Marshall Bromley 450 review: The best party speaker of 2026
Seven months since the launch of its first-ever party speaker, Marshall is back with a smaller, more affordable option for the budget-conscious. The Marshall Bromley 450 is a hoot. Sporting the British giant’s trademark premium build and brass accents, the Bromley 450 is good-looking to the point that I want to keep it in my apartment as eye candy.
Aiding the Bromley 450’s position as one of the — if not the — best party speakers of 2026 is its wide soundstage and refined sound quality. The treble is crisp and bright; vocals are clear and detailed; and the bass is meaty and powerful, and it makes you want to headbang. With up to 40 hours of battery life, integrated reactive LED lighting, and its ability to double (or triple) as a karaoke machine and amp for your instruments, there’s so much to love about the Bromley 450.
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Specs
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Specs |
Marshall Bromley 450 |
|---|---|
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Price |
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Colors |
Black and Brass |
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Size |
19.37 x 14.17 x 10.27 inches |
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Weight |
26.89lbs |
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Frequency response |
42Hz-20KHz |
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Multipoint connectivity |
Yes |
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Max paired devices |
2 |
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Battery life (rated) |
40 hours |
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Connectivity |
Bluetooth 5.3 with SBC, AAC and LC3, 3.5mm jack, USB-C, RCA, 2x XLR/6.35mm combo jacks |
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Waterproofing |
IP55 |
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Cheat sheet
- What is it? Marshall’s second-ever party speaker, and the Bromley 750’s smaller (and cheaper) sibling
- Who is it for? Musicians, mobile DJs, and social gatherings or parties
- How much does it cost? $799 / £549, so it’s a fair bit cheaper than the Bromley 750
- What do we like? The powerful bass, crisp treble, long battery life, premium design and build, and connectivity options
- What don’t we like? The lackluster app
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Price & availability
Launched on March 17 2026, the Marshall Bromley 450 is Marshall’s second-ever party speaker, and it’s the smaller and cheaper sibling to the Bromley 750 ($1,299) which came out only in September 2025. The Bromley 450 is much cheaper than the Bromley 750 as it retails for $799 / £549, so it’s for anyone who wants a party speaker like the Bromley 750 but doesn’t want to burn a hole in their pocket.
The Bromley 450 is priced similarly to the JBL PartyBox 520 ($879), the Sony ULT Tower 9 ($899) and the Soundboks 4 ($999). In my opinion, the Bromley 350 trumps its competition with its battery life, integrated and classy LED lighting, and best-in-class sound quality.
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Design & controls
- So good-looking and well-built
- Convenient handle for transportation
- Guitar amp-like tactile controls
Marshall knows how to make a good-looking product. I’ve been using the Marshall Monitor III ($349) headphones for over a year now, and I’ve had the pleasure of listening to and testing the British brand’s other products too. Every single time, I’m blown away by the design and the build quality, and this holds true in the case of the Marshall Bromley 450 too.
Put the Bromley 450 next to its big brother, the Bromley 750, and you’ll notice that they look nearly identical. Similar to the latter, the Bromley 450 comes in matte Black with Brass accents, and the well-defined front grille houses the integrated LED lights. The side and rear drivers and passive radiators are covered with grilles as well. I love the branding on the front as it makes the speaker look premium and classy.
But unlike the Bromley 750, the Bromley 450 isn’t as large. It measures 19.37 x 14.17 x 10.27 inches and weighs 26.89lbs, making it more portable than its stablemate. Also a departure from the Bromley 750, the Bromley 450 doesn’t feature large wheels or a suitcase-style handle that emerges from the top for easy transport. To be fair, you don’t really need wheels on the Bromley 450. A built-in handle is located on the speaker’s left side and it features a textured grip so that you can, well, grip your fingers around it. I had no trouble carrying the speaker up and down stairs and between different rooms.
Adding to the Bromley 450’s aesthetic appeal are its controls. All the buttons and dials are signposted and easy to understand. The main controls are located above the front grille and they wouldn’t look out of place on a guitar amp. Each button gives good tactile feedback when pressed, and each dial has just enough friction to ensure you don’t move it by mistake.
These buttons and dials give you plenty of control over the Bromley 450’s settings. You can adjust the volume, bass, treble, add reverb/delay if you’ve got a mic or instrument plugged in, swap between input sources, and use the M button to toggle a strobe lighting effect. The Bromley 450 doesn’t feature a Sound Character dial as found on the Bromley 750, though, but I didn’t miss it much.
Overall, the Bromley 450 is designed extremely well and hasn’t given me much to complain about. The design and controls are perfect, no notes.
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Features
- IP55 waterproof and dustproof
- Immersive and reactive LED lights
- Auracast works well
The Marshall Bromley 450 knows how to put on a show, thanks to its integrated LED lamps. The LED lighting feels immersive and tasteful, and I much prefer it over the garish RGB lighting used by the JBL PartyBox 520.
Similar to the Bromley 750, you can choose one of three lighting modes: one ambient as well as two dynamic modes where the LED lamps react to the music playing and dance around. Reactive lighting is a delight, and it worked well to synchronize with the bass in nearly every track I played — whether that was an instrumental track or a heavy rock one.
If you want to use this speaker outside, you can do so without worrying about it getting damaged as the Bromley 450 is IP55-rated (5 for solids and 5 for liquids, on a scale of 1-8 each). It’s ever-so-slightly better than the Bromley 750’s IP54-rating — essentially, the Bromley 450 has slightly better water resistance and the same protection against dust and dirt as the 750. It’s much more durable than the JBL PartyBox 520 which is only IPX4-rated, which isn’t protected against dust at all. The Soundboks 4 has the best rating at IP65-rated, which means it has the same water protection as the Bromley 450 and better dust protection.
The Bromley 450 features Auracast (called Broadcast on Marshall devices) if you want to pair it with other speakers, and this must be done through the app. What’s great about this is that you can connect any number of Auracast-enabled speakers to the Bromley 450 — whether that’s two Bromley 450s, another Bromley 750, a Kilburn III ($379) or another brand’s speaker (JBL, for instance), as proven by my testing. Sound quality is fantastic when using two Bromley 450s together, and I’ll discuss it in detail below.
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Connectivity & app
- Bluetooth 5.3 with SBC, AAC and LC3
- Ports for wired playback, mics and instruments
- App is still underwhelming
There’s no dearth of connectivity options and modes on the Marshall Bromley 450. In terms of wireless connectivity, it utilizes Bluetooth 5.3 with support for AAC, SBC and LC3 codecs. It also features multipoint connectivity so you can connect up to two devices simultaneously as I did with my Google Pixel 10 Pro XL and MacBook Air M2.
As for wired connectivity, you get 3.5mm aux and USB-C ports, as well as two XLR/6.35mm combo ports for microphones and acoustic/electric guitars, and RCA ports for keyboards and turntables. This makes the Bromley 450 perfect for mobile DJs and musicians too, as it essentially doubles as an amp and a karaoke machine. Combine that with the reverb and delay effects and you’ve got a winner.
My biggest criticism of the Bromley 450, however, is related to its app, because aside from the lackluster companion app, the speaker is great hardware-wise. The speaker uses the same companion app as Marshall’s headphones and the Bromley 750 and just like with the Bromley 750, you don’t really get much control over the Bromley 450.
See, you can’t adjust the equalizer, the delay/reverb effects, or much of the lighting. While these controls are available onboard in the form of physical buttons and dials, what if you’re the host and on the other side of the large room it’s in? It’s a missed opportunity and it’s something I wish Marshall had fixed this time around. Third time’s the charm?
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Sound quality
- Supremely powerful bass and crisp treble
- Broadcast works extremely well
- Gets very, very loud
If you want a loud speaker to soundtrack large gatherings or for a jam session in the skatepark, I can’t recommend the Marshall Bromley 450. Don’t underestimate how loud it can get just because it’s smaller than the Marshall Bromley 750. Just like its stablemate, the Bromley 450 is well-endowed, featuring a 500W Class D amplification powered by two 90W woofers, two 55W full-range drivers, and four 50W tweeters. In terms of drivers, it is fitted with two 6.5-inch 40W woofers, four 2-inch 6W full-range drivers, and two 8-inch passive radiators.
All of this is to say that the Bromley 450 gets very loud and delivers best-in-class sound on par with the Bromley 750. To test the speaker, I listened to my favorite tracks on Qobuz which is the best music streaming service for hi-res audio. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy listening to music through the Bromley 450, I also appreciated the fact that songs sounded just as detailed when the speaker was playing at full volume and I was standing far away from it outdoors (at the opposite end of our office’s parking lot).
I started off by listening to ‘My Dark Disquiet’ by Poets of the Fall to test the bass, first and foremost, and how well the Bromley 450 creates an atmospheric soundscape — and it excels at both. Through the Bromley 450, the bassline sounded powerful with plenty of low-end impact, and it never sounded muddy or lost in the background. The throbbing bassline created a perfect backbone for the song, while the kick drum delivered some punchy flavor and worked in conjunction with the bass. Marko Saaresto’s vocals sounded as beautiful as ever.
Towards the end of the track when his voice sounds like it’s being played through a megaphone before the guitar’s staccato riffs and the drums kick in, the transition sounded seamless through the Bromley 450, and I never heard any unpleasant distortion. Keeping in line with the fact that this song features in the video game Control, it certainly made me feel like Jesse Faden navigating the Oldest House!
I then put the Bromley 450 through a vocal stress test by listening to ‘From Finner’ by Of Monsters and Men. The dual lead vocalists, Nanna and Ragnar, have distinct voices: the former has an airy high pitch while the latter focuses more on the warmer lower range. Through the Bromley 450, both of them sounded harmonious, and the speaker highlighted the dual-input vocal architecture as the star of the show.
When the “heys” and “la-la-las” kicked in during the chorus, it felt like the Bromley 450 had expanded them, showcasing the speaker’s wide soundstage, and it created a sense of the song being sung on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Vocals were packed with detail too, as I could hear the wobble in Nanna’s voice every now and then. Very atmospheric, and nothing short of stunning.
The Broadcast feature on the Bromley 450 works extremely well too. To test the Bromley 450’s stereo sound, I paired it with another Bromley 450 that my colleague was testing. I talked about the ease of doing so in the section above, so I’ll talk about the sound quality now.
Immediately, I noticed that the sub-bass and mid-bass sounded incredible and when I stood between the two units, I felt immersed by the tunes and felt like the bass was running through me. Vocals fared just as well if not better, with the sibilance and plosives sounded very clean and detailed in ‘White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter’ by Lana Del Rey, and her words didn’t bleed into one another either. It felt like I was at a live concert.
But of course, this is a party speaker, so I had to put on a party track. I listened to ‘Tomorrow is Another Day’ by M-High. The bass felt mighty but so did the treble. The snare hits and hi-hats in the track never sounded shrill, and there was a distinct sound to each without bleeding into one another. This created a swing that felt mechanically perfect yet bouncy, and the synth stabs around the 3-minute mark sounded chirpy but light enough that they didn’t pierce through the rest of the instruments.
Listen along to my review with the Marshall Bromley 450 testing playlist:
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Battery life
- 40 hours of battery life
- Same battery life as Bromley 750
- Battery pack doubles as power bank
To top it all off, the Marshall Bromley 450 boasts outstanding battery life. It utilizes the same battery pack you’ll find in the Marshall Bromley 750, and on a single charge, both speakers can last for up to 40 hours (depending on usage conditions). I really appreciate Marshall fitting both its party speakers with the same battery despite the price difference.
The Bromley 450’s 40-hour battery life upstages the JBL PartyBox 520’s 15-hour and the Sony ULT Tower 9’s 25-hour batteries. The Soundboks 40 is rated for 40 hours on paper but our testing showed that this drops significantly, to just six hours, at high volumes. Having used the Bromley 450 for a six-hour listening session at varying volumes and the LED lighting turned on, the battery life dropped by just 15%.
As is the nature of the LiFePO4 battery pack that the Bromley 450 and the Bromley 750 use, it’s replaceable and can be removed by opening up the hard plastic latch on the back. It also doubles as a power bank so you can use it to charge your phone, tablet, laptop, or as I did, my Marshall Monitor III, thanks to the USB-C port.
Marshall Bromley 450 review: Verdict
As party speakers go, the Marshall Bromley 450 is the best you can buy. I’d even argue that it’s better than its bigger sibling, the Bromley 750, simply because it doesn’t carry an eye-watering price tag. While the app could be better, that’s really the only issue I have with the Bromley 450 because aside from that, it’s almost perfect.
The Bromley 450 looks stunning with its matte black finish and brass accents on its buttons and dials, and the integrated LED lighting is mesmerizing. Thanks to the many connectivity options, it’s the only speaker you’ll need if you’re a mobile DJ, karaoke enthusiast, musician or even just an audiophile. Sound quality is top-notch with meaty bass and vibrant treble to boot.
If you don’t mind the underwhelming app, I can’t recommend the Bromley 450 enough. It’s great-looking, it sounds even better, and its LED lamps will leave you mesmerized if the sound hasn’t done so already.
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