This is the comparison between two popular brands Sonos and Marshall. Sonos Move and Marshall Kilburn 2, both are good speakers and has great sound quality. Both speakers have different features and design-wise also both are totally different. There is a huge price gap between both speakers. This detailed review comparison will make it easy for you to decide that which is suitable and best for you. You will definitely get the clear idea that which speaker should you buy.

Sonos Move	Marshall Kilburn 2
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Wireless connection is reliable. The sound is open and loud. Great sound on indoors and outdoors. Great charging base. Effective Auto-true play. Great compatibility of Amazon Alexa ad Google Assistant. Integrates with other Sonos apps. IP56 weatherproof build. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth do have their support. Microphones work well.	Top Notes are clear. Great Battery life. Attractive and gorgeous design. Excellent Build. Portable and rugged. Powerful and good sound. Cool retro aesthetic. Characters are great. Clear sound even when it’s loud. It supports multiple clients. Convenient and useful analogue sound control knobs. Compact yet powerful.
CONS	CONS
Pricey. aptX Bluetooth support is missing. Too heavy speakers. It cannot be used as rear cinema speakers. The handle is weak, cannot carry the speaker for long distances. Too big to travel with. Battery life is shorter.	High price. Local playback controls are missing. Stereo separation is limited. Slightly Heavy. The microphone is missing for voice calls/voice assistant.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Sonos Move

Sonos has been making waves since it first launched connected multi-room audio solutions many years ago what Sonos hasn’t had has been a portable speaker option until the Sonos move has been launched, which is portable rechargeable Sonos speaker. It’s great news for the Sonos fans who have been asking for it. The move offers a durable design with an ip56 weatherproof rating meaning, it can deal with snow, rain, dust, extreme heat or cold, and, UV rays. The rubber base is non-slip and it’s got a drop-resistant exterior so, it could handle a few knocks or bumps if you did happen to drop it.

Marshall Kilburn 2

Marshall speaker’s amplifiers have a very iconic look and for years Marshall makes their consumer and at-home speakers in that same design, it’s pretty sick. Marshall Kilburn 2 is the newest portable Bluetooth speaker from Marshall coming in at $299. The speaker is very straightforward, not intended to be super tacky, and, there’s no app, there are no RGB lights. It doesn’t pair with other Marshall speakers for stereo sound, what Marshall does is, it sticks true to its look, its heritage. Basically, this speaker really feels timeless.

DESIGN: 

Sonos Move

So, it’s got touch controls on the top panel a mesh grille and a rubber base and it’s available in two colours black or luna white. It’s very much similar to previous Sonos models. It has an IP56 weatherproof build and Sonos claims that it’s shockproof too. So, rain, drops, poolside splashes won’t harm the speaker. The bottom of the speaker is rubberized plastic. It does provide extra grip too. There is a small LED light that provides status information of the speaker. There are play/pause icon and volume icon too. On the backside of the speaker,  there is the power button and connect button.  Even there is a small button between them to switch between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. 

Marshall Kilburn 2

Looking at the physical features this speaker is quite portable. The Kilburn 2 features guitar care and inspired strap made of what feels to be leather and lying with the red felt the lower feeling material on the inside. So, it’s a nice touch. The front features a pretty strong grill that resembles a classic microphone of course with that iconic Marshall branding the entire enclosure is wrapped in vinyl with a leather-like texture. If you run your nail against it you’ll notice it’s not solid plastic pretty cool. Volume bass and treble are up top, the only thing I don’t want to say necessarily is a negative since Marshall sticks with more of a classic design but I do miss the ability to skip and go back on songs, that’s common on many other Bluetooth speakers today. But to be fair who offers the awesome knobs there for you to adjust on the fly.

FEATURES:

Sonos Move

Also, you’ve got the choice of using the moves rechargeable battery which lasts for about 11 hours before it needs to be recharged and that can be done using the charging base that it’s supplied with or you could choose to keep it docked in the charging base at all times which will hook it up to the mains power and you don’t have to worry about charging it. But from zero battery it takes roughly one and a half hours to recharge the full, which is actually quite impressive for a speaker of this size or you can charge the move using your own USB-c charger if you don’t want to take the charging base away with you. But you have to make sure output’s a minimum of 18 volts but this is particularly useful if you’ve taken the move out with you and you want to connect to a power bank to make sure it doesn’t lose any battery.

One of our favourite features of the Sonos move is actually automatic true play. The true play is a Sonos technology which enhances the speaker for the space that it’s in but unlike other Sonos products where you need to walk around the room using your apple device the move actually automatically does its own little true play process when it senses that you’ve moved it to a new location and it’s been there for more than 15 seconds. This means that everybody can benefit from true play tuning on the speaker rather than just people who have an Apple device.

You can also choose to stereo pairing with another move but only when you’re using it via wi-fi but you can use it as a left and right speaker in that scenario, but they cannot be used as rear surround sounds for a sonar soundbar, which I know a lot of people are a bit disappointed about. It can, however, be used with a turntable or using the Bluetooth connectivity, but again it doesn’t have a line-in so, you couldn’t connect it directly to tv or turntable.

The strengths of the Sonos move are that it uses both Bluetooth and wi-fi which is quite hard to find in a decent portable speaker. It’s also got a good battery life for a speaker of this size. Auto Trueplay works really well and the voice assistants are a nice plus. On the other hand, the weaknesses are that they cannot be used as rear surrounds to a sonar soundbar. You also can’t pair it with a Sonos sub and it is quite pricey if you’re just looking for a small portable speaker, but again that’s because Sonos has designed it to be more of a heavy-duty option. Sonos Move is not really a lightweight speaker for carrying with you or for tucking in a backpack, it’s more for moving around your home or for taking outside or you could take it away for the odd weekend away. 

Marshall Kilburn 2

The top features a Bluetooth pairing button, the knobs are practically identical to the amps they offer they have a lot of resistance with a lot of good feedback when turning the dials. On the far right, there is a battery level indicator, which will glow in red. I’ve always given good praise for any brand that offers the battery level indicator. The Kilburn 2 is meant to be their most durable portable Bluetooth speaker in their lineup. When you will use the speaker you will come yo know that the speaker is usable for up to moderates outdoor use, they have endcaps of course on either end there on all four ends.

The speaker itself is water-resistant with an IP x2 rating, the speaker is not meant for the pool though but with the IP x2 rating, it means that it’s fine against dripping water. With my testing of water, especially around the knobs in the recessed area right on the top there, this speaker still works fine. Although I do wish for a stronger water-resistant rating, I can see this being enough to withstand entertaining your friend at the backyard barbecue or camping those kinds of outdoor activities.

The Bluetooth connection of the Kilburn 2 features Bluetooth 5.0, which is awesome. This is the latest Bluetooth technology. While testing and comparing it with other speaker featuring Bluetooth 4 in my iPhone, I was able to get the maximum length on my office building of 120 feet of distance from the Kilburn 2. It’s the best performing Bluetooth speaker for a distance that I’ve tested so far and this speaker can connect up to two devices at the same time. If you notice the entertaining part about this speaker, rotating this speaker to the back, the Kilburn 2 does offer multi-directional audio as there is a Twitter and a bass port in the back there. Placing the speaker in the middle of the table doesn’t matter where you are, you’re going to hear some form of music. On the bottom left, there is an Auxillary port for your 3.5-millimetre connections and on the bottom right under the water-resistant flap is your power plug ports.

Every speaker that I reviewed around the 250 to 300 dollar prices, every large Bluetooth speaker usually comes with a pretty big power brick but with the Kilburn 2 – it just comes with a simple cord for connection something small but it is convenient though for transports. As for battery life, this speaker has quick charging 20 minutes, it gives you 3 hours of playback recharging this from a dead battery to full, it will take 2 hours and 34 minutes and doing my battery test of playing this at 50% volume and having the bass of the treble up top there at 50% as well for the middle-of-the-road result, I got 14 hours and 19 minutes. The marshal claimed that Kilburn 2 can achieve 20 hours of playback well this is average among the industry and average for the category of large Bluetooth speakers.

SOUND QUALITY:

Sonos Move

Sonos is known for its sound. for years they’ve been an undisputed leader when it comes to smart home audio. I have reviewed numerous Sonos speakers and products over the years and I can definitely attest to the great sound quality. You would have to be a pretty big nitpicker to find fault in their overall audio quality. We should not expect anything different from the move, the move sounds great. From ambient to rap, jazz, or, pop the Sonos sound is balanced, and even. Vocals cut through nicely and the bass is strong. You’ve got two Class-D digital amplifiers and a far-field microphone array that uses smart voice capture and noise cancellation to listen for digital assistant commands. There are one downward-firing tweeter and one mid-range woofer integrated into the cabinet for strong bass ensures faithful playback of mid-range vocal frequencies plus deep, rich bass.

This speaker uses Wi-Fi to play music from your smartphone or device or ask Google or Alexa to play music from a music service. You can listen to your Sonos move in a few different ways using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or, airplay. It’s designed to use Wi-Fi at home and Bluetooth everywhere else like if you want to use it outdoors camping or if you’re just offline. If you have a device that can’t use the Wi-Fi connection, a Bluetooth connection is a quick and easy way to play your audio but on the Sonos move, you do need to activate it. To enable it you need to turn the speaker around and there’s a little tiny button that’s the Bluetooth button you need to just push that button and that enables the Bluetooth connectivity, you’ll see a small blue light on top, so once you see that light you should be able to go into your phone or devices Bluetooth settings menu and look for the move and then you can just have to connect.

Sonos speakers have automatic true play tuning that’s meant to perfectly balance the sound or wherever you are and whatever you’re listening to. The true play uses the microphone in your iOS only, it measures how sound reflects off walls furniture and other surfaces in your room and it’ll fine-tune your Sonos speaker to make sure that it sounds great no matter where you’ve placed it. Completing the true play tuning for a room I’ve used this feature a bunch of times and I don’t personally notice a huge difference in the sound maybe some of you out there with more highly tuned ears though will.

Marshall Kilburn 2

This speaker is loud enough for small to medium-sized rooms. For large areas this figure tends to struggle a bit with providing room-filling music, if you put this up to maximum volume both on your phone and the speaker and it will still sound comfortable, but you will not really feel like jamming out or feel like it’s hitting hard as you would have hoped in those large open areas. As this has multi-directional audio, so there’s again that little speaker on the rear with its base port, it does output audio and it does help if anyone is walking back there basically but the front-firing speakers are stronger and in contrast, the rears don’t provide that same experience, unfortunately, you do get some audio but it’s not the same immersion as of course standing in front of it.

The audio in general, testing this over and over again, hands down the Kilburn’s who has some of the best quality out there for a Bluetooth speaker. There’s also clarity and frequency separation. The bass sounds obvious I know but I want to emphasize the foundation, the stack settings, the heart of the speaker before any adjustments, there’s a lot of quality in its signature with nothing too extreme on one end or the other and tweaking it with the tone abs up top, you have a much better chance of having it sound the way that you want to without affecting other parts of the audio spectrum. Adjusting bass with the knob hits practically every nail in the head, if you feel it’s too bassy turning it down and you have a flatter sound signature, turning it up to 3 quarters of the way which is what I personally like, it gave me bass boosted audio signature without muffling the vocals. Turning it to the maximum will do that though but then some people prefer the bass over a strong mid-range either or I left mine being punchy, it’s non distorting it’s not deep sub-bass either but there’s enough for a good experience across all genres of music.

For the mid-range, it’s very clear. Quite surprising as not many Bluetooth speakers hit this, you could hear little details nuances and breaths from the vocalist quite clearly actually. I placed the mid-range around 50% and tweet it to be a little forward and a little bright for me. This makes the majority of the audio heard by the human ear pretty distinct. For a Bluetooth speaker, there’s a bit of depth heard from front to back separating instruments from others and the audio never sounded boxy or enclosed, again you can control the amount that you want, neutral to vary for dim bright is an option as well. So, you have a variety it’s also no adjustments but the adjustments goes a long way. The high notes experience was mutual to me it wasn’t underwhelming but it never sharpened every ear piercing, I wish I had a little bit more sparkle up top there if anything it’s pretty mellow with some roll-off.

WHICH ONE IS WORTH BUYING?

With everything discussed Sonos Move is a well-balanced speaker, with the ability to tune it to make it fit your listening preference with quality from the get-go that’s where this speaker shines. The audio performance is well the best out there, hands-down no question about it the only thing though I just wish it was just a little bit louder. There is no syncing issue across youtube, twitch, and, Netflix.  Overall Marshall Kilburn 2 is good, no question yes, I think being aware of the heritage from Marshall over two decades remaining time fists here to the quality of craftsmanship to the quality of audio output this is surely a speaker worth looking into no gimmicks just some damn good audio.

The price of the Sonos Move is $399, while Kilburn is worth $250. So, Sonos Move is expensive but it’s definitely worth it. As per my opinion, you should go for Sonos Move. But if your budget is low, go for Marshall Kilburn 2.

Expert Reviews of Sonos Move:

By theguardian 
The Sonos Move is an excellent, smart, great-sounding speaker that is truly wireless. Packing wifi and Bluetooth, a 10-hour battery, easy charging, a durable case, weather resistance and loud, punchy sound, you could take this portable powerhouse…

By CGM 
With the Move, Sonos has built one of the best portable speaker systems I have ever used, and while it is pricey, it is well worth the cost for anyone that demands quality…

By techgearlab
The Sonos Move maintains the company’s reputation for great sound and seamless multi-speaker management, while adding the portability of battery power and the simplicity of a Bluetooth connection. If you ever wished you could move one of your Sonos…

By TheStraitsTimes
It sounds almost unbelievable that the Sonos Move is the audio firm’s first portable speaker. It is also Sonos’ first Bluetooth speaker, though it still supports Sonos’ Wi-Fi-based system, which lets users group and control multiple speakers at the same…

By techguide
The versatile Sonos Move speaker offers the best of both worlds – an elegant wi-fi speaker that fit seamlessly into the Sonos ecosystem and a powerful companion when you want to take your music with you.Related PostsBose announces new Portable Home…

Expert Reviews of Marshall Kilburn 2:

By PCMag IN
Marhsall offers no shortage of Bluetooth speakers, and at $299.99, the Kilburn II fits somewhere in between the Stockwell II and the Tufton in terms of both price and size. Even for a mid-size model, the Kilburn II is portable in the sense that you can…

By goodhousekeeping
The Marshall Kilburn II is a portable Bluetooth speaker with sound quality that packs a punch. Just as you’d expect from this rock n’ roll brand, the bass is really warm and rich. It sounds good across all genres and is much more powerful than the…

By ChannelNews
Legendary British amp manufacturer Marshall has followed up its popular Kilburn speaker with its “stout-hearted hero” sibling, the Kilburn II, available now for RRP $499.99. As someone who grew up around electric guitars, basses, and rock music…

By AndroidCentral
You even get IPX2 water resistance, making the Kilburn II resistant to the occasional splash of water. There’s also a leather carrying handle with red felt underlining that makes it convenient to carry the speaker around. On the subject of portability,…

By PhoneScoop
If you’re looking for something to appease your inner rock star, the Kilburn II sounds great and delivers some of the best battery life for a portable speaker…