Marshall Stanmore III review: Wildly impressive but imperfect Bluetooth speaker

Marshall Stanmore III

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The Stanmore III is a devoted house speaker meant to be stationary, as there isn’t any battery inside. For transportable wants, you’ll be able to have a look at the Tufton, Emberton, or Woburn audio system from Marshall.

As an alternative, the Stanmore III, the center baby of the most recent speaker line, consists of RCA and aux inputs so it could possibly play music from numerous units, resembling a turntable.

Marshall continues to lean into the look of its guitar amps for its line of house audio system. It is sensible and we’re nonetheless enamored by the take care of all these many years.

Bodily knobs on the highest used to regulate quantity and EQ

The tactile and bodily management knobs on the highest play into the classic amp look. A button for enter resides on the left, subsequent to knobs for quantity, bass, and treble.

There’s additionally a toggle for play, pause, and skipping tracks subsequent to a meaty energy change that is extremely satisfying to flip on and off. The aux enter is on the highest of the unit for fast entry whereas the RCA connectors are on the again.

In addition to the controls, and ports, there aren’t many uncooked, devoted options. That is primarily a speaker meant to play your favourite music and play it loud.

To that finish, the app expertise was disappointing. You may change the bass and treble, however extra nuanced EQ settings are non-existent.

You may as well alter the sound by deciding on the speaker placement — telling the app whether or not it is by a wall or not. Principally it appeared the purpose of the app was attempting to promote different Marshall merchandise and supply the occasional firmware replace.

With none {qualifications}, Marshall Stanmore III is a brilliant-sounding speaker. Its default sound profile is able to low-end, resonant bass all the way in which to the opposite finish of the spectrum which is glowing and clear.

This black colour is certainly one of three colour choices

A 50-watt class D amplifier handles woofer duties whereas two 15-watt class D amplifiers are used for the tweeters. Marshall does promote stereo sound, however the separation was virtually non-existent, although we did not care about that an excessive amount of.

The fascinating factor about this specific Bluetooth speaker is that, in contrast to most shopper choices, it encourages tweaking the EQ with the bass and treble dials entrance and heart.

Loads of shopper audio units permit EQ settings to be modified, however few give entry to them with bodily controls. One factor this implies is that individuals’s impression of the Stanmore III’s sound may fluctuate wildly.

Regardless of selecting to go away the bass and treble ranges at 50 %, it was good and handy to have the ability to elevate or decrease the bass stage a notch or two on a whim.

Connecting the Stanmore III to a U-Flip turntable yielded nice outcomes. The button to toggle between enter sources was useful for with the ability to change from one to a different with out utilizing an app.

Thanks, at the least partially, to a ported bass design, the Stanmore III did sound significantly higher in comparison with a first-generation HomePod. It received louder and crammed a room with a excessive ceiling higher too.

The low-end swelled when it wanted to, however nonetheless remained managed and by no means sounded blown out — until the EQ was pushed to the extremes and at peak quantity.

The choice to decide on between a HomePod and Stanmore III is an inexpensive one. And it is a straightforward choice too.

If you need a speaker in your document participant, along with it with the ability to be used wirelessly with Bluetooth, the Marshall one must be your decide.

If, nevertheless, your precedence is not bodily connecting one other gadget, you will probably discover the HomePod extra purposeful in day-to-day use.

AirPlay does not tie up all audio from a linked gadget the way in which Bluetooth does. Connecting a number of HomePods round the home is simpler. A HomePod can be paired with an Apple TV as an output supply both briefly or on a extra devoted foundation.

Bluetooth is the one wi-fi connectivity for the speaker

The Stanmore retails for $80 greater than the second-generation HomePod. That is much less of a priority if it is pulling double responsibility as a turntable speaker, however it’s a hefty sum if it is not.

• Daring and detailed sound for Bluetooth speaker
• Lovely type
• Practical knobs for fast changes