Marshall has been building guitar amps for decades, and over the past decade and a half (through some savvy licensing) has expanded into consumer headphones and Bluetooth speakers. The Bromley 750 ($1,299.99), however, is the company's first foray into party speakers. It competes with the likes of the $1,099 JBL PartyBox 720, bringing Marshall's iconic aesthetic and a much higher-end take on the party speaker category. It looks stunning, sounds excellent, and has some genuinely clever features that set it apart from the competition. You're paying a lot for all this, but it's really good if you want a more refined approach to the concept.

Design: Giving Stage Amp Vibes

The Bromley 750 looks like a Marshall amplifier, which is exactly the point. It features the classic black-and-gold color scheme, the iconic Marshall logo on the front, and a faux-leather exterior and metal grille that give it a premium feel. If you're tired of party speakers that look like oversized plastic toys, this is the antidote.

The speaker's build quality is very good. The controls toward the top of the front are easily accessible and feel substantial, not cheap. The speaker has an IP54 water-resistance rating, which means it's protected against dust and splashes. Marshall has also built in a drainage system to protect the tweeters from rain or spills. That's helpful for a speaker that, when used as intended, is likely to be around folks who might be more likely to slosh their beverage as the night progresses.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

I like that there are tons of controls. You get individual dials for volume, bass, and treble, along with a power toggle, a button to switch between inputs, and a media control toggle that you press to play or pause and push left or right to skip tracks. A stylized M button is customizable through the app, with the default setting triggering a Stroboscope lighting effect. You also get separate volume controls for the two input channels, an effect dial that moves between delay, delay/reverb, and reverb, and a light effect button that cycles through three presets or turns the lights off entirely. 

The most interesting control to me is the so-called Sound Character knob. At one extreme, you'll get Dynamic, with the other extreme being Loud, though you can choose any level in between those. The basic gist is that you're deciding how much to compress the audio so the whole thing can be turned up, making the quieter parts of a track more audible in a loud room. The trade-off of making the quiet parts louder, however, is that you kill the dynamics of the track. I generally preferred to keep it at the Dynamic end of the spectrum, but I can easily imagine the knob being useful in a party setting.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

Like any good party speaker, the Bromley 750 features lighting effects, but they work a bit differently than usual. Instead of the colorful disco-style lights you get on most party speakers, Marshall has gone with only warm white lights on the front, designed to look like concert lighting. There are three presets for the lights, one of which reacts to audio, along with an option to turn the lights off. I really liked the effect, and Marshall's approach definitely fits better with the live music vibe the company is going for.

The Bromley 750 is certainly not a small speaker. It measures 25.7 by 16.3 by 14 inches (HWD) and weighs 52.7 pounds. You won't be casually tossing it in the back of your car. That said, Marshall has made it as portable as possible with built-in wheels, a retractable handle, and side grips. These definitely help, and I was able to move it around without too much trouble.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

The speaker connects via Bluetooth 5.3 with support for Auracast and multipoint pairing, so you can connect multiple devices simultaneously. It supports AAC and SBC codecs, but there's no hi-res codec support, which is a little disappointing at this price point. For wired connections, you get an RCA input, an aux input, and an aux output for daisy-chaining the speaker to others. On top of those, you get two XLR/6.35mm combo jacks for microphones or instruments, and a USB-C port for charging your device while you use the speaker. The speaker isn't designed to sound like an actual Marshall guitar amp, but it can still be used for karaoke or similar applications.

Inside, the Bromley 750 packs two 10-inch woofers, two 5.25-inch midrange drivers, two 1-inch tweeters, and two 0.8-inch tweeters. It's a solid driver array designed to make music audible all around the speaker. While the back definitely looks like the back, it doesn't necessarily sound like it.

Battery Life: Party Into the Night—and the Next Day

Battery life is excellent. Marshall claims over 40 hours of playtime, which is huge. Even better, the battery is removable, plus it has a USB-C port built into it, which serves two functions: It's a power output, allowing you to use it to charge your phone or another device, and it's a power input, so you can charge up the battery for your speaker without having to lug the whole thing around just to charge. I love this feature; it's clever and actually makes owning the speaker more convenient. 

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

In the box, you get the speaker with the battery already installed and a power cord. It's all you'll really need.

App Experience: Exceedingly Basic

The Marshall Bromley 750 connects to the Marshall Bluetooth app, but you probably won't use it much. The app lets you check the battery level, adjust volume, update firmware, and change what the M button does. Your options here are the default Stroboscope effect, a Low Volume Mode, or nothing at all. That's it.

(Credit: Marshall/PCMag)

You can't tweak the EQ through the app, and you can't change the light settings either. Pretty much everything is accessed via the speaker's physical controls.

I wish Marshall had put more effort into in-app features. It would be nice to have an EQ and the ability to change settings remotely. That said, given the excellent physical controls on the speaker, you don't really need the app except for firmware updates. And for those of us who already have too many apps on our phones, maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Sound: As Bombastic As You'd Expect

The Bromley 750 sounds excellent. For reference, I tested it with the bass and treble knobs set to their middle positions and the Sound Character knob set to Dynamic. This is how the knobs were set out of the box.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

On "Silent Shout" by The Knife, the bass is deep and powerful. The kick drum is loud and pounding, and the bass synths have plenty of weight. The speaker definitely leans toward bass with the default settings, but higher-frequency instruments still cut through the mix with clarity and detail. Turning up the treble knob helps balance things out, too.

"Loyalty" by Kendrick Lamar also showcases the speaker's impressive low-end capabilities. The Bromley 750 plays deep sub-bass notes that many speakers struggle with, though the very lowest note in the bass synth line is still missing. Even so, what it can play down low is very impressive. On top of the punchy bass, the vocals from Lamar and Rihanna sound relatively full, while higher-frequency instruments have enough detail to help round things out.

"Drover" by Bill Callahan sounds much more natural as a whole, with the kick drum sitting in the mix rather than overpowering everything like it can on tracks that already have a lot of bass. Callahan's baritone is rich and deep, and the acoustic guitars sound neutral enough to blend well with the mix. I would prefer slightly more sparkle from things like the cymbals, but the detail level is still good for a speaker that leans toward the bass, and something that can be fixed with the built-in EQ knobs.

Although you probably won't use the speaker for orchestral music, tracks like the opening of The Gospel According to the Other Mary by John Adams sound quite good. The piece sounds full and natural enough, though the solo vocal is slightly buried, and things can feel a little congested at times. That's pretty normal for party speakers, though, and frankly, for solo speakers in general. Generally, the audio is quite clean, with brass sounding nice and bright, and strings relatively smooth.

The 360-degree sound worked quite well in testing, too, keeping consistent even when I was behind it. That's handy for any situation other than placing the speaker against a wall, such as in a larger room where you want audio to be more even, or even in outdoor settings.

There's no built-in microphone for speakerphone functionality, but that's not really what this speaker is designed for.