REASONS TO BUY
Makes guitars sound great
Alexa built-in
Loud
REASONS TO AVOID
Expensive
Not the best in its price range
Marshall Stanmore II Review
A good speaker with classic styling, but quite expensive given it sound quality
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
By Max Mutter ⋅ Senior Review Editor ⋅ November 15, 2018
Contributions From: Steven Tata
RELATED: The Best Wireless Speaker
Our Verdict
Combining modern Alexa capabilities with classic guitar amp styling, the Marshall Stanmore II is a beauty to behold. However, we feel its sound quality doesn't quite live up to its high price tag. For the same price the Bose Home Speaker 500's sound quality is a clear step up, and it also offers Alexa capabilities built-in. So unless you're enamored with the Stanmore II's aesthetics, we think there are better ways to spend your home speaker budget.
Our Analysis and Test Results
The Marshall Stanmore II looks great and sounds good, but it can't quite live up to the quality of the other speakers in its price range.
The stylish Marshall Stanmore II offers a plethora of connectivity options: Bluetooth, WiFi, 3.5mm AUX input; it even has Alexa built-in.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Sound Quality
The Marshall Stanmore II sounds good, but didn't really set itself apart from the rest of the field in our sound quality testing.
Like its sibling, the original Marshall Stanmore, the Stanmore II excels at making electric guitars sound good. In general we found that guitars riffs sounded a bit more lively on this speaker than others. However, that's where this speaker's exceptionalism ends. Its bass quality and power is about average. It offers a solid foundation on which the rest of the music can sit, but it lacks the thump of the likes of the Bose models. The clarity is also comparably average. Nothing sounds particularly muddled, but it lacks the impressive crispness that makes the Bose and Sonos models sound so good. That being said, we still really enjoyed listening to music on the Stanmore II, it just wasn't our favorite.
The Marshall Stanmore II sounds good, but not great.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
User Friendliness
The Stanmore II has pretty much all of the accouterments one could want from a user experience, but still lacks some of the streamlined feel of its competitors.
If you're used to using Alexa devices, then controlling the Stanmore II with your voice will be second nature. We found its Alexa integration to be seamless. Marshall also added an app with this new iteration of its flagship speaker, which you can use to stream music directly to the speaker via your WiFi network (which is a bit more efficient than streaming it to your phone, and then linking the phone to the speaker via Bluetooth). However, we found this app to be a bit clunkier than those from Bose and Sonos.
The Stanmore II has bass, mid, and treble controls.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Volume
This is one area where the Marshall Stanmore II is really impressive. It is one of the loudest speakers we've tested.
In our testing the Stanmore II more than lived up to its loud and proud guitar amp heritage. We were able to listen to the Stanmore II in a large apartment with 10 people inside it, and still feel like the maximum volume was way too loud. The Stanmore II will likely be up to powering whatever party you'd like to throw.
Connectivity
The Stanmore II was one of the leaders in our connectivity testing. It offers Bluetooth, WiFi, and 3.5mm auxiliary inputs. Plus, it has Alexa built-in, so you can control its WiFi streaming with your voice.
Value
Unfortunately, we feel the Marshall Stanmore II's list price is a bit too steep.
Conclusion
The Marshall Stanmore II is an attractive looking speaker that will fit right into a guitar lover's home, but its sound quality doesn't live up to its price tag.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Compare Marshall Stanmore II versus top competing products:
—Max Mutter and Steven Tata
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