2 with Bluetooth multipoint to connect to two devices at once. There’s SBC and AAC streaming but no LDAC or Bluetooth LE Audio.

The Bluetooth connection holds up over long distances. Setting the ULT Field 3 at one end of my garden and walking away, it was only at the very end (over 30m) when the signal started to break-up.

Elsewhere, there’s Google Fast Pair (for Android devices) that enables a quick connection to devices, and Sony’s Party Connect feature allows the ULT Field 3 to be connected to up to 100 compatible Sony ULT speakers – if you have that many.

Stereo pairing is supported with another Field 3 speaker, and the Sony ULT Field 3 can be used to receive calls thanks to its built-in microphone.

Otherwise there’s the simply laid out Sound Connect app. There are means to customise the sound through the Sound Effect modes (ULT Power, Custom), a 7-band EQ setting and enabling Sound Field Optimization that detects noise around the speakers and automatically adjusts the sound.

Also available in the Sound Connect app is the DJ Control feature sucked in from the defunct Fiestable app. You can try your best impression of a DJ by ‘scratching’ or adding drums to a track to create your own party sound.

Sound Quality

• ULT Power mode
• Smooth, slightly warm midrange
• Clear highs

I think the Sony ULT Field 3 sounds good in both its ULT Power and non ULT Power modes. The performance is not too dissimilar to the WH-1000-XM6 headphones that Sony has gone for balance, even in its bass-boosted mode. It’s worth experimenting with the volume to get the performance you want.

Starting with the ULT Field 3’s treble performance. GoGo Penguin’s Erased by Sunlight sounds clear and decently defined, with the same true of Greg Foat’s Symphonie Pacifique.

It’s not the brightest performance, and the highs lack some sharpness and detail, but clarity is good.

The midrange has a smoothness and slight warmth to it. There’s an appealing naturalism to how instruments and voices sound. Sufjan Stevens’ vocals in Chicago come across as natural-sounding – no harshness, no sense of being overprocessed – just a likeable tone and flow to the voice.

With Norah Jones’ I Don’t Know Why, the smoothness of the speaker’s sound takes the edge of any sibilance. There’s no compression that I can hear, the dynamism of her voice still intact as the ULT Field 3 beams her voice out of the speaker.

She does sound slightly thin at times, an aspect that manifests itself in different ways over the course of testing. Frank Sinatra’s Fly Me to the Moon has a trace of thinness, Maye’s vocals in La Cancion can sound thin. Jacob Collier’s Sky Above skates a fine line between being smooth and slightly thin. Normally though, this thinness disappears when the ULT Power mode is turned off.

Even without the ULT Power mode on the Sony ULT Field 3 presents tracks with decent weight and power.

With Warren G’s Regulate in the speaker’s non-ULT Power mode, there’s not much sub-bass, power or punch to low frequencies. Bass is barely noticeable.

Press the ULT Power button and more low end wallop arrives. Turning it on lifts the vocals higher in the soundstage and boosts the speaker’s loudness; the speaker’s sound gets pushed away from the speaker. Whether indoors or outdoors, high or low volume, the impact of the ULT Power mode is audible.

The difference is such that you might want to turn the volume down. And there’s a case to be made this should have been the speaker’s default sound mode. Compared to the Marshall Emberton III, in its ULT Power mode the Sony’s bass performance has more juice.

But, the case against the ULT Power mode being on all the time is that it doesn’t work for all tracks. It’s there if you need it.

Different types of bass bring out different outcomes. Tracks with big, punchy bass, like Kingdom’s Bank Head, sound hollow. With Maye’s La Cancion, detail levels take a hit.

At 50% volume it’s loud and energetic, although there’s the inevitable loss of detail and definition as it gets louder, as well as a sound that gets sharper which affects the balance of the ULT Power mode. I found around 30% to be fine, even with the drop in energy that comes at that volume.

There are some other issues that spoil the ULT Field 3’s overall sound. Music lacks depth – everything occurs on the same, flat plane of sound – and in busy tracks where there’s a lot happening, vocals take the priority but not everything else is as clearly defined.

There’s no sense of stereo either. This is a mono speaker with no left and right, and in tracks where there’s a lot happening, that affects clarity and detail.

Should you buy it?

FAQs