The Stanmore III arrived in a box that is mostly empty space, because the speaker inside is denser and heavier than it looks. I put it on my desk under the monitor, plugged it in, flipped the brass toggle to the right of the volume knob, and watched a small red LED come on in exactly the way the same toggle does on every Marshall amplifier I've ever stood next to. The aesthetic commitment is total. If you don't already like the way Marshalls look, none of this will land for you. If you do, it lands hard.
What the Stanmore III gets right is that the costume is not a costume. The brass knobs for volume, treble, and bass are real controls — they rotate, they have a satisfying detented click, and they're synced to the companion app so adjusting one in the room updates the other on the phone. The 80 watts of output is enough that I have never turned this thing past halfway in a normal room. Bass reaches down to about 45 Hz, which is low enough for most music I care about; the 5-inch woofer and rear bass port push enough air that it never feels strained. For a single-box desk speaker, the soundstage is wider than it has any right to be.
The sound signature is what I'd call balanced and slightly assertive. Rock and pop and electronic music all land well — there's a forwardness to the midrange that gives guitar amps that recorded-amp quality, which is on-brand for the speaker. Classical and acoustic music are a notch softer; the treble can get hot at high volumes, where it crosses from "present" into "a little brittle." Most of the time I'm not pushing it that hard, so it doesn't matter.
The app is restrained, which I appreciate. There's a useful Placement Compensation feature that adjusts the bass response based on whether the speaker is near a wall, in a corner, or out in the open — set it once and forget about it. Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX means lossless-adjacent quality on Android, and the multihost feature means it can be paired with two phones at once without one of them having to disconnect.
The limitations are honest. There is no battery. There is no Wi-Fi. There is no AirPlay, no Chromecast, no multi-room. This is a one-room speaker plugged into the wall, and if you want it to be anything else, you bought the wrong product. It also doesn't do true stereo separation despite having two tweeters — the drivers are too close together to create a real stereo image, and at desk distance you mostly hear it as a wide mono.
At $370 it sits in an awkward middle. A C10 MkII costs more but gives you AirPlay and a turntable input. A JBL Charge 6 costs less but is plastic and portable. The Stanmore III is the one to buy if you want a speaker that looks like a small amplifier on a shelf and you don't need it to leave the shelf.
Verdict: Buy this if the aesthetic is half the appeal and you have an outlet near where it'll live. If you need wireless multi-room, the Audio Pro C10 MkII is the better-shaped tool.