The $899.99 Sony ULT Tower 9 party speaker follows in the footsteps of last year's ULT Tower 10 ($1,199.99), but dials back the size and power to reach a lower price. The Tower 9 produces a massive wall of sound that will fill your home, yard, or party hall with ease, and flashing LED lights create ambiance. The speaker provides multiple connection points, simple controls, plenty of battery life, and high-resolution audio. It's quite large and heavy, and while it supports wired microphones for karaoke, we wish one came in the box. The Tower 9 is still an undeniable party machine, but if you can stretch your budget, the Tower 10 is our Editors' Choice winner for its more refined audio and included wireless microphone.

Design: Huge and Hefty

The Sony ULT Tower 9 is enormous, measuring 35.8 by 16.1 by 18.0 inches (HWD) and weighing 65.3 pounds. The ULT Tower 10, by comparison, is slightly taller and slimmer at 43.3 by 16.5 by 16.9 inches, but actually weighs less at 63.9 pounds.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

Although the speaker's outer body is entirely plastic, the build quality feels excellent. A frame around the top acts as a handle, and there are two wheels on the rear edge just above the base to make it easier to move around. You'll still need an extra set of hands to get it into or out of your trunk, though. The speaker only comes in black.

The Tower 9 has one 12.5-inch woofer, two 4.8-inch midrange drivers, and two 2-inch tweeters. It also has two 1.6-inch front-firing tweeters and two 1.6-inch rear-firing tweeters to support Sony's 360-degree Party Sound feature. Sony doesn't specify the speaker's output, but presumably it's near or less than the 1,000W the ULT Tower 10 delivers.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

The control panel is on top of the speaker, and it's the only part of the speaker with an IP rating. It's rated IPX4, which is enough to survive light splashes of water (or your party beverage of choice). The ULT Tower 10's control panel has an IP67 rating, which means it can withstand dust and water; if you need something totally waterproof, look to the smaller ULT Field 7 ($499.99), which has an IP67 rating all around.

Along with the standard playback and volume controls, the control panel has controls for toggling between the optical input and other sources. Other buttons on top manage the lighting effects, change the key or add echo for karaoke, and put the speaker into pairing mode so you can connect it to a second speaker for true stereo listening. There's also the Sony ULT button, which is essentially a bass boost function.

There are ports on the top under a rubberized cover: a quarter-inch microphone input with a gain knob and a quarter-inch input that can be used for a second microphone or a guitar/keyboard, along with a small button allowing you to switch between the two. Sony sells a pair of ULT Wireless Microphones separately for $149.99, and the speaker has a pair of retractable holders for them, but there are none in the box. Additional inputs are located on the speaker's rear panel beneath another rubberized cover. There's a 3.5mm audio-in jack, an optical input, and a USB-A port, which you can use to charge a device like a phone.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

Sony offers the speaker in two versions, battery-powered (ULT Tower 9) and a plug-in version (ULT Tower 9AC). I received the latter to test, so I can't speak to the battery life of the non-plug-in version, but Sony claims you can expect up to 25 hours of playback. Actual battery life will vary depending on the volume and whether or not you use its lighting features. Sony says a 10-minute charge will provide up to 3 hours of playing time.

The speaker connects through Bluetooth 5.3 and supports the SBC, AAC, and LDAC codecs, which is nice to see. For LDAC playback, you'll need a compatible device. The speaker doesn't support AuraCast, but it does support Sony's Party Connect feature to connect it to other Sony speakers. It offers Google Fast Pair and Bluetooth multipoint connections, but it doesn't have Wi-Fi, nor does it support multi-room arrangements.

In the box, in addition to the speaker itself, you'll find an optical cable and a detachable power cable.

App Experience: Intuitive and Customizable

(Credit: Sony/PCMag)

Like other recent Sony headphones and speakers, the ULT Tower 9 supports the Sony Sound Connect app (free for Android and iOS), the company's unified app for managing its audio products. In addition to playback and volume you can use it to choose lighting modes (both the lights on the speaker and those on the top control panel), and enter a DJ control mode, which lets you add things like a flanger to your mix or add sound effects like extra drums, a vinyl scratch, and audience noise. These features work, but they're quite gimmicky and I don't see myself using them regularly.

One app feature I really like is the ability to edit the main screen. You can toggle on or off features like DJ control and party light control to ensure quick access to the settings that you actually need. The app has a built-in 10-band EQ with bands ranging from 50Hz to 16kHz, so you can adjust the audio to your liking, or to better fit the style of music you're playing.

The lighting itself is decently bright, and dotted around both the top and bottom edges of the speaker for a better effect. It definitely has more of an impact in darker environments, but you can still see the light show in bright rooms. I like that you get decent control over the effects and colors via the app.

Sound: Here to Rock You

The Sony ULT Tower 9 is built to sound gigantic, and it does. It gets tooth-rattlingly loud—so much so that I only briefly pushed the maximum volume in testing because I was concerned the neighbors would call the cops.

Because of how big it is, the speaker is also able to pump out decently loud bass, even without any of the ULT settings turned on. With the default EQ and settings, the speaker easily pumped out the sub-bass content of The Knife's “Silent Shout," giving kick drums and the bass synth more than enough oomph. In fact, the bass felt overpowering at times. This is a party speaker, so that's not surprising. You can dial it back in the EQ, of course.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

The good bass response carries over to Kendrick Lamar's "Loyalty." On this track, the kick drum was substantial and strong, and the speaker was able to produce all but the lowest sub-bass notes. The notes that it did produce faithfully were smooth and deep. This came at the cost of some of the highs at times, but again, that can be rectified with an EQ adjustment.

On "Drover" by Bill Callahan, the bass isn't overpowering. Callahan's voice is deep and rich, and while it has some boominess at times, it isn't over the top. It does feel like some of the sparkle in the cymbals and percussion is lost, but then, this isn't a speaker designed for subtlety or close listening. The kick drum is driving and impactful.

The ULT Tower 9 clearly isn't designed for orchestral tracks like The Gospel According to the Other Mary by John Adams, but it still handles it well. There is some fuzziness to some of the bass strings, but the brass instruments sound bright, and the solo vocalist cuts through the mix well.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

Sony uses some directional tweeter tricks to make the sound more immersive when connecting the speaker to a TV using its optical input. This works fine in testing, but it doesn't replace a dedicated soundbar or surround sound system. Still, it's another way to get use out of the speaker.

Overall, I am impressed by the Sony ULT Tower 9's combination of audio quality and features. It's a bass-forward speaker perfectly suited to parties or anywhere you want audio that's too loud to ignore.