At first the upper-mids and treble can sound a little unrefined, but I found my ears grew accustomed to the tone within an hour or so. If yours don’t, you can just tame the treble a little with either the treble knob up-top, or through the app. Marshall has done a great job of making the Stanmore II resemble an amp, while at the same time adding a bit of glamour and softness for it to comfortably fit in a living room. The Stanmore II is a mid-size model in the Marshall lineup. It’s a similar size to a Sonos Play:5; big enough to be thought of as your main music source. However, the one true omission is portability. The Marshall Stanmore II would be a great speaker for summer days – and if that appeals then you should consider the Harman Kardon Go + Play while it’s still available. Verdict Bass depth is good, too – at its price, if not necessarily the size. The Stanmore II can handle the kind of sub-bass frequencies that a lot of smaller wireless speakers – bar the Sonos One – bow out of entirely.

The Marshall Stanmore II Voice has a bold, brazen sound that fills the room when turned up, but not at the detriment to the audio quality. Bass may be thunderous, hitting with a thud when a song allows it, but there is still enough room in the mids and trebles for a song to breathe.The speaker can put out sound with decent scale and stature, but it can seem a little flat and two-dimensional compared with the best-in-class models. There’s some bass bleed, or at least less-than-ideal tonal control in the area where the bass meets the mids. Replete with Tolex-style finishes and Marshall’s iconic brass control knobs and script logo, the third-generation models have a PVC-free build, with the company claiming each speaker is manufactured from 70% recycled plastic and fully vegan materials. To polish off the Marshall look, there’s some brass plating, nice LED lighting (around the volume, bass and treble controls and at the front of the device), and twiddly knobs that are made out of rubber and metal, which is a change to the brass ones that the original Stanmore used. The Marshall Stanmore II Voice has a bold, brazen sound that fills the room when turned up, but not at the detriment to the audio quality. The speaker is covered in Marshall’s signature textured vinyl, the grille over the front is a mottled grey, and the logo and base plate are brass-colored, which looks really fantastic. The Marshall Kilburn IIlooks like a toy when put alongside, in terms of both size and materials. The Stanmore is heavy at 10.5 pounds (4.75kg), and the footprint is sizeable, so you need a decent surface to place it on. Make sure you set aside a strong shelf for the Stanmore II Voice if you want one. Once it’s there, it’ll stay, as it does not have a battery for portable use.

Also included on this unit is a handle, something that I wish was part of every speaker for the purposes of portability. Despite being a Bluetooth speaker, the Marshall Stanmore II actually needs to be plugged-in to function. To look at it you may think, “of course it needs mains power, look how big it is”. However, the Harman Kardon Go + Play 2 is a similar-ish size but can run for up to eight hours off a charge.None of this is criticism. However, a Marshall amp in a living room has a tendency to make a flat or house look “studenty”. A Marshall Stanmore II won’t. The Marshall Stanmore II is just like the Stanmore II Voice, without the Wi-Fi and smart-assistant features. To get a portable model you have to downgrade to the Marshall Kilburn II. It’s significantly smaller and has smaller-scale sound. The Marshall Stanmore III is a mid-size speaker, for powerful sound that doesn't take over the room. (Image credit: Marshall) All in all, if you’re looking for a great party speaker with the ability to control your smart home, the Stanmore II Voice could be your new best friend. The controls are fairly similar to those of the Marshall Woburn II, in that you have retro-looking dials to control the volume, bass, and treble output of the speaker - these dials are given a modern twist by the inclusion of micro-LEDs in place of the numbers, which light up as you turn them up and down.

However, it’s getting to this stage that’s frustrating. Alexa’s iOS app isn’t very good, and you sometimes even have to use it to pair new Bluetooth devices, in addition to using it throughout the initial setup. We repeatedly tried to link our Philips Hue and Spotify accounts in it, but it constantly failed. In the end, we turned to the desktop and Alexa’s web interface. Not ideal. Marshall’s Voice app has an equalizer and a few other speaker adjustments, such as the brightness of the volume control lights. It’s reliable, if bland, and you have to install it to make the speaker work. Marshall does give a nod to those with older tech that they may want to plug-in, including a 3.5mm aux input on the top, and a stereo RCA phono pair on its rear – handy for plugging in a record player. The Marshall Bluetooth app is free and delivers firmware updates for the speaker. It also allows you to use custom EQ presets or create your own, working in conjunction with the bass and treble knobs on the control panel. In addition, you can use the app to adjust the brightness of the red LEDs, turn audio prompts on or off, and pair the speaker with another Marshall unit to make a stereo pair. Performance Sensitive ears may find the harsh treble frequencies cause fatigue, but this can be rectified by adjusting the treble and bass dials on the top of the speakers.It sounds its best when played fairly loud, but doesn’t quite have the separation and dynamics of the very top performers. The same criticism can be levelled at Marshall’s other speakers, too.

The Marshall Stanmore II has two jobs: it needs to sound decent, and to look like a direct descendant of a Marshall guitar amplifier.

The powerful sound producer and great performer

The rose-gold accents really lend the design of this speaker a sense of sophistication, and are carried through the bottom panel, Marshall logo, and the controls on the top of the casing. Stanmore II is the midrange offering in Marshall’s wireless speaker line, with a price tag of around 350 euros that puts it into DXOMARK’s Advanced category. The brand says, “Stanmore II is the most versatile speaker in the Marshall line-up and is perfect for any room, big or small. Built with advanced components, it produces clean and precise audio, even at the highest levels.” There’s no hiding that the Stanmore II falls behind top performers such as the Sonos One and Harman Kardon Go + Play in certain areas, though. Bass control, dynamics and separation are just okay. If you are particularly susceptible to fatigue as a result of treble frequencies, you can turn the treble dial down to soften the sound, which should take the edge off. It’s a fairly large Bluetooth speaker that perfectly at home being cranked up loud. It has oodles of Marshall style and fairly good audio quality, too. However, since it doesn’t rely on Wi-Fi like its pricier sibling, the Stanmore II Voice, this version is just begging for an integrated battery like the Harman Kardon Go + Play 2.