The short, if you are looking for A better sounding (and louder) Alexa, this is the best option on the market right now.
The long,
I have a couple echo Dots and the 3rd Gen Alexa Echo, we love them and have them all over the house. However, when we want to listen to music with several people over, or out on the deck or in the pool… they are never quite loud enough.
I looked into getting the Sonos 5, but I couldn’t justify the 500$ as it really wasn’t that much better quality or that much louder.
After looking around for a while and checking what friends were using, I stumbled on this. I have had Marshall speakers (amps and stacks) for guitars over the years and have always been happy with their performance. When I saw this design, I knew I wanted to give it a try.
It came in 2 days, shipped nicely packaged, and the set up literally took 1 minute.
What my first concerns were while shopping was as follows:
Will it be quality sound?
Will it be noticeably louder?
Will it have any lag due to not being a true Alexa device? (meaning will it take a few more seconds to respond or play… (**I’m looking at you Alexa junk mobile app!**)
Will it have a limited Alexa user interface?
Will I have to use an app to use it?
Will it be a good quality build, or a cheap box with a Marshall logo on it?
Well, with that said, and now with using it daily and loving this purchase… I can confirm the following:
The quality is much better than Alexa. No buzzing at any level and much more base, Super rich clean sound.
It is noticeably louder. An echo on 10 is about a 7 on this. I would say its somewhere around 25-35 percent louder. In addition to louder, the base is so much more prevalent that the music is much more discernable even with a lot of people talking.
It is by no means, blow you out of the water loud, but it is loud enough that I put it on my deck and walk over to my neighbors (150 feet away) I am still able to hear it clearly from his house.
It has absolutely no more lag than Alexa, If I say “Alexa” with multiple devices in the room, the Marshall registers exactly the same speed. It feels and responds completely native.
It is not limited in anyway with Alexa, Exactly the same experience. Play music, order, chat, can even still tell her to “Turn it up to 11!”
So it does come with an app, I used it to connect in the beginning start up, and never used it again. Now that it is set up, I use it like my other Alexa’s. I am not sure why it even has the app, can’t explain any features on it (sorry) because I really just used it for 20 seconds and never again.
The build is excellent, very sturdy, looks just like a marshal amp head (about half the length) and is truly a nice-looking accent on the counter.
The only Con I have is actually from my kids, for what ever reason they Automatically Assumed they Could call it “Marshall” and it would respond. They tried like 20 times back and forth before I told them it doesn’t work like that. They were disappointed. Yeah, I know that’s a lame Con…but that’s all I got.
Seriously, though this is a great buy and so far a fantastic product. I will continue to use it and if anything changes, I will updated.
Well, hope that helped!
Product contains recycled material.
As certified by
Recycled Content Certification for Electrical and Electronic Equipment
Recycled Content Certification for Electrical and Electronic Equipment certifies the total percentage of recycled material in covered products. Covered products are required to achieve certification with more than one recycled material input to promote the use of more recycling inputs and most material impact. The minimum total recycled content to be eligible for the certification ranges from 10-50% depending on the product type. This certification is third-party verified by SCS Global Services.
