Marshall Emberton II Portable Bluetooth Speaker, Black & Brass

Great product with usage caveats
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.

I’m in love
This thing is amazing! Took it out of the box, paired it with my iPhone using the app, fired up some Pink Floyd and proceeded to get blown away. l’ve wanted this for a while and finally broke down on CyberMonday when it was 50% off. It would have been worth it at full price. Clean punchy sound, solid and well made, good volume, and easy to connect and use. And it makes David Gilmore’s guitar sound stunning right along with the rest of the band. Highly recommended this little beauty 110%.

Powerful Sound in a Compact Size, Perfect for Office and Gatherings
I use it to play music in my office and during family gatherings. The sound quality is excellent for its size, with impressively strong volume output. The bass is clear and well defined, without overshadowing the mids and highs. The battery lasts a long time, easily powering through an entire afternoon at a good volume level. The materials exceed expectations, with a solid build and a texture that provides a secure grip. Overall, it performs perfectly.

Amazing, but has limitations
If you can get it for like $80, it’s a deal. Over $100 isn’t worth it unless you’re an audiophile and an active listener. This speaker does seem like it’s in stereo and has cool spatial separation if you’re actively listening and prefer a more studio quality sound. Amazing bass, mids, and treble up to around 70% volume. Beyond that the bass is held back and the volume only is increased on the mids and treble. So, in reality the volume at 70% is the max volume of this speaker. For indoor use, that 70% max is plenty. It fills my 12×12 room very well, and gives an excellent active listening experience that fills the room and has great separation as if it’s stereo. The downsides. The volume isn’t a smooth transition between levels. You can often find the speaker to be either too loud or too quiet between one click up or down. Outdoors is not this speaker’s place unless you’re sitting right next to it.

Nice, balanced sound – love this speaker: The sound is great, not boosted and stays well balanced even at higher volumes. I can’t hear any distortion but also, I’m not an audiophile. I just love music gadgets so have or have tried different speakers and earphones through the years. This is definitely going to be one of my fave, plus, it looks f good, especially in this colour! Very happy with purchase at this price! I’ll keep it and enjoy it for many years hopefully

I bought this excellent little portable speaker once and loved it so much I bought a second one. Which? consumer organisation research recommended it as one of their Best Buys and that’s why I bought the first one, having assessed what I needed.Light and very portable – although I am not sure whether it might be easier at times to be able to hold it using a handle of some sort? Jury’s out on that one, I’m waiting to see! So easy to get set up, charged up and linked to your phone. The sound quality is excellent and you download an app to your phone which enables you to tweak it so the bass is more prominent or less prominent, allowing you to focus more on a voice (whether singing or speaking – useful for devotees of an audiobook).One of the unexpected bonuses is that you can link a second speaker to the first one. In a smaller space (because the phone links to the speaker by bluetooth, so you can’t have it too far away) you can have two speakers and either enjoy stereo in one room, or keep a speaker in different rooms and enjoy the sound throughout the entire (small) house, which is my preference when doing housework. This unexpected extra feature adds to the functionality of the speaker.For me, two of these speakers and my phone easily replace the sound systems I used to use. For a smaller home, I find this is ideal. It can still achieve an extremely loud volume but I like my neighbours so I haven’t tested it to maximum.I’m very pleased with my purchase. Look out for some price variations, because this goes up and down with about £60 variance and it can make purchasing one of these incredible value for money.Highly recommended. Great sound quality. Long-lasting battery life. It looks well-made and sturdy. Easy to tuck away out of sight when you’re not using this because it’s so small (light enough to carry in one hand) but produces bigger and better sounds than you would expect.