Retroboom at Home and On the Go: What to Expect

On the first night, the Retroboom sat on the kitchen counter between the fruit bowl and the coffee maker. It looked like it had wandered in from 1987 and planned to stay. My partner walked past, stopped, and asked where I'd found it.

I'm Theo. I live in Columbus, Ohio, with a backyard that fills up most Saturdays and a habit of feeding too many people. I wanted to know one thing about this retro Bluetooth speaker: does the look hold up once the novelty wears off?

So I took it through three tests. Weeknights at home, a backyard cookout, and a day at the lake. Short answer: it held up. The only real catch is that it needs a proper spot in the house.

Retroboom at a glance

First impressions of Retroboom

The box holds more than I expected for $299. Along with the speaker, you get a mic, a remote, a support strap, an AC adapter, USB-C charging cables, and a card with a QR code for the manual. I went with Classic Silver. Radical Red and Onyx Black were close calls.

Then I picked it up. The Retroboom weighs 14 lb 8 oz, and you feel that on the first lift. The handle makes it easy for one person to carry across a room or out to the car. I wouldn't want to carry it a mile, though.

The controls won me over fast. Volume, bass, and treble sit on three illuminated knobs, with a 2.8" color display beside them. There's no app to download and no account to make. I turned a knob, and the sound changed.

At home: weeknight listening

Most of a speaker's life happens at home, so I started there. Weeknights meant cooking with music on low. With the bass knob turned up a notch, the Retroboom kept some weight in the low end, so a bassline still had shape while I chopped onions. Podcasts came through clear over the sound of the fan. I cycled through the three EQ presets and settled on one for podcasts and another for music.

The lighting took some adjusting. The reactive LED strip and RGB logo run in five modes, and on the brightest mode they're a lot for a Tuesday. I switched to a calmer mode and left it there. On Friday I switched it back.

On Sunday mornings the remote earned its place. I could skip tracks from the couch without putting my coffee down.

One evening I plugged in an old MP3 player over Aux, the one holding ten years of playlists I never moved to my phone. Those songs came out of something shaped like the boombox my cousin carried to every family reunion. That's when the design clicked for me. The shape brings back those summers. The sound is built for the way I listen now.

Saturday in the backyard

The cookout was the test I cared about most. Nine people, one grill, a folding table, and a yard about the size of a double garage.

I set the Retroboom on the patio step and handed my neighbor the remote. She appointed herself DJ within five minutes. For a group this size, I never came close to the top of the volume range.

It’s rated at 200W peak, its maximum burst output, and everyday listening sits well below that. Even so, it filled the yard and still let people hold a conversation by the grill. Turned up, the bass carried to the back fence without getting muddy, and the vocals stayed clear enough that people at the folding table were singing along before the chorus.

The mic came in the box, so I plugged it in to announce that the burgers were ready. That got a laugh and a line at the grill. Later in the evening, someone found the mic again, and the karaoke started. Let's put it this way: we came close to banning Bohemian Rhapsody.

Then the sun went down, and the lights came up. The illuminated passive radiators and the reactive LED strip moved with the music, and the speaker became the place people drifted toward. A retro boombox did that at every good party I remember from when I was growing up. This one did it on my patio, over Bluetooth, from three in the afternoon until almost ten. And when the last guest headed home, the display still showed about 60% left.

A day at the lake

The following Sunday, the Retroboom came with us to Alum Creek.

It rode belted in like a passenger princess. The walk from the parking lot to the beach was about five minutes, so I clipped on the support strap and carried it on my shoulder. It’s manageable for one person, though you’ll be glad the beach is close.

My youngest came tearing out of the water after lunch and did the wet dog shake right over the speaker. The Retroboom kept playing. IPX6 covers rain and splashes, so I wasn’t worried. It can’t handle being in the water, though, so it stayed on the sand with us.

The thing about a lake beach is there's nowhere to plug anything in. I've had speakers die on me by two in the afternoon, and then all you hear is other people's music drifting over. This time I charged the Retroboom the night before and didn't bother bringing the cable. We got there around ten and left a little after six, and the volume sat around the middle most of the day, loud enough for the whole group, quiet enough to talk over. It’s rated at up to 30 hours on a charge, and after eight hours outside, the display was showing a bit over half.

My phone was another story. Between the playlist and a hundred photos of the kids, it was down to 8% by late afternoon. I plugged it into the Retroboom, which doubles as a battery bank. An hour later it was at 60%, enough for navigation on the drive home. That top up is part of why the speaker’s own battery ended the day a little lower.

Pairing two with TWS

With TWS, two Retrobooms pair into a wireless stereo set. In a bigger yard, you can put one at each end so the music reaches the grill and the folding table without turning either one all the way up. I only have one, so I haven’t tried it yet. For bigger gatherings, it’s the feature I’d use first.

What to expect from the Retroboom

So, does the look hold up once the novelty wears off? For me, it did. Somewhere between the kitchen counter and the lake, I stopped thinking of it as the new speaker with the retro look and started thinking of it as the one I grab on the way out the door.

It's at its best when people are around. The mic, the lights, and the battery bank all sound like extras on paper, and all three got used in the first week. At home, I liked having knobs I could reach over and turn.

There are a few things I'd want a friend to know before buying one. It's $299, 14 lb 8 oz and 20 inches wide. It's portable, but it still needs a real spot in the house. IPX6 means rain and splashes are fine, but it shouldn't go in the pool or the lake. And the 200W on the box is peak output, the most it can push in a burst.

If you've been looking for a retro Bluetooth speaker that works on a Friday night and a Saturday afternoon, the Retroboom is worth a look.

Pick a color. Take it outside.