Marshall Speakers are hardly the first third-party manufacturer to hop on the smart speaker bandwagon, but the company’s got a strong case for bringing the best design into the mix. Announced at IFA in Berlin this week, the Acton II and Stanmore II continue the line’s legacy of cribbing heavily from Marshall’s iconic guitar amp designs. It’s not original, really, but it’s a sort of timeless design that should fit in pretty comfortably most living rooms. The speakers are both launching in the fall with Amazon Alexa on-board. Google Assistant will be arriving later in the year, letting them do double assistant duty. A cheeky bit of ad copy on that front from Marshall, Just like a roadie, Alexa is there to help while you’re busy doing other things. Can’t remember the name of a song? Say the lyrics and Alexa will find it for you. Looking for information on when your favourite band goes on tour? Just ask. You can even have Alexa remind you when tickets go on sale, help you tune your guitar, learn music theory, test your music knowledge, or catch you up on the latest news. Alexa and Marshall Voice really are a match made in music heaven. The Acton is the smaller of the two, running $299, while the Stanmore costs $100 more. The speakers are launching November 9 and October 2, respectively.
UK company Marshall has unveiled two smart speakers with integrated Alexa functionality. The $299 Acton II and $399 Stanmore II have been designed to look like the company's iconic guitar amps, and Marshall said it will add Google Assistant later this year. Both devices are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which is paired with 4GB of RAM.