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This is the new Marshall Emberton, its Marshall newest and smallest portable bluetooth speaker which I think looks great, has spectacular build quality, sounds good, and has really good battery life as well. But personally I just wish Marshall did a little more to help justify the emberton’s premium price.
Now the emberton retails for $150… which is pretty pricey for a 20 watt speaker like this cause the 30 watt sony XB33 has a retail price of $150 and the 30 watt JBL charge 4 has a retail price of $180 but routinely likes to go on sale for $150 as well. And for comparison sake, the JBL Flip 5 has a retail price of $120 and the Sony XB23 has a retail price of $100. But one way that I fell the emberton justifies its price is through its build quality and design. Nonetheless if you want to pick this speaker up it’ll be linked down below.
So first off lets talk about this speaker’s build quality cause its very impressive. Now on the front and back we’ve got this wire grill and the rest of this speaker is wrapped in this hardened rubber which can easily take a beating from constant bumps and scrapes and this speaker is also IPX7 rated meaning that it isn’t afraid of water… but this rubber still has a very luxurious soft touch feeling to it. And then on top we’ve got these two buttons that just have great tactile feedback all around. Now the left smaller button is used for pairing and the main center button is the one that you use to play pause skip through your music and adjust the volume. But the very important thing here is that this button has a very satisfying click to it. And finally when it comes to design… this is a good looking speaker period. Marshall’s timeless design is going to continue to look good for the long run and I think this speaker looks much better than the mostly plastic and fabric covered speakers that are super prevalent right now. But in general the Emberton is a fairly small speaker but its also surprisingly dense weigh in at 697 grams.
Now when it comes to tech specs, this speaker charges via a USB C port which is great. And when it comes to battery life this speaker have an advertised battery life of 20 hours which is above average for a speaker of this size. Now that 20 hours battery life if for when this speaker is playing at 50 percent volume… but at 80 percent volume I found that this speaker is good for around 12 hours of playback time and at max volume this speaker is good for around six and a half hours of playback time which is not bad at all.
But unfortunately, something to keep in mind here is that this USB C port is strictly used for charging… you can’t use this USB C port as a weird connection. And unfortunately this speaker doesn’t have an audio jack. Now personally I don’t mind not having an audio jack on a smaller speaker like this one… but I do feel that it would have been nice to have.
So this means you can only use this speaker wirelessly. Now this speaker is using bluetooth 5.0 and it can be connected to two devices at the same time so you and a friend can both be DJ. But when it comes to audio codecs this speaker is strictly using SBC.
But more importantly when it comes to watching movies or videos on your phone this speaker doe shave zero latency across the board whether youre using an iPhone or an android device even when its paired to 2 devices at the same time.
But now lets talk about speaker set ups… the Marshall emberton has dual driver and dual passive radiator set up. Now one driver and one passive radiator shoots out the front and the other driver and other radiator shoots out the back. So this speaker is really going to sound its best if you have it placed close against a wall so the sound that its shooting out the back has something to bounce off of. Now personally I really like this set up cause this speaker does a really good job of evenly filling a room with music and if you’re going to use it out doors you are going to get a performance bump out of it if you place it up against a wall. But something to keep in mind is that this is a 20 watt speaker. And like I mentioned at the top of the this video… for the same price you can get either an XB33 or Charge 4 which are both 30 watt speakers… which means they are going to get louder and sound fuller. But so that you can hear for yourself we’re going to jump into a sound test.
So like you may have just heard, the 20 watt Emberton does a really good job holding its own against the 30 watt XB33 and Charge 4. But ultimately yes, both the XB33 and Charge 4 have richer and deeper bass and they also manage to get louder than the emberton. But with that aside, sound signature wise the Emberton does have a slightly brighter EQ which does bring the vocals out a little more. But something that I did notice was that the sound stage on the Emberton was very similar to that of the XB33 which I find to be pretty impressive. And even though this is a 20 watt speaker, the bass on the emberton can be felt a decent amount when used indoors. And since this speaker does have a rear firing passive radiator you can alway up the amount of bass on this speaker if you place it up against a wall.
Now even though in general the emberton is a good sounding speaker with a good amount of bass, a wide soundstage, and a sound signature that puts an emphasis on the vocals… unfortunately you can’t change the EQ on this speaker directly. Unlike Marshall’s other speakers the emberton doesn’t have bass or treble control knobs… and unfortunately this speaker also doesn’t connect to Marshall’s speaker app. So you’re stuck with the stock EQ on this speaker. Now I think this is unfortunate cause there are plenty of other speakers out there that do connect to an app and have a customizable EQ. Now I think this speaker sounds just fine and should be able to handle any genre of music but if you’re someone that might want a more neutral or warmer EQ then you’ll might want to look elsewhere.
But finally lets talk about speaker pairing protocols… unfortunately Marshall doesn’t really have one for their speakers. Now there are Marshall speakers that you can pair up and have them play music in sync but they’re really just using google assistant or Alexa. With the emberton you can’t sync it up with another emberton or with a Stockwell or Acton. If you get an emberton its cause you just want one speaker.
Cause for comparison sake with Sony or JBL speakers you can pair them up to on another. So for example if you want you can pair up a Sony XB23 to a Sony XB33 or you can pair up a JBL Flip 5 to a JBL Pulse 4. So what im getting at here is that if you were to go with either Sony or JBL Speaker instead of a Marshall speaker you have the option to grow your collection of speakers and have them sync up to one another… or if your buddy has a speaker and you get the same brand than you’ll be able to sync up your speakers and cover a larger area with music.
So with all that being said, the Marshall Emberton is really good sounding little speaker that looks great, is super rugged, and has an impressive battery life… but it does command a premium and it can be a little hard to justify. At a $150 if you’re concerned about sound then you are better off going with a 30 watt speaker like either the XB33 or Charge 4. Personally I would go with the XB33 cause of the wide soundstage and customizable EQ… and it also have a light feature which is nice. But also you can’t pair the emberton to any other speakers which is increasingly becoming a more and more common feature. But with those grips aside the emberton does make a case for itself. This speaker has great build quality but its also super rugged. And personally I think this speaker looks a lot better sitting on your desk these other fabric and plastic speakers. And if battery life is a big concern for you then this speaker is a good option cause real world use this speaker is good for around 12 hours of playback time with the volume set at 80%. And even though this speaker is tiny, the emberton does a really good job of evenly blanketing a room with music thanks to its forward and backwards firing transducers. And if you were to place this speaker up against a wall than you are going to get a performance boost out of it. So over all I like the emberton… but this is a speaker that I would rather wait for it to go on sale.