Marshall Acton III Review
Marshall has been known to make speakers that are renowned for their sound and build quality. Across their lineup, the brand has products that are awe-inspiring, a bit pricey, but worth the money you spend on it. While this may seem like a great thing for the brand, it is what makes placing these speakers against others that are out there somewhat difficult. What you get in terms of build and design, you lose out in terms of features that many others come packing with, especially at the price that Marshall speakers retail at. So, when the Marshall Acton III showed up, I had a lot of questions that I wanted answers to. I set out to explore what the speaker had to offer, putting it through our test process in order to find out if it warrants its price of ₹31,999. Here’s what I found out –
There is no denying that Marshall is leagues above all other brands in the business when it comes to building and designing speakers that scream out quality as you lay your hand on them.
With the black leather finish on the body, with tastefully selected mesh front covering the drivers, gold accents and the logo rounding up the front, and the metal knobs and switches making up the top control assembly, Marshall Acton III was everyone’s favourite at the Digit Test Centre. On the back of the speaker, you get tons of labelling, the outlet for the woofer, the power cable port, and the cutout for the service port.
The control hub, which is gold in colour, complimenting the gold and black aesthetic of the speaker, houses the flick-switch for power, the source selector, AUX port (3.5mm in), the two-way joystick for playback control, and three knobs for volume, treble, and bass control. This is one of the most complete control hubs that I have seen on a Bluetooth speaker, and being a fan of physical controls, I love it. The knobs have lights around the perimeter telling you what level the bass/treble/volume is set to, and the subtle stepped action on them adds to the overall premium feel and experience of using the Marshall Acton III.
On the bottom, you get four rubber feet which keep the speaker held in place even when you crank up the bass and volume to the max. I played hours of F1 23 on this speaker, and it managed to stay put despite the constant rumbling of the cars on the track. The experience, you ask? Well, I will talk about it later.
As for the robustness of the speaker, unless you are planning to take it outdoors, I think you should not be worried about the build of the speaker. The mesh on the front will need to be dusted from time to time to protect its sheen, however, just regular wiping of the surface with a damp cloth should ensure that the speaker lasts a while before showing signs of wear and tear. If I were to draw parallels with cars, this speaker is like a luxury sedan that will drive well around the city on clean roads, but off-roading is not its cup of tea.
This is where Marshall Acton III loses out against the competition. We have speakers at this price, coming with a swanky feature set, which sometimes to be honest, gets a bit overwhelming for us to test out. However, with the Acton III, it was not the case. In fact, I believe Marshall’s approach to this speaker was a bit too conservative. And that could be attributed to the unique positioning of this product. Let me explain.
The speaker, in order to provide a no bells and whistles, premium listening experience, loses out on essentials like the ability to daisy chain speakers to make a truly wireless stereo setup. There are a LOT of people who would chase down the most specced out speaker when they are spending close to ₹32K on a speaker. Only a small subset, which includes people who would give everything to have the best listening experience, would go for it. And, for those, having voice assistant support, or an extra bass boost button or a 100 different modes would hardly matter. All that they would look for is a simple, soothing listening experience. Marshall Acton III delivers on that.
The app has some controls, which you essentially get on the speaker itself. So, no brownie points there. However, one feature that I found interesting was – Placement Compensation. This is something that we usually see in soundbars, where the device compensates for the anomalies in its surroundings and adjusts its sound to give you the optimal listening experience. At the Test Centre, I was able to put this to test, and the speaker did fairly well to make up for all the boxes and other stuff I had dumped around it. The only catch here is that the speaker does not make the changes on its own. It is you, filling out a questionnaire, and the speaker adjusts accordingly. I would say go ahead and experiment with the feature, but if you are not one for fiddling around a lot, then adjust the bass and treble on your own.
What the Marshall Acton III loses out in terms of features, it makes up in its performance. The sound coming out of this speaker is one of the most complete sounds you will hear in the consumer-grade speakers market. The sound signature of the Marshall Acton III is V-shaped, meaning that there is a noticeable boost in the lows and the highs (bass and treble). However, as my fellow reviewer Dhriti had noted in her review of the Marshall Woburn III, the tuning of the drivers by Marshall is so on point that the boost does not eat into the mids at all.
I am a fan of the band OneRepublic, and we happen to use their song, Rescue Me in our test process to test out the vocal clarity of speakers. And, when I played that song, I was impressed. I played around with the bass and treble settings to try and drown out the vocals. However, even at maxed-out bass, which is something that is very extreme and I am sure no one would do that, the speaker managed to produce the vocals with astonishing precision.
Not only that, tracks like Selkies, Pull Me Under, and Skyfall, which are used by us in our testing, were reproduced well by the Acton III. And, when you listen to the speaker play every single one of these songs in the way they are intended to, you understand why Marshall is held in such high regard and why they charge so much for their speakers. The most optimal settings for the speaker, at least for the people here at the Test Centre, was setting the bass and the treble knobs to the middle, occasionally cranking up the bass a bit, max up to 70 per cent if we were in the mood for it.
However, there were a couple of gripes I had with the speaker. When cranking the volume to max, to make up for some of the distortion which would creep in, the Digital Signal Processing engine was getting triggered, which meant that the speaker’s sound signature wasn’t what you would find at, say 60 per cent volume. So, I would recommend, for optimal listening experience, do not go over the 80 per cent mark.
The second was that a speaker over ₹30,000, comes with only SBC CODEC!? I don’t know what is the reasoning behind not having a higher quality CODEC in the speaker, but the lack of aptX or LDAC is something you cannot look past. If you want to unlock the full potential of the speaker, you have to use the 3.5mm AUX port, which is a shame.
Lastly, in terms of its gaming performance, yes, I played games, while having the speaker connected to our Test Centre’s PS5. The speaker holds its own. I had it connected through a 3.5mm cable from my DualSense controller, and in games like F1 23 and Mortal Kombat 1, the speaker did well in terms of reproduction of positionally sound audio and every kick and thump that was there in the game.
And, yeah, you will see that this review is missing the battery performance section. That is because the speaker is powered off the wall and comes with no battery baked in. I have seen offerings in similar form factor come with batteries included. The only reason I can see why Marshall opted out of adding batteries is because the drivers included in the speaker, to provide the sound that the brand was gunning for, needed a lot of power, which would have drained any battery included in the speaker in a jiffy.
The Marshall Acton III makes for a great luxury listening experience. You get whatever you could dream of in a speaker when it comes to build and design, and casual listening performance. The lack of a battery, some missing CODECs, and features are something that could be a deal breaker for you, pushing you towards economical options like the AIWA RS-X150 Natsukasii Pro.
However, if you are looking for a premium listening experience on a speaker that with proper care will last you a lifetime, and also makes for a great addition to the decor of your living room, then you cannot look past the Marshall Acton III.
