My Father was a guitarist, and a lot of his gear was always on his side of the bedroom. I remember the feel of running my fingers across the front grille of his Fender guitar amp. So when Fender and Teufel collaborated to make a line of speakers, and the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross came across my desk, nostalgia swept over me like a tsunami. The look is unmistakable, and it was left to me to find out how the sound held up.
In the box, in addition to the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross, you get a Fender Guitar Strap that acts as the carrying strap for the speaker, with carabiners that actually lock, an external power supply and the documentation, inside of which you will find a guitar pick with Fender and Teufel logos on it. The strap is the most comfortable I have felt on a portable speaker, is easily adjustable, and has an aesthetic that matches the overall vibe the Rockster Cross is trying to create.
Inside the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross, you’ll find two 20mm tweeters and a 5” woofer with two passive radiators on the back of the speaker. The angled tweeters on the front of the Rockster Cross are designed to help fill the room with sound. The body of the Rockster Cross is incredibly sturdy with grips on the sides of the speaker (presuming you aren’t using the strap) and a rubber coating around the speaker, making it non-slip wherever you put it down.
On the back of the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross, across the bottom, you have a USB power supply for any external device you use with the Rockster Cross, a micro USB port used for service purposes, the jack for your power supply and a 3.5mm AUX jack for plugging in external devices that aren’t using Bluetooth. Data transfer is not possible on the Rockster Cross, so all content is played from other devices.
The size of the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross, coming in at 5.3 pounds and measuring 15”x6.3”x5.1”, is big enough that you know you’ll get some big sound, but not so big that you won’t want to take it with you on the go. With the strap attached, it sits so comfortably on your side that you may want to walk around with it on you at all times. Its IPX5 water resistance means that it can handle splashes or some weather, so it’ll be good by the pool, so long as it doesn’t get submerged, at which point it will likely take damage.
Controls on the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross are easy, and most importantly, clear. The buttons on the top and back of the speaker are large, with the raised icons being easy to identify. Next to the power button, you have 4 LEDs to indicate the remaining battery life, which Teufel claims to last for up to 16 hours of playback at medium volume. Playing back at a bit more than that, using the Rockster Cross on and off over the course of a couple of weeks, I got roughly 12 hours of playback before needing to recharge.
“Controls on the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross are easy, and most importantly, clear.”
The Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross delivers big sound and does so in a way that isn’t super disruptive to the people in rooms around you, unless of course you are aggressive with your volume. I had the volume just over half, with my phone’s Bluetooth turned all the way up, and my living room was booming. But if I stepped on the other side of my front door, I could only hear faint rumblings, so delivery people can’t judge my playlist. By the bedrooms, you can tell what song is playing, but it was quiet, so you experience huge sound while not being a pain.
In terms of quality, I like to listen to two types of music to really understand what I am getting from a speaker: bass-heavy 90’s hard rock and poppy, synthy 80’s music. With the hard rock, you find out if the vocals are overpowered by the bass and with the 80’s tunes, you see if the brightness of the tweeters is equal to any kind of music you play, and that it’s not just a speaker that loud = good. I’d say that the bass was big and the higher frequencies were crystal clear, but the vocals, while decent, were a little heavy in the mid-tones.
It’s this one thing that made me wish that there was an app that could let you control the EQ of the Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross, because you’d be able to correct these little things to make the sound perfect for you, and frankly, everyone has their own preferences regarding what makes perfect sound. Some EQ control gives everyone exactly what they want out of their speaker. What I hear in the mid-tones of the vocals is ultimately a small thing that I noticed and is in no way a deal breaker, but the ability to tweak them would be great.
Testing with video worked well, with the sync remaining perfect for the test, but the sound almost seemed to be overkill for my portable device. Maybe it’s because I am accustomed to using headphones for my wireless audio solution, and viewing content on a phone or tablet typically occurs in public spaces, where a big loud speaker might be unwelcome, but it was a foreign experience to me. It did deliver as expected, though. I had a similar experience with testing phone calls. The sound was a lot for a one-on-one conversation, but it delivered.
With an MSRP of $249.99, the price is a bit higher than I would want to pay for a run-of-the-mill portable speaker, even a decent one, but this is a decorative piece as well as a speaker. The Fender x Teufel Rockster Cross is a speaker that is just as much about celebrating an iconic image in rock and roll as it is about delivering a good audio experience. This speaker is eye candy for the audiophile in your life, but it’s also a good speaker, even if it isn’t at the top of the heap at this price range. It’s a beautiful device that shouldn’t disappoint listeners.
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- Fender x Teufel: A collaboration between two iconic brands to create speakers that both sound and look outstanding. Teufel’s legendary German-engineered audio meets the classic American design of Fender guitars and amps
