I have multiple Marshall speakers and multiple Alexa devices, but the Marshall Stanmore II Voice Speaker is the best of both worlds–all the Alexa utility boosted by that powerful Marshall sound. Read on to see why I love these speakers.
The Marshall Stanmore II Voice is a Marshall WiFi/Bluetooth speaker system integrated with Amazon Alexa voice control. Note in the lower left of the speaker there are LED lights to indicate Alexa has heard your voice.
In the box you get the Marshall Stanmore II speaker, power cable, quick start guide, and legal/safety info. Note that unlike some other Marshall Bluetooth speakers, the Stanmore II does not come with a 3.5mm auxiliary input cable.
The weight of the speaker is about 10.5 pounds and has dimensions of about 13.8" x 7.7" x 7.3", but though smaller and lighter, this speaker’s rich, throaty sound is comparable to my Marshall Woburn speakers. The Alexa voice interface receives your voice input via a dual microphone array. The Stanmore contains one 5.25" 50W woofer and two 0.75" 15W dome tweeters. Wireless connectivity supports WiFi (WPA, 802.11b/g/n/ac 2.4 GHz/5 GHz), Spotify Connect, and Bluetooth. Wired connectivity supports 3.5mm stereo input and RCA (left and right).
The back of the speaker has inputs for the power cable as well as RCA inputs.
The top of the speaker has an auxiliary input jack, a source button to select the input sound source (WiFi, Bluetooth, auxiliary, or RCA), volume, bass, and treble knobs, a music play/pause button (when playing via Alexa, Spotify Connect, or Bluetooth), and a microphone button (push and hold for 3 seconds to turn the microphones on/off, though remember that Alexa cannot be activated if you have the mics off).
There is a companion Marshall Voice app that is used to configure the speaker onto your WiFi network as well as customize the sound according to your preferences. Note that if you have other Alexa devices, the Marshall Stanmore II will also show up on your Amazon Alexa app as just another Alexa device.
Note that the speaker out of the box is configured to play a chime sound after every received Alexa command, in addition to lighting the LED lights on the front of the speaker. While some people may like this audible response, to me this made the user experience with the speaker very awkward. The audible chime occurs a second or two after you speak the Alexa wake word, so you get a chime sound in the middle of your command, which is confusing. This also seems to clip the beginning portion of Alexa’s response. So my recommendation is to turn the audible chime sound off (turn off the “Play a sound when you say something to Alexa” switch) via the Marshall Voice app. Without the chime there is sometimes a loss of maybe a second or so of Alexa’s response if the speaker has gone to sleep, but otherwise the interface is similar to my other Alexa devices in terms of interaction and voice recognition.
All in all I am very happy with the Marshall Stanmore II Voice Speaker. In fact, I’d love to replace all my Alexa Spots with these speakers. The Marshall was easy to set up onto my WiFi network, and hearing Alexa speak over a Marshall speaker gave her voice a lot of richness that you don’t get from the Amazon Alexa devices. Also, the music played over the speaker was immensely better as well, joining the leagues of my Marshall Woburn speakers. In a compact speaker system, the Marshall Stanmore II offers Alexa as she was meant to sound and music as it was meant to be heard.
- Pricing and Availability on Amazon: Marshall Stanmore II Voice Speaker
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