Marshall's Heston 120 soundbar is a Dolby Atmos-toting Sonos Arc rival – and I got a first listen to it
Marshall's latest product isn't from its speaker or headphone heartland – it's a high-end full Dolby Atmos and DTS-X one-box soundbar that takes on the Sonos Arc and Arc Ultra at a slightly lower price of $999/£900. And I went to Marshall's HQ in Stockholm to try it out.
Marshall's history as a British amplifier specialist for guitarists and more has certainly been diversified upon in recent years. In 2010 it teamed up with Swedish company Zound to make Bluetooth speakers and then headphones like the excellent Monitor III ANC.
That resulted in Zound buying Marshall in 2023 and re-branding the whole thing as The Marshall Group. The company has clearly been planning to expand its wares for a while and produce more types of Marshall-branded tech.
Welcome then, to the Heston 120. Taking on established rivals like Sonos – not to mention others at cheaper price points like Samsung and Sony – is by far from an easy task. But Marshall believes that enough of its devotees will want a soundbar that looks a little different than the norm and that is equally suited to music as well as TV. Is it enough?
The company is certainly hoping so and more products will follow – a Heston 60 soundbar with virtual Atmos is coming later in the year while a Heston Sub 200 is coming later in the year for those who want even more bass punch.
There's no word on pricing for either of those products yet though it feels like the Heston 60 (which boasts virtualised Dolby Atmos) will sit around the price of the Sonos Beam (so somewhere in the $400-$500 mark).
There are two big selling points of this soundbar. Firstly, that it supports pretty much everything under the sun. Naturally there's HDMI eARC support. But there's also HDMI passthrough, Bluetooth (including LE and Auracast), AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect. There's even analogue RCA so you can hook up a turntable for example.
And then there's the physical knob controls (just like on Marshall's amps and speakers) for volume, treble and source select. Some will find these gimmicky but they look great and I'll be interested in how they perform in the home when it comes to our review. The design of the Heston 120 is unmistakably Marshall but is more subtle than it could look. The large Marshall logo might put some off, but it doesn't stick out as much it could.
A redesigned Marshall app also debuts alongside the Heston 120. You can set up the bar initially using this and you can optionally calibrate the sound to suit your room. You'll also be able to select presets for quick access to a favourite playlist or internet radio station should you wish using the physical controls and you can flick between the sound modes – Music, Movie, Night and Voice.
As you'd expect at this price, the audio hardware inside the 7kg bar is hefty in both weight and power. There are a huge 11 individual speakers and associated amps (2 x 50W, 9 x 15W, 150W peak power) arranged in a 5.1.2 configuration.
So what does it sound like?I was ushered into a demo space at the top of Marshall's central Stockholm base to hear Heston 120 and it didn't disappoint. The listening space wasn't ideal, but then not many homes are, either. The sound was punchy – especially for music – and the sound was warm. It did seem more at home with rock tracks than anything else – not surprising given Marshall's heritage – and I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs with lots of different types of music in the home, too.
Physically, Heston 120 is designed to have a low-enough profile to sit under most TVs, but it can also be wall-mounted easily. Happily there are also replaceable parts including the fret, end caps, drivers and even the circuit boards.
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