Introduction

This write-up was done back in July 2025, but I never got around to publishing it at that time. So... It comes a bit late, and I probably have some additional insights after using the Marshall Emberton II for about 8 months now. I'll keep the original text intact, and probably follow-up with an additional blog post instead.

For some time now I was pondering on grabbing myself a portable bluetooth speaker. The idea was that I could move it around the house when watching or listening to videos on YouTube, and having something a bit more powerful than the meager speaker on my mobile phone, and all of this without spending big bucks or buying something overpowered.

Initially, I did some research on available bluetooth speakers back when I was getting some Christmas presents for the family, and based on those experiences had some pretty good idea on what could work out well.

At the end, after watching and reading a whole bunch of reviews and checking out some prices during the Amazon Prime Day, I ended up narrowing down the selection to Bose SoundLink Flex II and Marshall Emberton II. To be on the safe side, I ended up ordering both, with the intent of keeping just one and returning the other. Thus this (highly unprofessional) review and comparison was born.

(although Marshall Emberton III was also available at this time, it came at a much higher price, and it seemed most people considered it to be a downgrade in terms of sound profile compared to its predecessor)

Price

Ordered during the Amazon Prime Day, the devices have cost me less than what their usual price is. In case of SoundLink Flex II, this meant a massive discount from 1774SEK (this being a somewhat lower price for particular colour scheme I picked) all the way down to 1161SEK (this included the Prime member-specific 100SEK voucher on top of the discount they offered at that time). In case of Emberton II there was only a slight discount from 971SEK down to 903SEK. Since voucher could only be applied to one of the two items, you could also compare it as 1261SEK vs 903SEK in terms of final price.

It should probably be noted that one of the main reasons why the Emberton II price was so low was because Emberton III had already come out, so they were probably just trying to get rid of the (old model) stock. For comparison purposes, Marshall Emberton III (at time of this writing, so slightly in the future) costs a "whopping" 1699SEK.

Personally, I think both devices are pretty much worth it with the prices I paid for them (which means with massive discount for the Bose device). Otherwise, while the Emberton II has a pretty decent base price, the SoundLink Flex II feels a bit overpriced, and I would definitively wait for it go on some kind of sale before purchasing it (unless you are _really_ eaching to get your hands on one) - instead of picking it up at its standard price.

Packaging and included items

Bose SoundLink Flex II comes in a simple compact cardboard box, with a thin protective paper wrapper around the speaker itself which also makes it easier to pull it out of the box. In terms of accessories, the only item included is a short USB-C to USB-A cable (around 50cm long, haven't unfolded it fully to confirm the estimate), and a warranty booklet. No printed manual is included, and there are only some brief visual instructions printed on the inner side of the box lid itself, with scannable QR code that takes you to online instructions and application download.

Marshall Emberton II came in a somewhat thicker and larger cardboard box, wrapped in packing foam. Included in the package was a pretty long USB-C to USB-A cable (around 1.2m long). In addition to your typical warranty/whatever booklet, a printed manual was included as well with some basic functions described in multiple languages (quick-start guide).

Material quality

Both Marshall Emberton II and Bose SoundLink Flex II felt sturdy and robust, although I would give Bose SoundLink Flex II an advantage over its counterpart.

While I have not _really_ tested the devices in terms of how much beating they can take, the SoundLink Flex II does feel like it would win in that category given its sleeker and more compact look. Based on button placement etc, it does feel like it was designed from the get go to be very hard to damage.

The Emberton II would probably gain more scratches given that it has metal grills on two sides, and textured rubber wrapping elsewhere that feels a bit more sensitive than the one on SoundLink Flex II. Its singular button/joystick control is also way more likely to break, for the simple fact that it is a mechanical part that moves around.

Aesthetic design

Honestly, who cares - different people, different preferences.

Functional design

Emberton II is basically a brick, and while theoretically you could place it on one of the shorter sides, it would be more easy to tip over that way. On the other hand, when sitting on the bottom, it is highly unlikely it would tip over. Theoretically, you could also try placing it down on the back grill (front has the logo that would get in the way) as well, but... That is probably a bad idea since it will be prone to slipping, being damaged, and most importantly it would kill off one of the audio channels when playing stereo sound. The bottom side has rubber almost across the entire length, which prevents slipping.

SoundLink Flex II can be placed either straight up, or on its "back". While being stood up it definitively does not feel stable, and it can easily tip over. When placed on its back it is way more stable, but not as stable as Emberton II. While on its back, it essentially sits on four small rubber protrusions, but since those are rounded, you can kinda just push on one of the longer sides to make it tilt. SoundLink Flex II also has a small built-in strap, allowing you to hang it off of backpack or something similar. The strap is melded into the case itself, so if something happens to it (it gets cut etc), good luck reattaching a replacement in similar manner.

When it comes down to controls, it can feel a bit like a choose-your-poison kind of thing. Emberton II has a dedicated button for bluetooth pairing, and a singular pressable "joystick" which is used for everything else - long press will turn the speaker on and off, short press serves as play/pause button, moving the joystick up and down controls the volume, and moving the joystick left/right serves as rewind/forward. The convenient part of this is that all you need to locate is a single control on the speaker in order to be able to fully control it (provided you are aware of its orientiation so you would not mix up joystick directions). One more item that is unique to the Emberton II is the battery indicator which is visible at all times while the device is powered on.

SoundLink Flex II, on the other hand, uses dedicated function buttons instead. It has a power button, which turns the speaker on/off with a simple press (no need to hold it), bluetooth pairing button, some kind of programmable button (which is pretty limited, see below under software and configurability section), volume down, volume up, and play/pause button. The power button sits in a small indentation of its own, while the other buttons are grouped in another separate long ellipsoid indentation. The volume and play/pause buttons are separated from each other with a small vertical bump, thus making it a bit easier to locate the relevant buttons by touch. The play/pause button is also textured, making it easier to locate it on the device. If you want to find out battery levels without looking at your (attached) mobile phone, you have to hold the power button, and a voice will read out the current battery charge level.

What I particularly liked with the SoundLink Flex II controls is that the power button is instantaneous. So it becomes very easy to power the device on or off. In case of Emberton II I find it a bit lacking while trying to figure out how long the button needs to be held to power the device on or off. The speaker does play a sound cue when powered on and off, but this is slightly delayed, particularly while powering on. On the other hand, I kinda like the single control of Emberton II since it becomes very easy to locate one control that takes care of everything. The SoundLink Flex II buttons do feel a bit stiff, but that can also be a good thing - helping avoid accidental presses. Since the Emberton II input is a joystick that tilts along two axes, I also have some concerns on its longevity (in addition to accidental activation of wrong function).

SoundLink Flex II does come with a couple of special controls as well:

• Holding the power button reads out the curret battery charge levels.
• Pressing the bluetooth button once reads out the currently connected/actuve device.
• Pressing the bluetooth button twice switches to next connected device.
• Pressing the play/pause button answers the call. Pressing the button while another call is in progress puts the existing call on hold, and answers the new call.

Connectivity

Both speakers paired with my phone and couple of other devices without any issues. There are probably more technical specifications out there (in terms of supported standards etc), but honestly I did not pay much attention to it.

What I have noticed so far is that SoundLink Flex II seems to connect way faster when powered on. From power button press to moving the sound over from the phone to the speaker it takes just under 5 seconds.

Emberton II, on the other hand, can easily take up to 10-11 seconds from the power button press/hold until it takes over the sound. After the audio cue that it has come online, it feels like it takes about 3-4 additional seconds to pair with the mobile device, so not sure what is the catch with that one (compared to Bose device). The 10-second delay, coupled with the fact that the power button has to be held for about 2 seconds, does feel a bit annoying.

One major feature that Bose SoundLink Flex II has and Marshall Emberton II does not is multi-point connection - allowing two devices to be connected to the speaker at the same time (only one paired device can play the audio at a time, though).

Software and configurability (Android apps)

This is one category where SoundLink Flex II definitively blows the Emberton II out of competition. Bose's application will show you some basic information about the device, like battery levels, and also provide you with ability to control a whole bunch of things.

You can adjust the volume from within the app, but it feels a bit clunky and it kinda interferes a bit with the phone controls (adjusting the slider pops up Android's own controls for volume, for example).

Application has controls for enabling/disabling the multi-point connection, as well as the ability to unpair from a particular device, which is really useful (you do not have to reset the whole device if you let your friends use it for a short while). Pairing to another device can also be initiated from the application itself (instead of pressing the device buttons).

The application provides an equilizer that comes with four default presets (bass boost, bass reducer, treble boost, and treble reducer), but also allows the user to adjust the bass/mid/treble individually (by hand), with 21 steps (values ranging from -10 to +10).

Application provides the ability to map the dedicated shortcut button on the speaker to a custom function. However, this is fairly limted. On my particular device I had the ability to choose between Speaker Link (this lets you link two SoundLink Flex II devices together so you can get stereo sound in a room), accessing the voice assistant (which I do not use anyway), and resuming Spotify (which I also do not use). Personally, I would have preferred ability to map the button to some other app or maybe have an option of muting the microphone/speaker etc.

There are also a number of miscellaneous preferences - like ability to configure the delay for automatic power-off, enable/disable voice prompts for connections and calls, enable/disable read-out of battery level on startup, as well as select language used by the voice prompts.

As for the Emberton II application... To start off, the application itself can sometimes take a very long time to display the device-specific settings (mainly the equialiser settings button) during start-up. This could be related to the fact that I disable a whole bunch of Google-specific apps and services (including the Google Play Services and Google app store) on my phone. I am still highly skeptical as to why this should matter, and I am suspecting that the app might be in some shape or form trying to connect to something outside of the phone - either directly or via Google Play Services (that I keep disabled). Force-stopping the app and starting it again seems to help.

On settings side, application lets you choose between three different equilizer settings ("Marshall" signature, boosted bass/treble, and boosted midrange/voice), and that's about it. No fine-grained custom control of any kind. Personally, I liked the default preset the best.

There is also dedicated page for setting up multiple speakers in what the app calls "stack mode" which basically lets you play the sound through two or more devices at the same time. You can start a new multi-device session there, and if connecting the speaker to existing session you need to double-press the bluetooth button on the device itself (same to leave a session). I did not have two devices to test this out, however.

There is also a general device information page where you can see the device name, serial, firmware version, and where you can also "forget" the device (at least on this particular Android unit).

The application also shows some basic information about currently playing media, although no idea to what end. You can use it for volume/pause, and prev/next song controls - but chances are you already have all of that and more in your media application itself.

Other than that, the application has access to per-device help menu, some options for subscribing to newsletters, enabling/disabling analytics, and changing the application language. You can also browse the list of Marshall earphone/speaker products from within the app itself.

All in all, quite lackluster experience, and it really would have been nice if it were possible to unpair specific devices from within the app itself - especially if you let your friends temporarily connect to the device to play some music. Instead of this, you basically have to reset the device and pair it up with your own devices again.

Sound signature and quality

Prior to getting both devices and testing them side-by-side, I have read a slew of articles/reviews and listened to a whole bunch of videos (many of which included audio samples) - some on YouTube, some on Reddit (hint: YouTube is full of paid reviews, while Reddit is full of fanboys of all kinds, so good luck on both of those fronts). Based on all of that, my expectations were that I will like SoundLink Flex II sound signature more than the Emberton II.

Luckily for me, I opted to get both bluetooth speakers in order to compare them in person. And it turned out that, at least for me personally, Emberton II sounds waaaay better in practice.

While SoundLink Flex II did sound cleaner, it also lacked the "depth", and sounded flat in comparison to Emberton II. There is also a definitive difference in the sound profile when it stood upright or when it lay on its back (some people have mentioned that this is done by the firmware on the device itself, using different equializer presets). Out of the box, the sound is very bass-heavy, which was not really to my liking, so I quickly ended up picking the preset which lowers the bass. And this is also probably one of the main advantages of SoundLink Flex II - it comes both with equializer presets, and lets you fully adjust the equializer on your own as well.

Emberton II, on the other hand, does add a bit of a "muffled" sound to it, but depending on your preferences this might be a good thing. Personally, I listen to a lot of metal, jazz, rock, and this muffled sound probably sits quite well with me. What most likely makes a big difference with Emberton II is the fact that it outputs the sound through two sides, resulting in this more "3D-like" sound. The muffled audio signature can have a bit of a drawback since it can feel a bit taxing after a longer listening session. This is where SoundLink Flex II might have an edge, especially if listening to podcasts and such. Emberton II has very little in terms of equializer configurability, and personally I have preferred the default preset.

Battery life

I haven't done any more specific measurements in this regard, but Emberton II, as advertised, has way larger battery, and it shows. Maybe I will try to spend some time testing the Marshall over longer period of time to get a better idea on how much its battery really holds, but chances are I will not be able to do similar testing with the SoundLink Flex II (since at this point I have already returned it back to Amazon).

Microphone

Given that Marshall Emberton II has no built-in microphone, one could say that the SoundLink Flex II wins in this category.

However... In the single instance where I tested the phone call through the SoundLink Flex II, the recipient complained both about my voice quality and issues with choppiness. Maybe I should have put it through some more testing, but this particular feature wasn't that much of interest to me - but it might be interesting to have at least some idea on my experiences.

Multi-device connection

Both speakers support some kind of dual-device set-up where you connect two speakers at the same time for a kind of "stereo" output. Since I did not bother ordering extra devices for the purpose of testing this particular feature, no idea how well it works.

The only thing I have noticed from the manual is that Emeberton II can only be paired with another Emberton II speaker (same model), whereas SoundLink Flex II can operate either in stereo mode (if paired with another SoundLink Flex II), or something that Bose calls "party mode" (if paired with other models of Bose bluetooth speakers). No idea if there might be any additional compatibility requirements for the different Bose model pairing.