Marshall Kilburn III review

If you were to conjure up images that define rock’n’roll, then Marshall’s iconic amplifiers are right up there with Jack Daniels whiskey and Slash’s top hat.

The Marshall Kilburn III Bluetooth speaker straddles the line between the brand’s home and portable ranges: not too small, not too big; burly enough to look like one of its signature amps, yet portable enough to be moved around the house with its guitar-inspired carry strap.

Build & design

The Kilburn III’s retro styling has major shelf appeal. The textured vegan leather finish is tactile and feels robust, while the brass top panel with the dials, button controls and knurled power toggle is eye-catching. The physical dials and red LEDs invite you to get up close and personal with the Kilburn III; you get instant gratification from seeing the volume and bass/treble levels when twiddling the dials, while pausing and skipping tracks using the ‘media jog’ is responsive in use.

We like how the battery bar is clear to see at a quick glance, and we have to stop ourselves from constantly toggling the power switch on and off as it’s so satisfyingly made. For build quality alone, the Kilburn III gets top marks, and we can see many being won over by its attractive design.

Next to its main rival in this field, the five-star burly JBL Xtreme 5 (£330 / $400), the Marshall does look smarter, if less rugged. The JBL’s IP68 rating points to its more outdoorsy nature, while the Marshall’s still-decent IP54 rating means it can withstand splashes of drinks and general dust and dirt – just don’t leave it out in a downpour.

The Kilburn III’s size means it will likely be used as a home speaker most of the time, but you can carry it from room to room and to the garden thanks to the red velvet-lined carry strap. It’s useful, although we wish it was just a little thicker and sturdier in hand to better accommodate the hefty weight of the speaker.

Features

Connecting to Bluetooth is swift and stable, and the accompanying Marshall app gives you access to a five-band EQ, with presets that you can customise. You can even save your favourite EQ profile to the ‘M’ button on the top panel, so you can access it with a single tap.

Bluetooth is restricted to the standard AAC and SBC codecs here, while Auracast sharing is supported. You can plug in a source such as an MP3 player into the speaker’s 3.5mm aux input, but that USB-C port is for charging only, not wired audio playback.

The Kilburn’s battery life is a whopping 50-plus hours (double that of its Xtreme 5 rival), and we barely made a dent in that during our two weeks of testing. You can also use the speaker’s bountiful reserves and USB-C port to charge up your smartphone, which is handy. Marshall even includes a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box, which is becoming increasingly rare in some major brands.

Operating the Marshall speaker is simple – it’s just Bluetooth, after all; no wi-fi or hi-res features to play with here – and the physical controls make it even more straightforward in use. One of the most useful things it has is the placement compensation feature in the app: it adjusts the sound balance depending on where you place the speaker, and there are multiple variables to choose from.

You can tell the app whether the speaker is placed up against the wall, in a corner, free-standing away from a wall, or if the front of the speaker is near the edge – all this is in service of compensating for any unruly boominess in the bass and how the sound reflects against its surrounding surface. This works well in every position we try in our test room, so it’s worth playing with the settings to get the best out of the Kilburn III in your home.

Sound

Inside the Kilburn III are two 5cm full-range speakers – one in the front and one in the back – and one 10cm woofer, along with a rear-firing bass reflex port. Altogether there’s 50W of Class D power on tap, and Marshall promises to deliver “true stereophonic” 360 sound with this stereo arrangement, with no “blind spots”.

And it does so rather well. While you will get the most direct sound from the front of the speaker, the tonal balance remains consistent as we move around it and listen off-axis – even from behind the speaker – with no discernible drop-off in the wide soundstage.

Marshall’s ‘dynamic loudness’ DSP also aims to keep the frequencies in check even when turning the volume up to 10 (sadly, the Kilburn III doesn’t go up to 11), and the speaker easily fills our test room with a bold, energetic sound.

The Kilburn III’s full-bodied presentation doesn’t ever try to be flat or neutral in any way; Marshall’s ‘signature’ sound veers towards the warmer and richer side of the sonic fence, and it’s a sound that is pleasingly easy to listen to. There’s a smoothness to the edges that means things don’t get wince-inducing at the top end when you inevitably turn it up to party levels.

It’s also quite a substantial, meaty sound across the frequencies. This lends satisfying muscle and slam to the distorted guitar riffs in Deftones’ Change (In The House Of Flies), while the dynamic swings and grand, sweeping movements of a Hans Zimmer soundtrack have a good sense of physicality to them.

On the flip side, it means that the leading edges of notes aren’t as crisply drawn as we’d like. There’s a good amount of detail to sink your teeth into, but we wouldn’t mind if the richness was dialled down a little here.

It’s perhaps no surprise that the Kilburn III’s bass-prominent, hard-charging character suits certain genres more than others, with more delicate fare such as The Unthanks’ traditional folk songs or sparse piano pieces needing greater nuance and refinement.

But the Marshall isn’t so blunt an instrument that you can’t listen to some Joni Mitchell through it. Voices can be a little recessed when in the mix with other instruments, but they sound solid and are projected well enough when listening to solo tracks. Joni’s voice on the Blue album comes through with a sweetness and fluidity that’s appealing to listen to, even if the Kilburn III adds some extra fat to the bones.

Feed it the iconic riffs of AC/DC, the obnoxious nu-metal of Limp Bizkit, or the raucous tones of Fontaines DC, and the Marshall speaker is at its happiest. We tone down the bass level a touch and push the mids up in the EQ settings to get the voices more prominent in the mix – just be careful not to upset the rest of the balance too much – but the personality of each distinct band comes through with plenty of punch.

The JBL Xtreme 5 rival remains the one to beat here, and it delivers a clearer, more rhythmically organised sound, with crisper edges and that bit more subtlety. But there’s enough pep, snap and dynamic punch in the Marshall’s lively sound that keeps us listening. Yes, it’s a chunky, flavoured sound, but it doesn’t stop our foot from tapping along to the music whether we play James Blake, Lambrini Girls or Metallica.

Verdict

Like an enthusiastic puppy with a mohawk, the Marshall Kilburn III is an eager, attention-grabbing performer, and while we imagine its sonic flavour won’t be for everyone, a more poised sound would perhaps be out of character with its rock’n’roll heritage.

JBL’s capable rival offers a more balanced and precise sound while still retaining high energy, but we can imagine many being swayed by the Marshall Kilburn III’s visual charms, its tactile physical controls and that rich, room-filling sound.

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Features 4

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