Marshall Emberton II Portable Bluetooth Speaker, Black & Brass

A few months ago I had an epiphany. When I was a kid my father loved to have the best in sound equipment in the house, and I would play with graphic equalizers and lay in the floor looking for the best position between the giant speakers to experiment how to better enjoy the music.Today, I hear music in monophonic audio in an old JBL Charge 3 speaker (don't tell my dad, he would be ashame of me).So I started to get better equipment. Now, I live in a small apartment with thin walls in a 3rd floor, so, big amplifiers and so are out of the question, but at least I could get better bluetooth speakers, so I tried the Marshall Emberton II.To say that I impressed with the sound would be an understatement. With out-of-the-box settings, the sound is more than detailed. 80s and 90s music sound outstanding although, Peter Cetera's Glory of Love and Toto's Africa vocals sound as I never heard them before, they are sharp and strong, sometimes detracting just a little from the overall sound (keywords here, really, just a little).This brings me to my first recommendation: do not mess with your applications equalizers if you don't know what you are doing. This speakers were clearly designed to use the manufacturer equalizer settings (more on this later). I have youtube music and amazon prime music (yeah, I know, no spotify), and my sound with the latter was to heavy on bass, to the point of drowning the music and feeling almost distorting. Tron: Legacy's soundtrack sounded specially dreadful, as Daftpunk uses heavy bass in their electronic music for that specific music. I then set the equalization in Amazon Prime Music to flat. It was a different performance altogether. I could ever hear some slight effects they used, that I had not noticed before.Now, one down for the application. Bluetooth pairing used Google Fast Pair, which was seamless and impressive (it shows appears to be a custom Marshall little window, so, it looks cool), but the application takes forever to actually "discover" the device, even when it is already paired.When it finally discover it (which was not too long, but took a couple of turning on and off the speaker), the application notified me of a firmware upgrade, which I proceeded to install. The installation failed miserably, so, I temporarily stopped that effort, which I retook successfully a day later. The update was surprisingly big in size, taking around 5 minutes to download, and the application simply marked the update successful while the speaker was still rebooting, which took a few seconds more than what I feel comfortable with, but it went through, and after that, the application again took surprisingly long to detect the speaker.To end that topic, the equalization settings are definitely underwhelming, with only three modes: Marshall, Voice and Push, of which I have only tried Marshall as everybody else says that Voice is just for podcast and such and Push increases bass at the expense of all the other sound bands quality.Lesson learned: unless too picky, when using this speaker, leave your apps equalizers on flat, their profile is that good.Now, to the hardware itself, people will notice this little wonder. Using the nostalgia factor with the Marshall amplifier design was a touch of genius, and the brass button on top is the cherry on top. Some reviews complain about a single button approach to multifunction (power, volume, forward-back, bluetooth pairing has another almost invisible button, which fits because you are not changing your pairing frequently). If we can handle touch control on over-head and in-ear speakers, this button is a piece of cake.My only complain in this department is that, at least for me, an old guy, the signs indicating the functions around the button, being carved in the black speaker, which has texture, are for all intent and purposes invisible, but once you get accustomed, an use the logo as a positional reference that's not a problem anymore.And finally, the little caveat. Single speaker, stereo sound. Let that sink in.Done? Ok, they achieve this trick by separating the sound left and right with drivers back and front respectively (or was it the other way around? well, you get my point). Stereo suffers a little (not too much) because both sources are incredibly close, but it brings this caveat. This speaker should not be set as others, against walls, like in shelf, and so, because you end up drowning one side.The best position for this speaker is in the center of the audio stage, and if you want to appreciate the sound, you should point one side (not the front or back) to you. that way both sources are equally distanced from you so you get a better balance.If you are ok with the caveats this product is worth the price, I definitely recommend it.

So good, I bought two instead of one Marshall Middleton. As wanted, I pair them together to get surround sound, smaller size, and save about $50. Although I own two pairs of Marshall headphones which I'm taking with me to Heaven, at that time - it took awhile for me to commit to buying the speakers. That's because I already own a pair of off-brand Bluetooth speakers that sound so much better and lasts many hours longer than more expensive Beats, Bose, Sony, etc. They have all the other bells-and-whistles specifications, including USB-C, rapid charging, 20+ hours playtime and only cost $30 each. The seller stopped selling them on Amazon.Emberton II was a huge jump in price. The difference from Emberton I - is it will pair with other Marshall speakers. But only the latest models like the Middleton or more Emberton IIs. Also, the Emberton II has a grain texture finish. The hardest part about buying Marshall products is knowing if you actually got authentic products. Knock-offs provide knock-off quality and it hurts the reputation of genuine products with bad reviews. I won't describe the differences in great details. The box is printed on all sides that spills over to other sides. It looks and feels real money, very expensively printed. Inside packaging and booklets too. The speaker is very well crafted down to the smallest details and feels solid. The grills are finished very well, individually, without any rough edges or mistakes and so is the Marshall signature emblem. Look closely.The Emberton II sound quality is phenomenal for all music genres. It's a work of art pumping out sound, spatially separating all the tracks of instruments and voices, to hear them together in one song. This is studio quality at a reasonable price. It exceeds my $30 pair, which already beat-out all the other more expensive speakers, in the only way it could. I heard sounds playing in music I've heard so many times, I can replay it verbatim in my head. Some folks might scoff at this price point comparison. But if I'm completely satisfied at $30 or $170 - no one can entice me to spend $1500 or $15,000 I can afford to pay too. I might purchase more Emberton II's to install wireless speakers throughout the house. For now, I'm pretty satisfied.

Great investment for music outside. The speaker is thick and well built. Works very well inside and good outside. The sound is crisp and I can hear it about 50 feet away in the pool just a little over half to 3/4 volume. If you put it up to max it has a long range. I could even hear my music from the front of my house. Connecting is easy to your phone. It’s sealed enough so I’m sure a little water will be fine. Well the power gets low or if it’s really hot out and in the sun, I noticed the connectivity can be a bit buggy. I highly recommend this speaker. Very happy with my purchase.