Marshall Heston 120

Introduction

With the Heston 120 TV Soundbar, Marshall has jumped into uncharted waters.

The soundbar market has been dominated by Samsung, with powerhouse brands such as Sonos, Sony, and Sennheiser competing too.

But recent years have seen a change. With ‘single’ bars, audio brands have leapt to offer immersive performance without the fuss of having several speakers in the room.

Is the Heston 120 TV Soundbar more Jaws or a misfire like the Deep Blue Sea?

Design

• Stylish looks
• Tactile controls
• Optional wall-mount

The Heston 120 TV Soundbar is a slab of home cinema equipment, but in true Marshall fashion, it’s decorated in a way that stands out from others.

While some brands go for anonymous-looking efforts, the Heston 120 TV Soundbar comes with style to match your décor. There’s currently just a black option, but I’d like to see a cream version, like there is with the Heston 60.

The grille that takes up most of the soundbar’s surface area, along with the gold fret highlights and leather trims, makes for a soundbar that stands out rather than fades into the background.

The controls are nice, though it’s a shame (for reasons I’ll delve into later) that you’re less likely to use them. But Marshall does try to entice, bringing the dials from its amps and wireless speakers over to the Heston 120.

They offer a tactile means of controlling the bar, the dials covering source input, volume and EQ (treble and bass). There’s a red light encircling each dial that provides visual confirmation of how far you’ve twisted the dial, which is a nice touch.

You’ve also got presets, and you can choose sound modes too. Considering how perfunctory some onboard controls can be on soundbars, I have to admire Marshall for putting the effort in. A power and HDMI cable are included in the packaging.

At 1100mm wide it’s around the same length as premium bars from Sony and Sonos, while the 76mm height is on the tall side, the Heston 120 should be able to slot beneath most TVs. It’s bulk is reinforced by its 7kg weight. You’re going to need a piece of AV furniture that’s both wide and can take the weight.

It also supports wall-mounting if that’s a consideration, though the wall bracket is an optional extra. It costs £44.99 though.

Given the push to sustainability, Marshall has tried to ensure a purchase of the Heston 120 will last a long time. The fret, end caps, drivers and circuit boards are replaceable; while 74% of the plastic used for the main bar is sourced from pre-used electronic devices and plastic bottles. Moreover, it’s completely PVC free and the leather used in its construction is vegan-friendly.

Features

• 130W power output
• Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
• Dolby Atmos and DTS:X

There are 11 channels of amplification (for 11 drive units) in a 5.1.2 system. That’s effectively five front-firing speakers, a built-in subwoofer and two upfiring speakers for the heights.

The driver set-up is two 2 by 5-inch subwoofers, two 3-inch mid-woofers, two 0.8-inch tweeters and five 2-inch full-range drivers. Having seen the innards of the Heston 120, it’s quite impressive how it fits together.

Physical connections feature an HDMI eARC output (to your TV), an HDMI input, RCA input (rare on a soundbar), Ethernet, USB-C and a sub out for connecting the Heston Sub. The connectivity points to the Heston 120 not just being a home cinema system, but also one that’s happy to take your music sources as well.

For gamers there’s 4K/120Hz support along with ALLM and VRR, while the HDMI input can also pass-through Dolby Vision HDR.

Wireless is Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6 – the latter enabling AirPlay 2, Google Cast (which includes Internet Radio stations), Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect. There’s no Qobuz Connect support for the time being. There is Auracast, so you can broadcast audio to any other compatible Auracast speaker.

Audio covers Dolby Atmos and DTS:X spatial soundtracks (if your TV can’t pass through DTS audio, it’ll read as PCM instead). From a music perspective, it’ll play SBC, LC3, AAC (all Bluetooth), MPEG4, ALAC, FLAC, LPCM, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, and WMA9 files.

App support

• EQ adjustment
• Room Calibration

While some would no doubt like to give the Heston 120’s knurled knobs a twist, I suspect for most you’ll operate this soundbar through the app as a remote control – and it’s a new one for Marshall.

While the old Bluetooth app isn’t quite gone (yet), this Marshall app is the one that’ll be used going forward for new products. There are the basics covered in terms of volume control, access to three EQ presets; a five-band EQ option, and Sound Modes (Movie, Music, Night, Voice).

You can switch sources, see which file type is playing and begin the Room Calibration feature to optimise the soundbar’s performance. I’ve found it’s worth running. If left uncalibrated, it can sound a little noisy – the Room Calibration can strip that out.

You can kick-start access to streaming services (Spotify, Tidal, Google Cast), and there’s an AV Sync option in case dialogue and video fall out of favour. There are also firmware updates, naturally.

Visually the app is well appointed, easy to read and responsive. The one issue I’ve had is with the volume – every time I try to change it, it resets to zero. Then I have to drag it back to the volume I want.

Sound Quality

• Strong, weighty bass
• Solid height action
• Not the crispest sound

Once the Room Correction has done its thing, the Marshall Heston 120 sets the volume at 64 (it consistently does this every time I run the room correction tool). The first thing I noticed with the Heston 120 is the bass – the weight and depth is strong with this one. Compared to the Sony Theatre Bar 8 it definitely has more low-frequency muscle to flex.

With that in mind, it’s only right to start with Blade Runner 2049’s Dolby Atmos track. While there’s obviously not the power and depth you’d get from a subwoofer, the Heston 120 shows itself to be quite astute at handling the lows. 2049 is a demanding film, and the Heston 120 gets through on the right footing – there’s no noticeable distortion aside from a slight ripple in some scenes.

It handles the highs fair enough. They’re not bright but they’re free from distortion. There’s a slightly warm tone to the highs that I hear – it’s not as crisp and sharp like Sony’s soundbar are. Some reviews have mentioned the Heston 120 sounding bright to the point of sibilance. To my ears treble is a little blunt.

The soundstage, though, is open and spacious – not as wide as some Samsung soundbars I’ve tested but as a spinner flies past on the screen, the sensation is almost of it coming from behind my shoulder towards the screen. There’s a proper sense of weight the Heston 120 ascribes to it.

When the flying car lands on Sapper Morton’s fame there’s good levels of detail and definition as it descends from above. Some soundbars can play this moment in a loose or vague way, but you can tell where the spinner is in the heights as it comes down to land.

There’s good clarity to voices, and moreover dialogue sounds true from Sapper’s husky, deep tones to, well, Ryan Gosling’s distinct vocal cords – across all films and TV series there’s a naturalism to dialogue that strikes me as being ‘right’.

There isn’t as much dynamism as the Sony Theatre Bar 8 – there’s not a sense of snappiness or attack to some of the more punchy sound effects.

Speaking of punchy, the fight between Sapper and K lacks a bit of ‘crunch’ and detail. The force and power of the hits is conveyed but there’s some minor detail and insight I’ve heard on other soundbars that’s missing here.

Dune is a big-sounding film, and there’s a sense of scale that Marshall brings to the fore but what it lacks is some energy to go with it. When Lady Jessica recites the Litany of Fear, on some sound systems you can feel the intensity build through the scene – the Marshall lacks a bit of that get-up-and-go energy. It feels steady rather than thrilling.

That small lack of detail rears its head again towards the beginning of the film when Paul uses the ‘voice’ on his mother. The twinkling of the ceiling ornaments isn’t too clearly relayed, which unless I’m imagining things, I’d put down to this bar sounding warmer and not quite retrieving all the detail in the soundtrack.

With Mother!, the whole film is a cracking showcase for sound design, and that sense of space is well done through the Heston 120, especially with the sound effects that off to the side or off screen but, like with all single-bar systems, it goes to show that surround speakers would really heighten the experience.

With Civil War, the gunshots in the finale have a proper sense of weight and punch to them. There’s nice depth to the soundstage as well – at times it feels as if sounds are coming just behind the TV; while with the helicopters and planes highlight a real sense of them existing in the height channels rather than languishing on the TV screen.

I would say that perhaps – perhaps – the Heston 120 TV Soundbar loses a sense of balance. The Marshall discovers that energy but I find there’s more power over clarity and that the dialogue – which up until then had been very good – gets lost in the mix with the artillery and guns going off. You can, of course, make changes with the EQ.

But it’s not just films that the Marshall is tailored for. It can crack a tune with music too, and it’ll play both Atmos and stereo tracks.

It sounds clear, though the warmth means the highs don’t come across as the brightest. There’s good clarity to vocals which sound natural across the board.

I ended up comparing stereo to Atmos tracks. The Atmos version is always the quieter of the two by quite a degree, though what you through the Heston 120’s speakers is a more spacious sound that extends up and away from the speaker’s body.

Stereo tends to be contained within the enclosure, and though Marshall apparently utilises all the speakers to convey a stereo image, I find that more often than not, sound comes from the centre.

Atmos uses up more of the speakers – in Rihanna’s Pon De Replay her voices stretches across the width of the bar but as is the case with Dolby Atmos Music, it doesn’t feel too immersive. Yes, it’s taller, wider and more spacious – all those good things – but it could be even bigger in the vein of a Sonos Era 300 wireless speaker.

Bluetooth streaming is almost as consistent as Wi-Fi. It’s a bit quiet until the volume is raised but vocals are clear, there’s a good sense of detail and the bass is firm. Listening over Wi-Fi remains the better option: more energy and detail, higher resolution, greater dynamism and stronger bass response.

Should you buy it?

FAQs