Can't defy physics but a winning speaker
I've owned and loved my Marshall Kilburn for years, and if you can accommodate a five pound speaker just as easily as a half pound speaker in your apartment, you owe it to yourself to get the Kilburn, which I often use instead of my pair of five foot tall Tannoys. But I'm reviewing the Willen. The Willen is tiny, both in size and in weight. Like the larger Marshall line, setup is easy--it can function without an app, and if you decide to use the app, it doesn't require an email address. (Unlike the required software and required account creation you'd have with a Sonos speaker, which wouldn't even sound nearly as good). Do be sure to turn off your phone's settings to boost sound or add other equalizer settings -- the Marshall app does a much better job with this. Mine sounded terrible until I found the setting to turn off my phone's automatic Dolby boost. As far as sound quality, I find myself using it in places where I would normally use my phone's speaker. Watching a movie on a laptop, taking it into the shower for listening to music there, as a white noise machine, etc. As with all tiny speakers, it will not fill a room, at least if you want to play something with challenging bass. I usually listen to the band Garbage to get an instant read on what a speaker can and can't do, and it wasn't able to boom through bass thumps of Push It while playing it loudly for a room, but it was perfectly enjoyable listening to the same song on a more quiet, speaker by the bed scale. The Willen is nice for enjoying good music alone, or as an easy source of background music at dinner. To fill a room, or zone out listening to your favorite album, you'd need the Kilburn. The Willen can't beat physics, but the sound seems as good as you could get for the size. I'm not an expert on audio quality, and it's hard to describe in text, but I find the more common brands of mini speaker (Bose/Sonos/etc.) to simply be annoying to listen to, and merely tolerable in bigger sizes. But again, the Kilburn really really hits a sweet spot for size in terms of how much you need for the vast majority of listening contexts, so if you actually want your music to be the life of the impromptu party without investing in something too big for an apartment, get the Kilburn. I view the Willen as a literally pocket sized thing I can easily toss in a bag or take in the shower. If you're a music aficionado and want the best, you're far better off buying used versions of the real earth breakers (Maraantz receiver, Tannoy or Martin Logan speakers, etc.) than you would buying brand new versions of the popular brands that can't come close to the boom boom of a high fidelity system. If you move a lot, a portable Marshall is a great alternative that will do the important thing, which is make it enjoyable to listen to complex music. Read more
