Marshall - Middleton II

Middleton 2 would be my pick as its soundstage is wider and 30 hours of battery is great. Bose sound link plus is the most portable of the three and has great sound as well. Both are good choices, I personally give the edge to Middleton 2.

Marshall Middleton 2 - never had another speaker which gives you so much low end even on low volume.

Don’t you feel it lack that midbass slap? Like it has great deep bass but for some reason midbass feels hollow. Unable to fix it using eq too

Almost all speakers are made in china Even JBL, WHAT THE FCK ARE YOU TALKING 😆.. if you want speaker brand that was not made in china maybe take Sonos and Bose.. f I know Bose are made in Malaysia. Specially the max . that's why the battery is not the best your speaker will be sitting dock .. from my experience I have 2 Bose flex and both are now not working battery problems Malaysia doesn't know how to make battery.. so stop making fan about Chinese made speaker.. I HAVE MIDDLETON 2 it SOUNDS GREAT.. SPECIALLY NOW THAT IT WAS UPDATED TO 3.0.3.

I just updated mine just an hour ago .. don't know of it's just me but I think the bass is a little bit stronger in 3.0.3 than 2.1.8 . Imho .. i don't know maybe I need to listen more music hehe. By the way do you have eq sitting for M2?

I just went through a lot of bluetooth speaker searching myself. I ended up with a Marshall Middleton II. really happy with it and they have a 10% off first time buyer discount bringing it under 300. Get a reputable brand, I returned 2 other generic ones before landing on the Marshall.

Emberton 3 is pretty good. I decided to step up to the middleton 2 for a fuller sound experience. I wish they could get the middleton sound in the size of an emberton for portability. I personally did not like the sound of the Ultimate Ear products and found some of the controls a little wonky at times. They are priced good, but I just didn't care for them and returned them. JBL does sound fantastic, but the Marshall edged it out for me. I prefer the looks of the Marshall speakers as well over most other brands.

Just got a Marshall Middleton II. Highly recommend it. Full sound and both front and rear firing speakers for room filling sound.

I bought middleton 2 instead of buying this pair 🥹

middleton 2 is much more impressive tbh

The charge 6 has AAC btw, And eq can help you with reducing brightness and increase the upperbass and mids. But if you didn't like it it's fine. I don't recommend the soundlink plus at least for the current price. I would get the soundlink max, or the marshall middleton 2 if you can find any of those for around 300$. Both are beasts. If those are still too large for you, i'd get the harman kardon luna, i can't think of something smaller that would fit your needs.

Finally Got my hands on the new marshall middleton 2. Generally i'm not a big marshall fan, Because it felt like except the design, it didn't really bring much to the table (talking about the smaller portable models). I still think the stockwell, killburn, and the larger series were decent, but not something i would call "portable" or "outdoor proof", so i didn't really pay much attention here. I've heard good things about the middleton 2 and how better it claims to be than the previous gen middleton, which in my opinion was a fail. (Super boosted bass at low volumes, losing all of it at high volumes and sounding super thin compared to the boom 2, and even the xtreme 4). In the near future i will make comparisons with the max/xtreme 4/boom 2/ lava if you guys want me to, But here i'm focused on my first impressions. Can't take away the super asthetic and luxurious marshall design, which i learned to like and appreciate. The controlls are straight forward, the indication light stripes are displaying the battery level, volume and manual bass/treble adjustments (that are seperate to the app eq) The driver setup is one of the reasons i wanted to test it: Two 3 inch woofers on each side, front and back panels have a passive radiator and a tweeter each. So technically it's a 360° speaker, not an "on axis" speaker, so it will not have the same DB as a one directional speaker like the bose soundlink max. After playing some casual music and using the eq, i can already tell that the eq doesn't have as much impact on the speaker as i thought it would. I believe the only few db's are changed from the top to the bottom for each of those bands. 5 band eq plus the manual eq can both be used seperately which is a massive improvement over the previous middleton. In terms of the sound, the bass already cought me off guard. i was surprised at how boosted it was already at low volumes, but out of the box it did sound quite hollow in the mids. It feels like there's a lot of bass there, but not much above (the upperbass and lower mids) The eq can help with some of that, but it will still sound quite vshaped regardless. The highs are very soft, detailed and pleasant, not as sharp as those of the competition, but it's relaxing in some way. When it comes to volume, it is not a loud speaker. it's Not for people who want the loudest speaker out there, but for warmer, more relaxed sound lovers. The volume steps are not that loud up until 60% volume where it starts to get it's most loudness. The bass reduction exists, but it's not as bad as i thought, it still has some bass at max volume but it feels like it struggles a bit in the mids while playing bass heavy music. The battery life and other specs will be examined later on, as i will compare it to other speakers in the future. Overall, good impressions, especially based on my pov about it's purpose and the type of taste and target audience it was meant for. Overall, i'm pleased with it so far, will be updating on it on my next posts. Thank you for taking a look at my review!!

Well it kinda already impressed me, i can already tell how decent it is by looking at the battery precentage after using it for like a whole hour, Maybe 5% or so down.

The middleton sounds smoother than both at lower volumes, but it can sound a bit hollow sometimes

Thr charge 6 is less soft and louder overall, but the marshall has the unmatched depth of bass and treble softness that can be a bit harsh on the charge

The middleton retails for 340$ I think it's worth it overall but it's a specific sound signature

I agree that the charge is very bright, i even eq it with reduced treble. But the marshall has a soft sound signature, and it might sound a bit hollow at times, in the lower mids. It has nice deep bass, but sometimes it feels like it comes in favor of other frequencies

Marshall middleton is decent, but it reduces a LOT of bass at high volumes. Bose soundlink max has more definition to it's sound, and has more thump.

Marshall Emberton II is pretty good, have 2 and they paired nicely….also have two Middleton II units with built-in surround sound — each has speakers on all four sides. They sound uniquely airy and spatial, almost like a surround field. Both models can pair together (or many more) for an even wider soundstage.

Yep sometimes when am listening to just one I like just stand back and am so impressed with the surround like sound coming from it. Iirc it’s actually got speakers in all 4 sides. Front n back BOTH have a full range driver, and a passive radiator. Then the sides both have smaller full range drivers. It’s under rated imho how that translates into how the music seems to float and stage around you, as u say creating extra “space”. You really don’t need 2 of em.

Great point. I take mine a lotta places, dusty places like camping and the beach. It’s been dropped on cement. Spilled stuff on it. Zero issues. And of course they pair with other same era Marshalls like embertons. And that’s the 1… afaik, the 2 ups the rating from Gen 1 —IPX7 ( waterproof not dust-proof) …to Gen2 IP67 both waterproof and dust-proof Also supposedly more base presence and even better sound staging. Also better volume levels and at full volume less distortion and bass drop ( it’s a bit of an issue but I usually don’t have it at full blast) My 1’s sound awesome as they are. Partly due to the fact that there’s actually 4 speakers on every side, afaik that’s quite unique. I lovem and would definitely recommend either them or the 2’s — Battery life jumps from not bad 20 hours to a more decent 30 on the 2’s. Wattage climbs from 20 to 30 watts. It’s pretty intriguing this review. Seems to say that the version 2 loses the stack daisy chain feature in favour of AuralCast which for me is a negative. If true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K-9rXsUKVQ

Not sure how light you packing, but the Marshall Middleton weighs 3.8 pounds, the Marshall Emberton II weighs 1.5 pounds…both sound amazing to my ears and I love playin em paired.

Just made a post about the middleton 2 vs the acton 3. I love the way the middleton looks, and sounds. About to return the xtreme4 I purchased, but the acton looks like a good option as well even though its not portable.

The latency on these two aren't really up to par on Bluetooth to be using it for the tv. Emberton will shine there as it has very low latency, but its obviously a smaller speaker so it will be underwhelming compared to.