Marshall Acton II Bluetooth Review

At $249, the Acton II is the smallest and least expensive of the three newly announced Marshall Bluetooth speakers.

(Reviews of the Stanmore II Bluetooth and the Woburn II Bluetooth are forthcoming.) By many standards, however, the Acton II Bluetooth is fairly large.

If you like the look of Marshall amps, you'll like the design and details here.

The Acton II Bluetooth is powerful and has adjustable bass and treble knobs.

There's no speakerphone, however, and this is not a portable speaker like many sub-$300 wireless models are.

It delivers mostly solid audio performance, though at top volumes we experienced some distortion issues on deep bass tracks.

Design

Measuring 6.3 by 10.3 by 5.9 inches (HWD) and weighing in at 4.5 pounds, the Acton II Bluetooth is available in black or white models, with a fairly real-looking grain leather patina covering much of the top and side panels.

The front face is a tweed-covered grille with the Marshall logo displayed in handsome cursive.

If you like the Marshall amp aesthetic, this doesn't resemble a cheap knockoff—it looks classy.

The top panel houses a 3.5mm aux input, a source button (for switching between Bluetooth and the aux input), a play/pause button, and a power switch.

There are also three knobs for volume, bass, and treble.

The levels for these knobs are displayed in underlit red LED notches on the face of the gold-tinted, anodized aluminum control panel.

Behind the grille, the speaker employs dual tweeters, each powered by a 15-watt Class D amplifier, and a single woofer powered by a 30-watt Class D amp.

The frequency range is 50Hz-20kHz.

The speaker rests on four sturdy feet that ensure it won't dance around on tabletops despite powerful bass vibrations.

The rear panel of the Acton II Bluetooth almost seems like a practical joke when juxtaposed with the rest of the design's attention to style and detail.

The panel is black, and filled with microscopic legalese—hundreds of words in various languages.

It's not that we haven't seen this on speakers before, but it's usually not so prominently displayed, or it's in a pamphlet rather than on the body of the speaker.

Sure, if you park this thing against a wall, problem solved.

But if you're placing it on a surface in the middle of the room, or even with some space behind it, someone's going to have an ugly view.

Other than a ported area for air moved by the drivers to escape through, and a covered connection for service only, the back panel seems to exist only to house the AC cable connection and the aforementioned safety warnings and logos.

If you're going to make a wireless speaker in this price range stationary, it seems like it should have more inputs (for use with TVs, turntables, or stereo/home theater gear).

At the very least, if there's only one physical connection, a sturdy, handsome 3.5mm cable to use with it would have been a thoughtful inclusion.

For the not-cheap price of $250, your sole accessory here is a power cable.

There's also no speakerphone functionality, which seems like a missed opportunity given the Acton II Bluetooth's size.

In the free app, you can choose between EQ presets (but you already have bass and treble knobs on the speaker itself), change the intensity of the LEDs, put the speaker in standby mode, or control your music.

Performance

The Acton II Bluetooth can get quite loud.

Top volumes reach wall-rattling levels, and the bass depth here is not subwoofer-level, but it's certainly a full, rich sound.

Now the bad news.

Although the the Acton II Bluetooth employs DSP (digital signal processing) to, ostensibly, prevent distortion at high volumes, the speaker has trouble with deep bass, even at mid-level volumes.

Especially with the bass knob dialed to halfway or higher, the Acton II Bluetooth's drivers got fuzzy and distorted on tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout." Simply put, that's a one-star deduction in this price range.

You can't charge $250 for a speaker that uses DSP and isn't portable and have distortion be an issue.

The argument could be made that Marshall chose to go with a less dynamically limiting DSP in order to give a truer musical experience, and that will appeal to purists—but only until they encounter the distortion.

The good news is the distortion seems limited to tracks with powerful sub-bass, like this one.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Acton II Bluetooth's general sound signature.

With the bass and treble set to halfway, this track sounds rich and dynamic—the drums get some added roundness and depth without sounding unnatural, and Callahan's baritone vocals receive plenty of low-mid presence.

This is all balanced out nicely by a relatively bright presence in the highs that makes the higher register percussive hits snap a bit more, and the vocals and guitar strums also receive enough high-mid presence to keep things clear.

At absolute top volume levels, the speaker seems to flirt with distortion, but never gets there.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop receives plenty of high-mid presence, accentuating the attack of the drum loop, while the sub-bass synth hits, at moderate volumes, are delivered with solid presence but not subwoofer-like gusto.

It seems the Acton II Bluetooth is more likely to boost the lows and low-mids than the sub-bass when the bass knob is dialed up.

The overall sound signature is still full and rich, but if you're looking for subwoofer-like bass depth, you'll need to go with a system that packs a little more punch in that department—which will typically cost more than $250.

The vocals on this track are delivered cleanly and clearly, without much added sibilance.

At top volumes, there's no distortion on this track, which is a good sign, but the DSP kicks into overdrive and the track begins to sound extremely dynamically limited.

On orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, it's possible to really dial in your sonic preferences.

The lower register instrumentation can sound subtle and not at all boosted, or it can be pushed forward quite dramatically, while the treble knob can add some serious brightness and shimmer to the mix.

Generally speaking, orchestral tracks sound wonderful through the Acton II Bluetooth, capable of bring forth some added richness without sounding unnatural or shifting the balance of the mix.

Conclusions

We love the look of the Marshall Acton II Bluetooth—except for that back panel.

We love the sound of the speaker—except for that nasty distortion issue on deep bass tracks.

If, say, you plan on parking the speaker near a wall and you don't listen to music with deep bass in it, then that would seem to tidily resolve both those two issues.

Otherwise, it's worth checking out the JBL Xtreme 2, the Sony SRS-XB40, the Klipsch The One, or, for less money, the Ikea Eneby (12-Inch).

All of these options offer solid Bluetooth audio and design, and some are even portable.