The Acton has always been the entry point to Marshall's home speaker line: the smallest cabinet, the lowest price, the same brass-and-tolex look scaled down to a bookshelf. The new Acton IV, $329.99 in black or cream, keeps that job but fixes the two things that made previous Actons easy to outgrow. It finally has a proper input for a turntable, and it's no longer a dead end if you want sound in more than one room.
What's new in the Acton IV
Three changes matter. First, a redesigned bass port that Marshall says delivers cleaner, tighter low end at higher volumes and lets the speaker sit flush against a wall, which is where a speaker this size actually ends up living. Second, improved tweeters with waveguides for a wider soundstage from a cabinet only 10.6 inches wide. Third, and biggest, built-in Auracast, the Bluetooth broadcast standard that lets multiple speakers play in sync. Pair it with Heddon, Marshall's music streaming hub, and the Acton IV becomes one node of a whole-home system, no proprietary mesh required. That's Marshall building its answer to Sonos on an open standard instead of a walled garden, a bet worth watching beyond this one speaker.
The turntable detail
The addition our readers will care about most: the Acton IV gains an RCA input alongside the 3.5mm AUX. Previous Actons made vinyl setups awkward; this one takes a phono preamp's output directly, which turns a $330 speaker into a legitimately compact record-player companion. One honest caveat from the spec sheet: there's no built-in phono stage, so your turntable needs its own preamp or an external one. Most current entry decks have one built in.
Marshall Acton IV specs
- Drivers: one 4-inch woofer, two 0.75-inch tweeters with waveguides
- Amplification: 60W Class D for the woofer, two 25W Class D for the tweeters
- Frequency range: 37 Hz to 38 kHz, 95 dB max SPL at 1 meter
- Wireless: Bluetooth 5.3 with multipoint, Auracast broadcast receiving
- Codecs: SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3
- Inputs: RCA and 3.5mm AUX
- Controls: brass top panel with bass, treble, volume knobs, media jog, source button, and a customizable M-button with Spotify Tap
- App: Marshall app with EQ and room calibration
- Size and weight: 260 x 171 x 150mm, 2.65 kg (5.84 lb)
- Colorways: black, cream
LDAC support is quietly notable at this price; most lifestyle speakers stop at AAC, and hi-res-capable Bluetooth from an Android phone is a real bump for streaming quality.
Built to be repaired
The part of the spec sheet most brands bury: the Acton IV is officially repairable. Knobs, feet, and the grille are sold as spare parts on Marshall's site; authorized repair is offered after warranty; the MDF cabinet is FSC-certified; and 13 percent of the speaker's weight is recycled material, including recycled neodymium in the magnets. Marshall also routes 1 percent of member purchases on marshall.com to grassroots music venues. A lifestyle speaker you can fix instead of replace is still rare enough to count as a feature.
Marshall Acton IV vs Acton III
If you own an Acton III, the IV's case rests on the RCA input, Auracast multi-room, LDAC/LC3 codecs, and the reworked bass port. The look is nearly identical, which is the point; Marshall hasn't meaningfully changed the design language since the line launched, and it doesn't need to. If none of those four things matter to you, a discounted III does the same job.
At $329.99, the Acton IV fixes the small Marshall's two historical weaknesses in one revision: it now belongs in a vinyl setup, and it now has a future in a multi-room home. The look you already know is doing what it has always done. The changes are all underneath, which is exactly where they belong.
