Marshall Emberton II Speaker Review

The Marshall Emberton II is a small, rectangular portable Bluetooth speaker designed to look like an amp. It looks similar to its predecessor, the Marshall Emberton. However, its grille is black, and the logo is brass colored. This review represents the test results for the 'Black and Brass' color variant, but you can also find it in 'Cream'.

The Marshall Emberton II is incredibly portable. Like the Marshall Emberton, you can carry this small, lightweight speaker in one hand, making it easy to bring with you wherever you go. It's battery-powered, so you can take it outdoors without looking for a power outlet.

The Marshall Emberton II is very well-built. It feels sturdy overall, and there are metal grilles to protect the drivers inside. It's rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, meaning it's certified to be dust tight and immersible in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes, so you don't have to worry about it getting a bit wet or accidentally dropping it into a pool of water.

The Marshall Emberton II has a decent selection of easy-to-use controls. It comes with a multi-function button atop it. You can press and hold it to turn it on/off, press once to play/pause, and push left and right to skip tracks or backtrack. You can also press and hold it left and right to fast-forward or rewind your track and hold it up or down to adjust its volume levels. The speaker emits a chime to let you know once you've reached max volume. There's a Bluetooth button, which you can press and hold to enable pairing mode. It causes the Bluetooth light to blink and then turn solid red once it's paired with your device. The speaker also emits a chime to inform you it paired successfully. You can triple press the Bluetooth button to start or end what Marshall calls a 'Stack Mode'. It lets you connect multiple other Marshall Emberton II speakers when you want to amplify your audio. Like the Marshall Emberton, it also has a battery life indicator on the top-right of the speaker.

• Marshall Emberton II speaker
• USB-C charging cable
• User manual with legal and safety information

The Marshall Emberton II's frequency response accuracy is alright. It has a balanced sound profile overall, making it suitable for listening to a wide variety of audio content. Its balanced mid-range ensures vocals and lead instruments reproduce accurately and with detail in the mix, making it good for vocal-centric audio content like audiobooks and podcasts. There's also a bit of extra boom and warmth in the bass range that's good for fans of bass-heavy music like EDM and hip-hop. That said, like most speakers its size, it lacks low-bass, so you can't feel the deep thump and rumble typically present in bass-heavy music. While there's no graphic EQ to fully customize its sound profile to your liking, you can still tweak its sound thanks to the presets featured in its companion app.

The Marshall Emberton II's soundstage is fantastic. This stereo speaker offers excellent directivity since it projects sound from its front and rear. As a result, you'll perceive its soundstage as wide and spacious-sounding, and your audio sounds the same when listening from different angles, like when listening from behind the speaker. Also, since it can play stereo content without downmixing it to mono, instruments and sound effects in your audio are localized to a pinpoint location. For example, if you play a song that normally has the drums on the left and the guitar on the right, this speaker emits the drum sounds from the left side of the speaker and the guitar sounds from the right side. Since the speaker is small, it's hard to notice these distinctions when passively listening to music. However, this adds to the immersiveness of the speaker's soundstage.

The Marshall Emberton II has a poor dynamics performance. Like most speakers its size, it doesn't get loud enough to fill larger rooms and spaces, though it still gets loud enough to fill a small bedroom with sound. It also has a lot of compression present at max volume, especially in the bass range, which degrades the quality of your audio as you bump up the volume. As a result, your audio doesn't sound as clean and clear when the volume is maxed out.

The Marshall Emberton II has a great battery performance. While it's advertised to last over 30 hours from a single 3-hour charge, the speaker lasted a little over 22 hours from a 4.9-hour charge during testing. That said, 22 hours is still fantastic, making it great for longer listening sessions. Battery performance also differs depending on your listening habits and chosen settings. There's also a power-saving mode that shuts the speaker off after almost 20 minutes of inactivity.

Unlike the Marshall Emberton, this speaker is compatible with the Marshall Bluetooth app. The app isn't bad and is compatible with both iOS and Android devices. You can use it to access its EQ presets: 'Marshall' which is its default preset, 'Push' to give the bass and treble a boost, and 'Voice' which boosts the mid-range for vocal-centric audio content like podcasts. If you prefer bass and treble adjustments, you can look at the similarly-designed Marshall Middleton. Both speakers also have a party mode the manufacturer calls 'Stack Mode', which you can use to connect with compatible speakers to amplify sound across larger spaces.

Aside from its charging port, the Marshall Emberton II doesn't have wired inputs.

The Marshall Emberton II has fantastic Bluetooth connectivity. You can connect two devices to the speaker at once, which is handy when you frequently switch between audio sources. It has fantastic range, so your paired devices remain connected to the speaker from far away. It also has low latency with iOS and Android devices, making it suitable for watching videos since the audio you hear is in sync with the video you see on your screen. Some apps compensate for latency differently, and your real-world experience may differ.