ION Street Rocker Retro Boombox Review

I see Ion spent a large development budget on complex electronics to simulate the realistic sound of a budget tape (Lloytron and Lionsound from our Sunday market were always popular) to give your MP3's that flavour of authenticity when recording a mix-tape for the girl with the large bust who lives two doors down.

I smiled when the first tape played was the same royalty-free track Trixie Mattel uses for her channel. It catered to my very specific zone of the YouTube venn diagram.

Just finished watching it and I presumed it’ll be a gimmick when the Ion logo was shown. The unit did seem to be a bit overpriced and the initial impressions (as well as the look inside) did confirm it.

Got the new Kenmoan/Techwood T-shirt today. It looks great. I hope you can put our more items using that logo--it's a nice, simple design--it stands out well, but not too bold.

At this point, it's more like catching up with an old friend than anything else - I really enjoy the content, and wouldn't tire of these types of video but I probably wouldn't be as interested if it were being done by anyone else. That just goes for the reviews and cheese sandwich videos mind, the usual types of video you're getting back to are the ones I get really excited about, but any Techmoan video is an instant watch, regardless of the content. It's just nice catching up every week :)

I've been enjoying this boombox series, especially since each episode ends with a "don't waste your money". Since one of your previous ones I've gotten into messing around on the AM bands to see what I can find, with much more success that you have had (listening in Dublin). Not much there during the day (a Christian radio station in Dublin and I think BBC 5 Live), but at night I can pick up a lot of local BBC radio stations, plus people talking in French or Spanish. Spent hours going through the SW bands too, lots of fun stuff to pick up there. You must have something generating a signal interfering if you can't get anything on the AM band. The radio I used is this https://www.amazon.co.uk/XHDATA-Portable-Digital-External-Rechargeable/dp/B077Z2P28F It can also pick up the Air bands to listen to nearby Air Traffic Control, plus the FM tuner is so sensitive that I can pick up BBC Radio 1 - 4 despite their frequencies almost overlapping with local Dublin stations. Figured within a few years all these broadcasts will have moved online so may as well have fun seeing what I can find until then.

I noticed in the left/right test the LEDs were flashing simultaneously, and sure enough on he circuit board they’re connected together on each side. The VU meters are at least separate, but they’re driven by the speaker signals so they’re just telling you how loud you’ve got it. ☹️

These kind of videos always make me appreciate more the good stuff I have around here: I've been recording/listening to a lot of cassettes lately, none of them was as noisy as the cassette you showed, but that's a common issue apparently with the new Maxell cassettes...

Yeah, it does look good from the video on a smartphone. Such a pity! So you'd probably be better off buying a restored older one. I understand that these crappy things are made, but why so few good ones right?

Cool, wireless tweeters! A bargain at this price, if you ask me.

Oh the thing is disgusting. I feel like I've just been completely had by thinking it looked nice from 10 feet away. Ick.

From 10 feet away the thing looks great, I was really hoping it would be good... and why in the hell is it not $40? This box... you did a good thing Mat making this video. Funny thing about ION: I have a turntable that was made by them and its one of my favorites, precisely because I can bash it around outside in the dirt so there IS a market for cheap junk, just not for more than $40. Great video!

You know it's more crappier than crap because it doesn't even show up on Amazon.

I can think of one good use for it. I seem to recall a point in the 80s when every 12th or 13th music video featured the dramatic destruction of a boombox. Like, the sheer power of this band's rocking caused the device to explode. Or the audacity and rebelliousness of this music represented a dangerous threat to the Establishment, and thus an adult authority figure deemed it necessary to destroy the source of the music with a baseball bat or somesuch before it inspired The Kids to unite and rise up in joyful rebellion, etc. So if there's ever a need to reproduce that kind of video, the producers can source a prop from Ion instead of destroying a proper vintage boombox.

Thanks for the review of it. Don't totally kill the idea of videos looking at low grade or "tat" products as someone else pointed out, in the mix. Seems no better than the ALDI one you had some time back TBH, bar it's actually stereo. Had they got the SOUND right from the speakers, it probably would have been an OK proposition as a general audio device, and the speakers /amplifier look pretty decent so it's a shame they stuffed that up so miserably. As for the 128Kbits mp3 for recordings, it's amazing they have never gone past that, though I have ONE alibaba "media" module that records 44100khz, stereo WAV files and it sounds perfect. Shame it's so lacklustre, they could have got it right with a little finesse at the end, the speakers, beefy looking amp chip, a credible enough tape mech, and the media device are all decent looking so sad they stuffed it up so horribly.

Haven't watched it, haven't read these comments (not feeling well today) but as SOON as I saw the email all I could think of was: "We used to call those Ghetto Blasters." Lol! Looking forward to watching.

Interesting and informative as always, Mat. Having fake tweeters is tantamount to fraud in my view. You get what you pay for, they say, but not in this case. I doubt anyone would be bothered to sue them, sadly. Have a good weekend!

I'm always glad to see these videos Mat. They stop people from buying modern junk. Some of the best stereo radio cassettes were made by Sony. The CF-550A started the race. They followed it up with the CF-580 which had 4 speakers. Then the market went silly with all the Japanese makers producing ever increasing sizes. I wont go on but I did find it a funny period in the Hi Fi trade.

Didn't even notice the new neon sign. It's definitely cool. Then realized I hadn't seen your old sign for a while so I looked through each video in reverse chronological order until I saw it in the one about the beer foam machine. Now I wonder if your new boombox sign will "play" your old cassette sign?

The whole time you were touring this, all I could think was "hasn't he reviewed $40 boomboxes that are basically this or even better?" What a piece of junk this one is.

Your new neon sign in the background (nice, by the way!) did have me slightly worried that you were going "All Boomboxes. All the time!" But a good review (of a shoddy product) to wrap these monstrosities up with. Looking forward to the review of a vintage model, though! In the meantime, I'll probably have nightmares about the amounts of recording noise on this thing... 😨

Honestly thank you for this! I also would have thought at that price, $100 USD that would would at least reach, mediocre to OK quality and not just the same low quality components at a higher price. Thanks for the sacrifice and I think its an excellent time to step away from these type of modern boom boxes and move on. Really enjoyed the video and for a nice start to the weekend with some entertaining and educational content!

Thorough as always, Mat and surprisingly entertaining! Your policy of buying and reviewing certainly pays off in circumstances like this. Good review. Looking forward to seeing the classic ones, I know nothing of these really, and I look forward to finding out.

A cracking video, Mat - thanks. I have no specific interest in boomboxes, but it doesn't matter when a show's as well made and entertaining as this. PS: Did you get your new neon sign specially made? I've always wanted a neon sign of my own. TBH I don't even know what the sign would say but, in the 1980s, it seemed like what a grown man would have in his home office, unless the movies lied to me.

I think Mat is on a noble quest in his reviews of these devices, something not too expensive with acceptable sound quality. If a person is looking for a music player that uses speakers rather than headphones or earbuds, there seems to be a gap between something expensive (whether vintage or new) and cheap and nasty retro-look boomboxes like this one. Maybe a portable bluetooth speaker connected to a phone is meant to fill that gap. Then again, people gathering around listening to music can be hazardous for your health these days.

The box hinted at the lack of tweeters...it said "dual full range speakers" which means just two actual speakers. Having fake tweeters is very deceptive IMHO.

I worked my way through college as a radio salesman back in the 1970's and handled a lot of boomboxes which, of course, I looked down upon back then. Seeing these boombox videos make me wish that I used my employee discount to buy one. I had no idea that the electronics back then would be the high point of the art.

So they named it Street Rocker, I would call it Street Shocker! It didn't look too bad at first glance. This is the perfect device to record hiss; you can't go wrong with that. I wonder if you have more noise on a Tefifon recording?

I love the boombox light!!

I love these "tat-attack" videos. It's a lovely balance. Its like when you go on holiday and you go to a beautiful art museum and think "Oh! What a cerebral experience! How drove." And then the next day you go to the pier to try and win fake Sonic and Mario plushies from a rigged claw game. I love seeing the good, the bad and the ugly.

You just need a secondary channel where you take the crap boomboxes out to the garden and destroy them... attract a whole different audience

What Mark and Tom said 😃

And there is no such thing as this start into the weekend :)

There is no such thing as too many Boombox reviews!😆