Marshall Middleton review

Bluetooth speakers, particularly the portable, battery-powered kind, are one of the best accessories you can buy for your phone. You can listen to music wherever you go, whether it’s moving from room to room at home, out in the garden or on your travels.

Marshall’s Middleton sits pretty high up in the range of what most people are prepared to pay for a Bluetooth speaker, but it justifies its price with frankly outstanding sound quality, 20 hours of battery life and IP67 dust and water resistance among other things.

Features & design

• Rugged rubber casing
• Bass and treble controls
• USB-C and aux input

The Middleton carries over the design of Marshall’s Emberton speaker but is larger and heavier. It’s reminiscent of Marshall’s guitar amplifier heads, although it’s worth knowing that the Middleton is actually made by Swedish company Zound and not Marshall Amplification. But this distinction is pretty much moot now that the two companies have joined forces to create the Marshall Group.

Company news aside, the rectangular form factor and hefty weight means the Middleton is very unlikely to get knocked over and even if it does, it feels tough enough to shrug it off.

Controls are all on top, with a brass-coloured multi-directional button in the centre. Up and down adjust volume (amazingly precisely) and left and right skip tracks. It’s also the power and play/pause button.

There are bass and treble controls so you can adjust EQ without resorting to the app, and there are also two buttons with hard-to-see labels for Bluetooth pairing (or Stack mode) and battery status.

Despite the absence of a cover for the USB-C and 3.5mm minijack connectors, the Middleton has an IP67 rating. That means it can survive being fully submerged in half a metre of water for 30 minutes.

But if that happens, it’s probably a good idea to blow any water out of those ports and wait for them to fully dry before using them.

In the box you get a USB-C cable for charging, but no actual charger, and a sturdy rubber carry strap.

Charging is strangely slow, taking 4.5 hours if the battery is completely flat. Even Marshall’s bigger, more expensive Tufton (which also claims 20 hours of playback) charges in almost half this time.

You can use the USB-C port to charge your phone or tablet: fine if your device also uses USB-C, but trickier if you don’t have, say, a USB-C to Lightning cable for an iPhone.

Marshall has considered the environment, and says the Middleton is made from 55% post-consumer recycled plastic from used electronics, water bottles and automotive light covers.

Sound quality

• 2x 20W amplifiers for 3in 15W woofers
• 2x 10W amplifiers for 3.5in 10W tweeters
• Passive bass radiators

The Middleton is the best-sounding Bluetooth speaker I’ve ever heard. I mean, it should be good considering the price, but it is astounding.

As you might expect from the specs above it’s plenty loud, but the most impressive thing about it is the bass. Normally, you accept that a smallish portable speaker will fail to produce the lowest frequencies and so you won’t hear certain parts (or any) of the bass lines in the tracks you know well.

And yet the Middleton can. For its size, the bass it produces is seriously impressive, regardless of the type of music you like to listen to. From pop and rock through to jazz and soul – even classical – it packs a punch that belies its size.

Even when you lower the volume, that bass doesn’t disappear, which is refreshing. The passive radiators are located at either end, with grilles covering them and the woofers and tweeters face forwards.

Although sound has to be produced without any mid-range drivers, vocals are clear and powerful and there are no obvious missing frequencies, no muddiness or overlapping of instruments.

Overall, clarity is excellent and you’ll hear all the detail in the music you stream to the Middleton –despite the fact it supports only the basic SBC codec. You certainly wouldn’t know this without looking at the specs.

There’s absolutely no distortion at normal listening levels and I never felt the need to turn it up to the max.

If you want more volume – and have deep pockets – you can pair multiple Middletons in ‘Stack’ mode. You don’t have to physically put them on top of each other, so you can place them on opposite sides of a room, or up to 10m apart outdoors.

In the week or so I’ve been testing the Middleton it hasn’t needed recharging. I’ve used it a lot, and have no concerns that the claim of 20 hours is overblown.

Price & availability

At £269.99 direct from Marshall Headphones, the Middleton is expensive.

It’s $299.99 in the US, again direct from the Marshall Headphones website.

You can also buy it from Amazon UK and Amazon US for the same prices.

It’s cheaper than the Sonos Move, which also supports multi-room, but if you’re looking for a good-sounding Bluetooth speaker on a tighter budget, then read our Emberton II review or take a look at our roundup of the best Bluetooth speakers.

Verdict

Some of the Middleton’s closest rivals come from JBL including the Extreme 3 and Charge 5. But neither of these has the classic looks (or the brand) that the Marshall Middleton does.

If the price doesn’t put you off, or you find it on sale for closer to £220 / $250, then you should have no hesitation in buying a Middleton today.