oobymachIt's because phone speakers suck, more manufacturers jumping into the ring, and you're paying for the name not the quality. Also frequency response doesn't look great on paper (100hz and up), my sony XB3 is 20hz and up and 3 times as powerful (30 watts) for the same $$.

FreedomEclipseSupremely overpriced. £90 puts it into JBL Flip 5 territory and i dare say that the Flip 5 will outshine this in each and every way apart from size. But then if you wanted something small and compact like this then there are hundreds of MUCH CHEAPER options available before you even consider the Marshall.

This should sit at £30-40. Its DOA unless the price gets revised.

oobymachIt's because phone speakers suck, more manufacturers jumping into the ring, and you're paying for the name not the quality. Also frequency response doesn't look great on paper (100hz and up), my sony XB3 is 20hz and up and 3 times as powerful (30 watts) for the same $$.

Lew ZealandThe XB3 is not rated down to 20Hz. Like many small speakers with drivers less than 2" across, there is a dearth of data about the actual frequency range it can audibly reproduce.

• [S]Frequency Transmission Range[/S]

  20 Hz–20,000 Hz (44.1 kHz sampling)

oobymachwww.sony.ca/en/electronics/support/speakers-wireless-speakers/srs-xb3/specifications

Yes it actually is as you can see, the bass isn't super impressive because it's coming from 3 small drivers but there is far more bass than eg. a tv speaker can produce. Obviously a dedicated subwoofer can produce more but for a portable speaker the size of a sandwich I'm not complaining.

Lew ZealandThat is the Bluetooth spec. What frequencies the Bluetooth transmitter can transfer to the speaker.

No claim is made for what frequencies the speaker itself can actually produce.

Reviews say the speaker has a lot of bass, but that is the Bose definition of bass, where you have a small speaker which can actually produce some bass as opposed to the Zero Bass junk we had to deal with in previous decades. But it probably gets down to 80Hz at best without decent table/wall/corner placement boost. I have another well-reviewed brand of similar speaker and the sound is good.

For what it is.

oobymachYou're right that's the bluetooth spec. I quoted like an idiot because frequency response isn't listed anywhere. I'm not 100% sure of the frequency response but I think it's somewhere around 50hz and up. Super deep bass like ICP songs is audible but not exactly booming.

A speaker’s frequency response, measured in Hertz (Hz) tells you how accurately it converts the frequencies of an input signal. It’s common to see specs such as 60 Hz to 18 kHz. This means that it can transduce frequencies in that range with a certain degree of accuracy. By the numbers, frequencies outside of that range such as 30 Hz or 19 kHz will not be output from the speaker. However, the frequency range tells a very limited portion of the truth. It’s important to know the degree of accuracy, expressed as a +/- decibel variation. 20 Hz to 20 kHz (+/- 20 dB) means that there could be 20 dB differences between the input and output signals at certain frequencies. 20 Hz to 20 kHz (+/- 3 dB) means that there would only be a maximum of 3 dB differences between the input and output signals at certain frequencies. The latter is obviously more accurate.

Punkenjoyif it's not boomy, then it's probably not 50 hertz. Those 48mm speaker (1.8 inch) are way too small to get that low at any decent level. They would just have to move way too much to move enough air. Small spearker can do low frequency, but their either need a lot of them of good speaker volume(size) to acheive this.
Frequency response on speaker is nothing is they don't give the degre of accuracy in +/- db.
does that speaker can do 80 hertz at -20 db? Probably, but that is not that good. A trick that small speaker does is to bump the harmonic frequency of bass so that bass sound bigger and fuller while not actually going low. That have some benefits, less power required, real low bass might require bass trap to prevent muddy sound.

Also, bass is way harder to reproduce outside.

this speaker brings you the heavy Marshall sound you can't live without.

This speaker brings together the iconic Marshall design with a ruggedness that dares you to push its limits.

Punkenjoyif it's not boomy, then it's probably not 50 hertz. Those 48mm speaker (1.8 inch) are way too small to get that low at any decent level. They would just have to move way too much to move enough air. Small spearker can do low frequency, but their either need a lot of them of good speaker volume(size) to acheive this.

Frequency response on speaker is nothing is they don't give the degre of accuracy in +/- db.

Punkenjoydoes that speaker can do 80 hertz at -20 db? Probably, but that is not that good. A trick that small speaker does is to bump the harmonic frequency of bass so that bass sound bigger and fuller while not actually going low. That have some benefits, less power required, real low bass might require bass trap to prevent muddy sound.

Also, bass is way harder to reproduce outside.

OperandiI can't decide if whoever wrote this deserves to be promoted or fired but man, they sure do deserve something, lol.

At the very least a switch to decaf.


All small speakers like this use tricks to get a perceived effect of bass. No driver this small is doing anything meaningful sub 90-100Hz, thats just pure physics. They can claim there is bass in those regions but its not really reproducing them in same way a traditional speaker is and it doesn't sound the same. It doesn't really matter for the intended purpose and it can still sound good (for what it is) but know that its not comparable to a regular two way with 5"+ driver is doing.

Good decently sized 5.25 - 6.5" two ways can get into the 50s, some exceptional ones can get a bit below 50 but thats pretty rare and requires a driver thats pretty special. To get anywhere 40Hz and below you need larger 8"+ drivers in big cabinets or use fancy transmission line enclosures. Below 30Hz is exceedingly hard even for subwoofers to do properly and require large 12" drivers in large enclosures or a lot of DSP boost and lots of power.

For reference my TriTrix MTs use a pretty standard paper 5.25" woofer in a 0.3Cuf ported enclosure that is tuned to about 40Hz which gives the speaker a modeled F3 of 58Hz. Thats not particularly low and I know even mid-level HT in box systems or high-end PC speakers can play lower but even for music where bass is big part of the sound like Daft Punk or Jamie xx its not even close. Even if my TriTrix are missing the bottom octaves (and they often are) the quality of the bass that is there is 2x better.

Bottom line is I wouldn't pay too much attention to the frequency response of any speaker. Most music happens after 50Hz, and there is a huge difference between and F3 of say 55Hz and 70Hz. Anything sub 60Hz is good in my opinion and after that how good everything else is about the speaker matters way more.

PunkenjoyI totally agree. I play bass as hobby and played in bands while i was younger. I did a lot of research on Bass amp and speaker that there was always the debate on speaker size.

The most popular speaker size among bass player is the 10". The main reason is it respond better to the frequency we hear better. When you do a sound check in a new room, it's quite frequent that the first thing you cut is the bass as it quickly become a mess. That is why many place have something called a bass trap. It's designed to prevent the bass to bounce around and become just a big mess.

Also, a 5.25" woofer can go quite low, but unless you have a huge array of it, you won't be able to run such a small speaker when a drum is playing. (i mean reproduce any bass at that kind of volume).

Also bass perception is not linear. You need a certain amount of volume to start hearing the the bass.