Thanks to the popularity of Amazon’s Echo family, people have begun to expect voice assistant capabilities from their smart speakers, even ones meant primarily for audio. To that point, Marshall just announced the Uxbridge Voice, its latest Alexa-enabled speaker.
As with Marshall’s previous wireless speakers, the Uxbridge features a stylish design that mimics the design of a classic guitar amp, albeit in a rather small form just 6.6 inches tall and 5 inches wide. The speakers come in white or black colorways and support both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections, the latter using AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect.
You can also use the speakers in multi-room mode using either AirPlay 2 or other Alexa-enabled speakers, although it does not appear you can create stereo pairs. And of course, being an Alexa-enabled speaker, it includes far-field microphones and can respond to any of the expected commands, ranging from playback commands to wondering what the weather is like.
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We can’t say much about sound quality without having heard the speakers, but Marshal claims a frequency response down to 54 Hz and the speaker comes with bass and treble adjustments to find a tonality that best suits your room and tastes. The speaker is also rated at 96 dB @ 1m, which should be plenty loud for indoor use
The Uxbridge Voice will be available on Marshall’s website for $199 starting April 9; a Google Assistant-enabled version of the speaker will be available starting June 11.
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