Here’s a brief review of the “Vintage Retro Speaker” that I found at my local Five Below. I’m a sucker for the 1950’s design aesthetic (one of the many reasons I love Fallout), so I just had to have it. Give the video a watch if you want a look at the speaker in action as well as a more in-depth review, or continue on reading for a brief(ish) rundown.
As for my take on the speaker, I can’t really recommend it. The build quality isn’t that great, and the one that I bought would garble any treble heavy audio until I accidentally fixed it. When I say “accidentally fixed”, I mean just that. I initially wanted to open up the speaker, but it was assembled without any screws visible on the back and I couldn’t find any clips. From what I can tell, there may be some screws on the front under the fragile face plate, but at that point it’s too risky for me to mess with. When all was said and done I was left with stress marks around the outside, and I decided to use my heat gun to remove them. It seems using my heat gun melted and reset the hot glue that was holding the speaker driver in place, because now the speaker itself sounds just fine. That being said, it was still not a great first impression.
My other main issue with the speaker would have to be the LED that was used in it. Apparently the manufacturer thought it would be a good idea to use a color changing LED, and while I may have given that a pass if it looked nice, they decided to go with the cheapest LED possible. Instead of gradually changing color at a constant pace, they used what can only be described as the light from a cheap Halloween decoration. It changes colors at varying speeds until it finally just flashes. Personally, I would have gone with a warm white LED that would be reminiscent of the bulbs used in vintage radios.
All in all, I feel like you should just save your money and pass on this speaker. There are plenty of better listening devices available in that price range, many of which are in the same store.
