First look at Sony's SRS-X9 high-res network speaker

Sony markets its SRS-X9 as "Ultra Premium," and as you'll see in our video, it sure looks the part. On paper, the X9 is pretty impressive as well. It will let you wirelessly stream music via Apple's Airplay, Bluetooth, or DLNA, and it can handle any audio file type and resolution you could throw at it, right up to 192kHz/24-bit FLAC and WAV files or, naturally, Sony's DSD files.
The speaker's style may be understated, but it sure is classy. We like the solid cabinet, which is finished with gloss piano black paint and capped at the ends with brushed aluminum panels.
Under the X9′s hood is 154 watts of total amplification pushing 7 active drivers and two passive radiators. Included in the driver array are two "super tweeters" which handle extremely high (some would say inaudible) treble frequencies as part of Sony's High-Resolution Audio efforts.
The speaker is certainly the finest of its type Sony has ever produced, but at $700, we think it is priced prohibitively high for some. Of course, it sounds better in many ways that most of its competition, but how much better it sounds is a subjective matter best left to individual listeners. One thing is certain, Sony is deadly serious about re-establishing itself as a leader in high-quality audio, and the X9 goes a long way toward that effort.