Renor PowerCab review: Retro looks, vintage quality audio

The market for bluetooth-enabled speakers is a cacophony of sorts. There are all kinds of devices and brands in India — home editions of global brands, local ones, locally made global ‘names’, local made local speakers and such. It is extremely difficult to pick a product that suits your needs because there are many to choose from and almost all speakers boast of great sound and hardware. Since most urban consumers have now shifted online for purchases, they usually end up taking a big gamble buying a speaker -- especially when they want a suitably premium one -- as there exist few ways to test the product before they buy it. The best bet, still, is to go with the known names but then you run the risk of missing out on the outliers, like Renor Audio.

Renor is a consumer tech start-up founded in 2019 by Aditya Prasad, a musician turned entrepreneur. The PowerCab from Renor is marketed as a high-fidelity bluetooth speaker and a hybrid system because the makers think it can be used as a large home speaker as well as for party audio.

Old world charm

The Renor PowerCab has an old-world charm. It looks beautifully retro; reminded me of the good ol’ Murphy valve radios that decorated Indian home nearly five decades ago. The PowerCab has a width of 20 inches, height of 11.5 inches and a depth of 10 inches, with an 8-inch subwoofer. The speaker is heavy, at 10.25 kg, and thanks to the floor standing design, it can be neatly and firmly positioned on a table or on the floor. It evident that Renor is made a team of musicians and audiophiles; the design is so much in-sync with the exterior -- be a living room or a party hall or a stage where a band is performing. The PowerCab simply blends with the environs.

The speaker is a minimalistic one when it comes to controls. It doesn’t offer you too many switches and knobs to control the experience. The experience is pre-tuned and the user doesn’t get too many options to control the experience. In fact, most users love this factor considering that if you are not a real pro at these things, almost all your efforts at fiddling with the equaliser on the control app or the physical bass, treble and other button will take you to unknown and often ugly audio experiences. The Renor PowerCab wants you to get rid of that experience and enjoy the beauty of minimalism.

The speaker can amplify audio at a power of 100 Watt RMS, which is decent given the price and range. The digital signal processing in Renor PowerCab works wonderfully well so much so that the audio experience is not only value-for-money but also offer a little extra that can soothe the senses of the audio fanatic in you.

Size and sound

The Renor PowerCab’s size actually enhances the audio experience it offers. The sound processing is really honest and natural. When you play really surround audio, especially formats like lossless wav or high quality MP3, the output is very impressive. If you are into classical music, especially western, this is up your alley. The Renor PowerCab captures the lows so well and the highs are rendered without much blemish. The bass is deep and does not get jarring even on high-volume. The speaker offers rich and warm balance of audio even while playing poor quality sounds. A little more care and application of engineering mind could have helped the Renor PowerCab become a game changer. May be the next variant could do it for Renor.

On the connectivity department, the Renor PowerCab features an auxiliary input and there is no USB playback. The makers seem to be clear on the character of the PowerCab; this is not a player — this is a speaker. There is a dedicated button for bluetooth connectivity, which is easy to sport and operate as it is placed next to the main buttons. Pairing the PowerCab to your phone or any other bluetooth enabled device is smooth. There are no PINs or codes; it’s a plug-n-pair affair. There is no remote control as well.

To sum up, the Renor PowerCab is one of the best home-grown bluetooth audio speakers we have come across in a while. Clearly, this is a speaker with a thought.