So this is the Marshall Middleton, And I kind of feel that its a bit of a strange speaker. Its larger than most medium portable speakers but its smaller than most Large portable speakers. So that’s why I refer to is as a large medium sized speaker. It also has an an interesting speaker up which gives this speaker 360 degree sound. Overall, im not saying that the Marshall middleton is bad, its simply a very niche speaker. Nonetheless, lets see what the Marshall Middleton is all about.
Regarding pricing, this is one of the things that does make the Marshall middleton a hard sell for me. This speaker has a retail price of $300… which personally I do feel that its a little steep for this speaker. Personally I would only recommend that you pick this speaker up if its on sale for $250 or less. $200 and its a good deal. Nonetheless, if you want to pick this speaker up, it’ll be linked down below.
Now first lets talk about the design of this speaker. Size wise, the Middleton is noticeably larger than your staple mid sized portable bluetooth speakers like the Sony XB33 or the JBL Charge 5… but its also noticeably smaller than your JBL Xtreme 3 or Sony XG300. Hence, that’s why I keep referring to this speaker as a large mid sized speaker. Now durability wise, this speaker has a metal grill on the front and a metal back plate on the back, and the whole thing is wrapped in a very durable rubber outer body which should do a good job of standing up to constant abuse from bumps and scrapes. This speaker is also rock an IP67 ratting meaning that dust and water aren’t going to be an issue for this speaker… and there’s also an optional carrying strap that you can attach. So taking this speaker on the go with you is super easy. Plus, given the fact that this speaker doesn’t have any exposed passive radiators to worry about… the Marshall Middleton is a super durable speaker and its a great candidate if you need something portable. The only thing that caught me off guard is that this thing weighs in at 4 pounds.
Now when it comes to battery life, the Middleton has an advertised battery life of 20 hours which is very impressive and its another reason why this speaker is a great option if you’re looking for something portable an durable. However, this advertised battery life of 20 hours is with speaker playing at 50% volume. Real world use with this speaker playing at 80% volume… its good for about 12 hours of playback time. Now even though 12 hours is very impressive… this speaker is a little on the quieter side before you go above 85 percent volume.
Now when it comes to charging this speaker, it charges via a USB C port which is great. But the fast charging on this speaker is not all that impressive. If you were to plug this speaker in for 20 minutes from a dead battery, you're going to get 2 hours of playback time. But what is impressive is that you can use the USB C port on this speaker to charge the speaker itself… or you can also use it to charge your own devices.
But unfortunately, you can’t use this USB C port as a wired connection with your phone like how you can with the USB C port found on the Xtreme 3. But regardless I do appreciate that you can charge your own phone with this USB C port… and if you need to use a wired connection, you can always still use the 3.5 millimeter audio jack.
Now when it comes to bluetooth connectivity, this speaker is using bluetooth 5.1 but more importantly, it can be connected to two devices at the same time so you and a friend can both be DJ. There’s zero latency when watching movies or videos on your phone… but when it comes to audio codecs, this speaker only has support for SBC. I was kind of hoping for at least AAC from Marshall.
But now lets talk about actually listening to music with this speaker. Regarding speaker set ups, the Middleton has dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides… and it has dual woofers and dual tweeters. However, there’s one woofer and one tweeter that shoots out the front and there’s a woofer and tweeter that shoots out the back. Now first off, I love that this large medium sized speaker has a woofer and tweeter set up cause its helps this speaker have better instrument separation cause the woofer handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs. But so that you can see for yourself, let me just show you.
Tweeter demo
So like you may have just seen, the woofer handles the mids and the tweeter handles the highs. But also, since this speaker shoots sound both out the front and back… this is a 360 degree speaker. So its going to evenly cover an area with music. So this is a speaker that you’re going to want to place in the middle of a room or in the middle of your friends. This is a great speaker for sharing your music with friends, but don’t think that this is the best speaker is you want something super loud and concentrated cause you can’t direct all of the music at yourself. But another thing that I have to point out is that with this speaker, you can adjust the bass and treble directly from the speaker itself… or you can go into its app and get more granular control. And with this speaker, I have to admit that it sounds very flat right out of the box. So with this speaker, I do like to use it with the bass set to 5 and the treble set to 3. But with that out of the way, we can now jump into the soundtest.
Sound Test
So first off, I decided to use the XB33 here cause I feel that its simply a better speaker than the XE300. But more impotently, you can defeneitly notice that the Middleton has better insutmenet separation than the XB33… cause the XB33 doesn’t have any tweeters on it. So the mids and highs just don’t sound as detailed as with the Middleton. And I would also argue that the Middle has better instrument separation than the larger XG300. However, with the XG300, since both woofers and tweeters shoot out the front… this speaker just sounds more intense than the Middleton. I feel the middle sounds better than the XG300, but the XG300 sounds more present.
But now lets talk about the max volume performance of this speaker, now I will say that this speaker gets decent loud for its size… however, the way that this speaker increases its volume is a little different. Most other speaker will increase their volume linearly… but with this one… it sounds a little quite for its size up to like 85% volume… but then the last to clicks of the volume rocker of your iPhone, the volume on this speaker just shoots up. So overall, I will say that this speaker sounds good and it gets decently loud for its size, but this is a speaker that’s better for sharing your music with, cause its sound just doesn’t sound as concentrated cause its a 360 degree speaker, and I wish the volume adjust of this speaker was a little more linear.
But now lets talk about pairing this speaker up with other speakers. With the Middleton, you can pair it up with other Middleton’s by using Marshall’s stack mode. But unfortunately, you can’t mix and match Marshall speakers… so if you have a Marshall Middleton and a Marshal Emberton 2… they won’t sync up and play together.
And personally I do think that this is a shame, cause with a lot of other speaker brands out there, you can wirelessly pair your speaker together and you can mix and match speakers. Meaning that you can have different speakers for different situations or if you friend gets a speaker, they don’t have to have the exact same speaker as you. So Marshall’s speaker pairing protocol is just very limited. So if you plan on buying multiple speakers and plan on constantly pairing them together, the middleton wouldn’t be my first pick cause you have very little flexibility.
But with all of that being said, I defeneitly wouldn’t pick up the Marshall middleton if you’re looking for a speaker that you constantly want to pair with other speakers cause pairing the Middleton is very limited. Also, the middleton is a little pricy for what it is. However, the Middleton is a great choice if you want a speaker to constantly use while you are with friends, cause since its a 360 degree speaker, you can cover a larger area of music without having to use your speaker at a higher volume. Plus, this speaker genuinely sounds really good thanks to its impressive instrument separation. The Middleton is also a great option if you need something durable and portable, cause this thing is very tough, it has an impressive battery life and its not too big.