Click on image to enlarge. From left to right: Stanmore II, Woburn II and Acton II. Stanmore and Acton are second and third largest Bluetooth speakers in Marshall's line-up.
I've been putting off getting a new speaker for years now. I'm about to move to a new flat, so I thought this could be a great option to finally work it out.
I want my new speaker to sound good and sufficiently loud, but I also want it to be a nice looking piece in my living space, rather than just a metal box.
I always loved the characteristic 60's Rock 'N Roll theme hipster design of Marshall speakers, so I started to dig a little deeper with them.
Even though the Acton II may be loud enough for your kitchen (or a smaller bedroom at best), compared to Stanmore II; you'd still get more distortion at lower loudness levels with it, so I'd almost always get the latter!
Later I found out that they have two speakers in their line-up that responds perfect to my needs: Stanmore II and Acton II.
...but the information provided in this post applies to each and all models of both products: Bluetooth, voice & multi-room.
Compared to Acton II, does Stanmore II worth the price increase (MSRP: 350 vs 250 USD)? Or would Acton II be enough for a regular guy like me?
I don't have any idea about these technical specs - Watts, tweeters, woofers, frequency etc. I don't know what to pay attention to either.
So I asked some experts to translate them to English. In addition to that, I took their advice as well, and shared all my findings in this post.
Quick Summary
Marshall speakers are far from being cheap, so I'd strongly recommend you to read this short post entirely. But if you need a short answer for some reason, here it is:
I decided to get the Stanmore II Bluetooth. Because...
Even though the Acton II may be loud enough for your kitchen (or a smaller bedroom at best), compared to Stanmore II, you would still get more distortion at lower loudness levels with it, so I'd get the latter. For living spaces larger than, say, 220 square feet (20 square meters); I'd absolutely recommend the Stanmore II.
Let me tell you something right off the bat.
The sound quality performance you'll end up getting from a speaker will always depend on your room acoustics - particularly room dimensions and speaker positions.
The impact of the combination of these two is actually so strong that in most cases, it doesn't even make sense to utter a single word on sound quality without speaking of them.
This is also why it's not unusual to see completely different reviews of the same speaker.
In one case the speaker might be placed in a sweet spot inside the room and hence the user might be satisfied. In other cases the same speaker might be ill placed and hence user might even have returned it.
The point most people miss here is that it mostly isn't even about the engineering behind the speaker itself. It's about where you place the speaker inside which room.
So, in order to solve this problem, I've partnered with Acoustics and Audio Engineering PhD Andrea Cicero from AC Acustica and created Soundton - a simple, 2D, browser accessible online speaker placement calculator.
With Soundton, now there's a way to figure the sound quality of most speakers before you buy them.
Read more about its working principles at soundton.com/documentation/.
The end colormap provides you the locations with the best (green) and worst (red) acoustics.