Marshall Uxbridge Voice

Alexa in an iconic-looking wireless speaker, but does this Voice hit the high notes?

The Marshall Uxbridge Voice is the smallest speaker in the British guitar amp company’s line of voice-enabled, multi-room speakers. Our test sample here supports Amazon Alexa, but an otherwise identical Google Assistant version is also on the way.

Named after the road in west London where Jim Marshall sold his first guitar amp, the Uxbridge Voice brings some kind of retro style to the wireless speaker. On appearances alone, it should have a bigger and better voice than the Amazon Echo, but it will need more than good looks and some extra grunt to turn heads away from well-established rivals such as Sonos and Audio Pro.

The Uxbridge Voice looks every bit of its not inconsiderable price tag, with the classic Marshall salt and pepper front. It’s nice and weighty too and with a low centre of gravity, you’re unlikely to knock it off your kitchen worktop. Our one gripe here is that the matte black plastic around the 13cm tall box doesn’t feel quite as premium as it looks.

The top surface is fitted with all the controls. There’s a small toggle mute switch, a pause/play/skip button and three tasty brass rockers for volume, bass and treble controls. There are no ports apart from the power socket, so it’s Bluetooth or wi-fi only, with a small pairing button positioned on the rear.

Range of EQ profiles

There’s a dedicated app, although you’ll probably use the Marshall Voice software only for set up and the odd firmware update. The in-app EQ has a few profiles to try, including Rock, Pop, Metal and Hip-hop, but you'll do most of your interacting with the speaker via Alexa or the app for your chosen music service.

The Uxbridge Voice is Airplay 2compatible. Only through Apple’s system can you put it into a multi-room set-up, making it feel more like a glorified Amazon Echo Plus than a genuine rival to the Sonos One. Thanks to Chromecast, the Google Assistant variant may feel more fully featured.

The Uxbridge Voice has Spotify Connect built-in, but its biggest feature is undoubtedly Alexa integration. You can communicate with this speaker the same as you can with any Echo, although we find the Uxbridge is slightly slower to respond to the wake command and doesn’t process commands quite as well.

A decent-sized cone

The Uxbridge Voice's woofer and tweeter are driven by a single 30W internal Class D amplifier, and the box certainly offers plenty of space for a decent-sized cone.

Hell’s Bells by AC/DC seems an appropriate choice for this rock-inspired speaker and it’s clear from the opening bongs that there’s more enthusiasm and drive here than from the average wireless speaker. But, while each note initially snaps nicely, it's rather lacking in the way of substance and solidity.

The Marshall hints at deep bass but doesn't really deliver it, with everything sounding a little thin and lacking meat. As the track builds, we could really use a lot more of the pulse to underpin Brian Johnson’s screechy vocals and the brightness of the cymbals and snares. The treble stops short of harsh at normal volumes, but distorts when pushed louder. This won’t be the best choice of device for a busy listening space.

There’s plenty of scope to adjust the balance with a twiddle of the in-app EQ, but there’s no making up for the shortfall of true bass. We switch to John Barry’s The John Dunbar Theme from Dances With Wolves and while the Uxbridge Voice isn't bad at delivering the volume shifts required, without the weight that comes with proper bass extension, there's a lack of heart-swelling drama.

It’s a pity because there is a reasonable level of detail compared with rivals such as the Sonos One. It’s only when the complex sound production gets more muddled that some of this slips away.

This is a decent effort from Marshall, but the Uxbridge Voice falls too far short on audio quality for us to wholeheartedly recommend it. In terms of features too, it’s some way off the best multi-room speakers. Unless you’re already invested in Marshall’s multi-room products, you’ll find better and more room-filling wireless speakers for the price.