Although Marshall is best known for its guitar amps, the brand has a pretty impressive presence in the personal audio segment as well. Marshall headphones and speakers – manufactured by Zound Industries under a trademark licensing agreement – seek to capture the essence of the brand’s style and sound, and my experience with the products to date has been mostly positive. The product I’m reviewing today, the Marshall Stanmore III, continues that legacy in a big, bold, and quite expensive way.
Priced at Rs. 41,999, the Marshall Stanmore III immediately catches your eye as an incredibly good-looking Bluetooth speaker. It’s also large, fairly heavy, and needs to be plugged into an outlet to function. So don’t expect to be able to take it with you. However, this also makes it a promising home entertainment option, attractive enough to deserve pride of place in your living room. Is the Marshall Stanmore III worth the price? Find out in this review.
The Marshall Stanmore III has no battery and must be plugged in to operate
Marshall Stanmore III design and specifications
What really sets Marshall speakers apart is the unmistakable resemblance to the brand’s historic guitar amps. These include the Stanmore III’s boxy shape, distinctive Marshall logo on the sturdy yet flexible straw-like speaker grille on the front, and beautiful faux leather finishing on the top and sides. It’s the middle product in Marshall’s current third generation of home speakers and is quite large, but not as big as the Rs. 59,999 Woburn III.
The size also makes the Marshall Stanmore III quite heavy, but that really shouldn’t be a problem once you’ve unpacked it and positioned it securely, as the speaker isn’t really meant to be moved around. It also means you have to plug it into an outlet to operate it – there’s no battery in this speaker for completely wireless use. The bottom of the speaker has small rubber feet at the four corners that elevate it above the surface, reducing vibration during use.
The Marshall Stanmore III’s connectivity options include Bluetooth, a 3.5mm AUX jack on top and RCA jacks on the rear. Also on the back is the jack where the supplied power cord plugs into the speaker, the bass connection for the woofer and a plethora of regulatory text that’s pretty ugly to look at. Sensible positioning of the Stanmore III can hide the rear and is something to aim for when purchasing this speaker.
The controls are perhaps the prettiest part of the Marshall Stanmore III, with interesting retro-style dials, switches and knobs controlling various functions on the speaker. Despite the very analogue appearance, these can also be operated digitally. There are separate rotary controls to control volume, bass, and treble, a combination push and slide switch controls playback, and a button controls source selection.
With the controls for bass and treble, you can make the equalizer settings quickly and easily on the Marshall Stanmore III itself
There’s also a large power switch and an AUX jack on top for easy wired stereo connectivity with various devices. The controls are a combination of metal and plastic, but feel great when touched and used. There are also indicator lights around some of the controls like volume, bass and treble, which illuminate when in use and dim to a softer glow during normal operation.
The Marshall Stanmore III has a frequency range of 45-20,000 Hz and Bluetooth 5.2 for wireless connectivity. There’s no Wi-Fi connectivity or microphone on the speaker, but there is app support for some customization. Disappointingly, codec support on the Marshall Stanmore III is limited to the basic SBC codec.
Marshall Stanmore III app and features
Companion apps for wireless speakers aren’t very common, especially those with only Bluetooth connectivity. So it’s nice to know there’s something for the Marshall Stanmore III. That said, it’s a fairly basic app that doesn’t offer a lot of features or customization, and you don’t need to open the app too often after initially setting up the speaker.
The main feature of the app – and perhaps the most compelling reason to have it on your smartphone in the first place – is placement compensation. You can choose to place the Marshall Stanmore III near an edge or wall and the sound will be adjusted accordingly to compensate. It seemed to make a small difference in improving the sound when adjusted correctly, so it’s worth going through the process for that.
The Marshall app doesn’t do much, only the placement compensation feature is handy
The second function is the equalizer, which allows you to adjust the bass and treble of the speaker. It’s worth noting that the Marshall Stanmore III’s bass and treble controls do exactly the same thing, and are arguably a lot easier to use than the app. Aside from that, the app also displays playback information, but offers little beyond that.
Performance by Marshall Stanmore III
Marshall’s products tend to be priced higher than the competition, and the Stanmore III is no different in this regard. At Rs. 41,999, it’s undeniably expensive, especially considering it’s primarily intended to be used as a Bluetooth speaker and lacks Wi-Fi connectivity or smart functionality. However, the attractive design is not all it has to offer; The sheer size and power of the speaker means the audio performance lives up to my fairly high expectations.
Despite only supporting the SBC codec, the Marshall Stanmore III sounds pretty good – provided you’ve tweaked the equalizer a bit. The controls on the unit make this fairly easy, and I found that increasing the treble by about four points made all the difference, making the sound much more balanced and enjoyable.
The back of the Marshall Stanmore III isn’t very pretty to look at, but you can probably hide it with proper positioning
The natural sound without equalizer modifications sounded a bit bass-heavy and didn’t let the excellent highs of the Marshall Stanmore III shine. Fortunately, the speaker retains the equalizer settings even when switched off and on again. Adjusting the bass level added punch and attack, which may appeal to many users, but it’s the impressive mids and highs that defined the Stanmore III’s sound for me.
When listening to Clean Bandit’s Tick Tock, the vocals sounded crisp and clear while the high frequencies hit expertly without sounding harsh or uncomfortable at all. The violin riffs and rhythmic vocals played well together, the former sounding almost real and even present in my living room. The soft rumble and drift of the lows – already slightly raised compared to the rest of the frequencies – added the calculated and refined aggression the track deserved.
The refinement of the sound was even more pronounced on AR Rahman’s soundtrack Mausam & Escape from the Slumdog Millionaire, which also revealed the spaciousness of the soundstage and the ability to create a wide, detailed soundstage. The “drop” with the iconic sitar riff in the track underscores the excellent tuning efforts Marshall put into the Stanmore III to provide a wider soundstage and more engaging sound than I’ve heard from most speakers, barring Full-size soundbars.
All of this is complemented by the fact that the Marshall Stanmore III can get very loud. Typically, the speaker would play at around 50-60 percent volume, making for sound that not only filled my living room but could be heard fairly clearly and loudly in other rooms from 10-15m away. Higher volume levels of around 80 percent were impressively free of audible distortion or issues, and sounded immersive, punchy and attention-grabbing like nothing else of its kind.
As expected, the sound quality with an AUX connection was slightly better than with Bluetooth, but the difference was not significant. The speaker isn’t so focused on detail and nuance as it is on the sound signature itself, and I prefer the convenience of Bluetooth given the characteristics of the sound. That said, wired connectivity is a handy option, particularly the RCA jacks that make connectivity to a TV or home entertainment systems a bit easier for those who wish.
Verdict
The Marshall Stanmore III is an unusual product in 2023 given its Rs. 41,999 price tag and lack of Wi-Fi-based connectivity and streaming options that typically justify this type of price tag. That doesn’t make it any less attractive, however; The retro-style design, impressive build quality and use of high-quality materials, as well as pleasant sound, make this home speaker a simplicity-focused home speaker that focuses on core functionality to good effect.
The ability to tweak the equalizer on the unit itself, decent wired connectivity, and the ability to get loud and sound great while doing it all make the Marshall Stanmore III even more desirable overall. If you’re looking for a good home music speaker and you have the budget for it, the Marshall Stanmore III is worth considering.
