Multi-room and Bluetooth speakers are a great way of getting music from your phone playing throughout your home, but they can occasionally suffer from this over reliance on your phone for controlling them. That shouldn’t be a problem for Marshall’s new line of multi-room speakers.
The speakers feature a dial dedicated to seven presets, each of which you can set to play your favorite Spotify playlists, internet radio stations, or other music sources.
We can see this as being great for everything from quickly turning the radio on in the morning, to getting your favorite Spotify playlist started when your get home from work.
All of these dials are styled like those on the classic Marshall amplifiers, which provides an authentically tactile experience.
Three sizes, many streaming services
Of course, the speakers do have a dedicated app, which you can use for combining the speakers into a multi-room setting, or else choosing to play music directly, but much of this functionality can be handled from the speaker directly.
There is a slight catch, though: you are going to have to remember the playlist you've assigned to each number on the dial, or get your phone out and use the app.
There are three sizes of speaker available. Acton is the smallest ($350 / £319), followed by Stanmore ($450 / £399), with Woburn ($600 / £539) the largest of the three. It’s nice to see Marshall continuing its habit of naming its speakers after areas of London, but we can’t help but think it’s exhaustive the most popular locations at this point.
Connectivity-wise the speakers support a full complement of streaming technologies, including Bluetooth 4.2, Google Cast, AirPlay, and Spotify Connect. We imagine most people will end up relying on Spotify Connect for the majority of their streaming, but Google Cast support is handy for anyone using alternative services such as Tidal.
There are also physical 3.5mm and RCA connectors for anyone living in the past.
The speakers will be available to pre-order starting from September 1st, and will be available to buy from September 21st.
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- For our other top speaker picks check out our guide to the best connected speakers and the best bluetooth speakers.
