Marshall’s Heston 120 soundbar puts rock style under your TV
Marshall makes the jump from the stage to your living room
Your TV audio is about to get a rock’n’roll makeover…
After years of will-they-won’t-they rumours to rival the recent Oasis reunion, classic guitar amp maker Marshall has finally unveiled its first ever soundbar, the Heston 120. And if you’ve ever been crushed front row on the sticky floor of a rock-n-roll gig, it could be the perfect speaker for your living room.
Let’s get the tech-y stuff out of the way first.
The Heston 120 has all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a high-end TV speaker. Capable of Dolby Atmos spatial surround sound and DTS:X playback, it features 11 separate drivers, pumping out Spinal Tap levels of audio oomph.
HDMI eARC allows for a single cable audio connection between your TV and any other eARC devices attached to your screen (as well as a HDMI IN port), with the HDMI 2.1 standard (4K / 120Hz) supported.
Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth LE 5.3 let you easily stream from music services to the Heston 120, with Spotify, Tidal, and internet radio stations built in and ready to go out of the box.
Auracast no shadow
Auracast lets the Heston work as part of an Auracast speaker group, letting one playback device send audio to Marshall’s soundbar and other compatible devices simultaneously, while old-school turntables and CD players are supported via an RCA Input.
The soundbar also has a configurable EQ and a number of audio modes tailored to different viewing scenarios. Movie Mode adds scale and drama to bombastic action, Voice Mode pushes dialogue to the fore, Night Mode tightens the dynamic range to keep your neighbours happy while Music Mode tunes the speaker for album playback for a more natural-sounding soundscape.
These can all be tweaked from the accompanying Marshall app, which will also help calibrate the sound of the speaker based on where it’s placed in a room.
But it’s the look of the Heston 120 that’s likely to swing a purchase for most on-the-fence soundbar buyers. Styled to look similar to Marshall cabinet speaker head, it’s like having a metre-long amp underneath your telly. It measures 1100 x 145 x 76mm, and is a little over 7kg in weight.
Wrapped in black PU leather with an amp-like grill at the front, audio adjustments are made by volume, bass / treble and source selection knobs on the top, finished with Marshall’s signature gold trim. Just remember you’re only dialling up the volume for Eastenders, not a stadium slaying solo, before turning everything up to 11.
Up for preorder from today, the Marshall Heston 120 hits stores on June 3rd, priced at £899.99.
It’s just the first in a planned living-room range from Marshall — expect to see a Heston 60 launch later in the year for those about to rock on a smaller scale, as well as a bass-boosting Heston Sub 200. More details are set to be released on those launches in the coming months.
