MarshallWoburn III Bluetooth Wireless Speaker

The Woburn III powered-speaker by Marshall produces surprisingly enjoyable audio quality for its class. It is considered semi-portable and plugs into the wall. A battery and charger would increase size, weight, cost, and complexity that would only detract from its performance. Purchased Jan-Twenty-Twenty-Four.According to the Woburn III spec sheet:Bluetooth 5.2Frequency range: 35 Hz to 20 kHz.(1) 90W amp for the subwoofer, including a passive bass port in the cabinet.(4) 15W amps for the left & right mid-range & tweeters.The lowest useful frequency on my Woburn III unit is 32 Hz, rivaling sub woofers costing several times more. More on frequency testing later.UNBOXING: My Dell PC recognized the Woburn’s Bluetooth signal instantly. I was playing music in less than 60 seconds.The brief but clear USER MANUAL is only available online, although not necessarily required because operation is very intuitive. Grandma could set it up.MEDIA CONTROL BUTTON:Left = backward one track, hold for fast-backwardRight = forward one track, hold for fast-forwardSingle Push = pause(4) INPUT SOURCES:BluetoothAux (3.5 mm conveniently on top)RCA Jacks (Yeah!)HDMI (ARC & eARC).The Woburn conveniently remembers the selected input SOURCE.BLUETOOTH via CELL PHONE:1. Download Marshall’s phone app from Google. The dreaded “I Agree” statement’s default choice claims it only interrogates my phone for product improvements. Fair enough.2. Launch the Marshall app on the phone.3. Confirm the Woburn SOURCE LED indicates Bluetooth.4. Push and hold the SOURCE button until the Bluetooth LED flashes.5. Select “Woburn III” on the phone app before the SOURCE LED stops flashing.6. Done.The Woburn III sounds so good over Bluetooth I decided to run a comparison test. The same music file was synchronized on my PC and my phone, then switched back and forth between the RCA inputs (a Dell PC with a standalone audio DAC) and the phone’s Bluetooth (v5.2). Both devices use the Foobar2000 music app.A subtle audio quality loss was detectable using Bluetooth, but only when playing an exceptionally well-mastered CD (Diana Krall) that was ripped directly to a loss-less file format (i.e., a CD WAV file transcoded directly to a FLAC file). Songs mastered with less precision are not crisp enough to notice a difference over Bluetooth, despite being ripped in the same manner.This simple test indicates the inherent audio quality of the Woburn III is sophisticated enough to reveal Bluetooth’s shortcomings. (Wirelessly transferring data and music are entirely different technical challenges.)I have never used Bluetooth for music, so forgive the next few paragraphs. Bluetooth technology has evolved significantly from the early days of iPods, poor wireless band-width, and primitive file compression algorithms.Woburn III can be paired with multiple Bluetooth devices simultaneously. If Device A is playing, Device B cannot play until Device A is Paused. Repeat as desired.Accidentally pushed the Woburn’s SOURCE button and goofed up the Bluetooth link? Simply reselect Bluetooth, wait for Woburn to emit two alert tones that occur several seconds apart, then select play on the phone device.Woburn III enters Network Standy after about 10 minutes without an input signal. All panel LED’s turn off except the SOURCE LED.To Resume Bluetooth mode: wiggle one of Woburn’s three Audio Control knobs, the other LED’s on the control panel wakeup. Woburn emits two tones several seconds apart, then select Play on any previously paired phone device. Cycling the power switch is not the only method to re-establish wireless communication as one reviewer claimed, at least on my unit.To exit Standy while connected to a wired input: select Play on the wired device, four seconds later Woburn is awake and resumes playing.AUX OR RCA SOURCES: Changing from an active Bluetooth signal to a line-level input simply requires changing SOURCE to Aux or RCA. Meanwhile, my phone automatically pauses the current song to avoid losing my place in the playlist.HDMI SOURCE: Connect the TV’s Audio Return Channel (eARC), Woburn immediately responds to the TV’s volume command (even if Woburn is in standby mode). Selecting another Woburn SOURCE plays that input, at which point, my Sony TV re-engages its speakers. Gotta love HDMI technology.Note: My Sony TV required configuring its Digital Audio Out to PCM. CEMA rated this TV best audio quality for 2021, and is noticeably better than other flat panels, but the Woburn III sounds significantly better. Now I will not need a soundbar and just use the Woburn when better audio quality is desired.ENERGY CONSUMPTION:Mid Volume = 8W; Network Standy = 0.37W; Power Switch Off = 0.22W. Zero power consumption requires unplugging the power cord. Annual energy cost in standby mode:0.37W x 1000 x 24 x 365 = 3.24 kWh x $0.06 = $0.19 per year.LOW FREQUENCY TESTING:Unboxing in the kitchen, the initial low frequency sweeps sounded a little dirty. This is a good thing when the first step is silencing cookware resonating in the cupboards, especially from a 16 pound device.Had to graduate to the audio room to resume sweep testing. Descending from 160 Hz, loudness is a little thin at 113 Hz, increases at 91 Hz, decreases again at 70 Hz, substantially increases from 57 Hz to 34 Hz (the muscle-bound portion), then tapers off to total silence by 26 Hz. My high-end system also varies during sweeps, but not to this degree (in the same room).To be fair, low-frequency variations are more than the music machine. Wavelength at 141 Hz is 8 feet (ceiling height), typically where undesirable room interactions begin. Longer wavelengths develop standing wave patterns, causing loud and quiet zones, often just one step apart. Proper low-end testing is done outdoors, or in an anechoic test chamber. And, balancing a machine’s low frequency output becomes exponentially more difficult as device size shrinks, again a wavelength issue (and cost).It appears that Marshall traded a reasonable amount of bass unevenness to include as much of the low frequency spectrum as possible, and succeeded without creating an intolerable situation like other machines in this class.Note: Hz x wavelength = the speed of sound in air (1,130 feet per sec at 72 F)TONE CONTROLS: The bass and treble adjustments provide adequate range of authority. However, adjusting the bass knob to the middle of its range often provides too much low-end, primarily for tracks mastered in the early 2000’s during the earbud volume wars. Well-mastered tracks do not experience this issue.Salvaging bass-heavy songs (due to poor mastering) is possible by reducing the bass tone control knob, which partially cheats the mid-range frequencies, but at least the song is listenable. Fortunately, bass-heavy songs that are well-mastered, such as disco and techno, sound just fine.The Woburn III’s five Class D amplifiers (one for each speaker) improve bass-heavy songs. As the 90W subwoofer amp works hard processing the bass, the other 4 amps (at higher frequencies) remain unaffected. This “bi-amping” approach imitates the standalone sub-woofer of large systems.Most Woburn’s competitors lack traditional RCA jacks (big mistake). Woburn III includes RCA jacks, boldly daring a comparison test against expensive equipment and it has nothing to be ashamed of, dollar for dollar.My friends who think a frequency sweep is a broom claim the Woburn III sounds amazing. Changing audio sources could not be easier and locating the 3.5 mm Aux input on top is genius.The retro design theme looks great too. Reminds me of Jimi Hendrix using his guitar as an axe. Any left-hander who plays a right-handed guitar upside down can bludgeon his Marshall amp if he wants. Being a musical genius is not always easy.The Woburn III is clearly an upgrade over a vanilla stereo system or soundbar, and reduces component clutter. Get one for the bedroom, garage, boat, RV, cottage, barbeque, anywhere competent audio quality and flexible connectivity are desired in a portable package. I might purchase another one for the backseat of my limousine.I rate the Woburn III a solid five stars after six months of evaluation.

Shockingly good! I've been without a good set of computer speakers for over a year now so I quit making excuses and bought the Marshall Woburn III. Right out of the box this model from Marshall knocked me over! All the praise about the mids and highs was spot on, the sound stage excellent, and the bass stuns and leaves nothing to be desired. Just overall a great speaker and I can enjoy streaming along with my personal music collection again. Yes, the bluetooth connection can be fragile, but you can work around that with a little tweaking. I would definitely buy this all over again...thank you Marshall!

Day one, and this speaker rocks. The sound has a warmer feel than my other Bose speaker. I don't know how Marshall did it but the sound just feels simply brilliant. Installation is a breeze, I simply plugged the unit in, turned it on (love the physical button), and my android phone recognized it right away. It took less than 3 minutes for me to start streaming my music. Love it.

First of all, I hate to send it back. There isn’t anything I didn’t like about the Marshall Woburn 3, it’s simply because the wife prefers the style of another speak, otherwise I’d keep it.I really like how it sounds compared to the other speaker my wife likes. The base isn’t too heavy that it over power everything else, but it feels really deep. The midrange sounds surprisingly excellent to me and my wife had to agree even thought she like the look of the other one.If it’s not for the styling, which isn’t bad in any way, I’d kept this speaker. Such a tough choice to make because I really liked how it sounds.

Excelente parlante. Además de hermoso, suena increíble. Estoy muy contento con la compra que hice

Great looking speaker! Very professional quality

Excellent sound

Speaker stopped working less than a year and customer support said to reach out to amazon for support. Very disappointed I spent over $500 for a speaker that only worked for a couple of months.