House of Marley Get Together 2 XL Review: Built for a crowd

When it comes to finding a Bluetooth speaker, it’s not a matter of where to find it, but rather what size you’re looking for. Do you need something portable to take with you everywhere, or something big that provides a boom you can enjoy at louder sounds? House of Marley (HoM) offers the latter, with a hint of the former in the Get Together 2 XL, a larger speaker that you can use wirelessly and somewhat with mobility in mind—despite its 12.6-pound frame.

It’s also the loudest in the HoM lineup, not to mention among the most expensive at $400. As the name suggests, this big guy can serenade a crowd by pumping out up to 60 watts of power. If you’re inclined to play louder tunes in different spaces, HoM wants you to get together with others to do so.

I have long admired the focus that HoM applies to using sustainable materials to make their devices, especially bamboo. It may not be real wood here, but to me using bamboo as an alternative harkens back to how wood was once a mainstay in speaker construction in past eras, until plastics left them behind. Seeing it in something modern is aesthetically pleasing to my eyes. The company’s Rewind fabric feels like a nice addition, while the Regrind silicone and recycled aluminum inside show that reusing materials can result in something both functional and attractive. Even the packaging is completely recyclable, no plastic.

The Get Together 2 XL has two one-inch tweeters, two four-inch woofers and a large passive radiator located at the back. Dimensions are modest at 7.52 x 17.72 x 7.09 inches, and while you can reasonably move it around, it’s the kind of speaker you can just leave in one place most of the time. There are slits on the sides with integrated bars, supposedly for attaching a shoulder strap. HoM doesn’t actually make one, but it indicated to me that it could be coming sometime in 2023.

It’s more clear why HoM put in multiple plugs covering North America, Europe, UK, Australia and New Zealand. If you’ve ever wanted to take this speaker with you on a trip, you’re all set with local plugs. Note that there’s an added benefit of taking the wall charger and plug with you to any of these destinations to charge other devices while traveling, too—especially when the charger has two ports, one USB- A and one USB-C. Why buy an adapter when this thing will do the job? With USB-C and USB-A charging ports on the speaker itself, there are even more options to juice up your devices.

HoM doesn’t make things complicated here. You turn on the speaker, it goes into pairing mode, you pair it with your phone or computer, and you’re good to go. There is currently no app to use with it as the existing Marley app is not compatible with the Get Together 2 XL. The company told me this will change in 2023 when it releases an app to work with different products, but I didn’t get any other details.

When I started listening to music on the speaker, I read the quick start guide to review some of the features and functions, and I noticed a few things. The main power and volume button has an LED around it to show status. It flashes blue when in pairing mode, solid blue when connected, red when in Aux mode via the Aux-In port on the back, and flashes red when charging via the USB-C port. Press the EQ mode button next to it to cycle through three modes: signature, bass boost and acoustic.

However, the corresponding colors did not match. The manual lists green for bass boost and purple for acoustics. For me they were effectively the other way round and when I brought this to HoM’s attention they stated that this was a bug affecting the first batch of speakers released but that a firmware update would bring the modes into line with their respective colors for all future deliveries . It’s not immediately clear if you’ll see the same problem I saw, but in case you do for some reason, you know why. With an app, this would be an easy fix that HoM could roll out to everyone, but as it is, the company will have to fix it some other way.

The other buttons are straightforward, with play/pause flanked by track repeat and skip buttons. Because you can use the Get Together 2 XL as a speakerphone, you can take calls and chat hands-free. While the microphones are decent, they’re nowhere near the level of, say, an Amazon Echo Studio or Sonos Move. The speaker’s Bluetooth range is 30 feet, while the microphone’s range — at least for clarity — is significantly less than that. Beyond 10 feet, callers told me I sounded a little distant, so I found the best results were either up close or within a 10-foot radius.

HoM’s Get Together 2 XL isn’t a smart speaker, but you can make it so by pressing the play/pause button for two seconds to activate your phone’s voice assistant. Its usefulness is limited by the same points I made about phone calls, so while you can access your assistant, you can’t talk to it from too far away. Plus, it’s a manual process since you have to press the speaker button because the microphone doesn’t always listen for wake-up words. It’s all pretty similar to the Sony XG300, an excellent speaker for take-home audio, but it doesn’t go as far when using the microphones for calls.

Once the music kicks in, it becomes apparent just how loud this thing can be. HoM went for a booming soundstage to justify the purpose behind this speaker, which is why I got the impression that the signature EQ mode was more bass-friendly. The bass boost kicks this up a notch, adding a real rumble to the sound that cuts the highs a bit to give it extra punch. Acoustic mode is pretty good for orchestral and guitar tracks, though it’s also become my go-to for podcasts because the setting clearly emphasizes vocals more than the others usually do.

I was quite surprised at how much clarity HoM was able to implement throughout. There’s a point where distortion starts to set in, but the pops and whooshes weren’t as audible as I’d expect at such high volumes. Assuming you need to keep the volume at the default 50% and stay in the 80% range, you’ll hit the sweet spots. Above that, things get really loud, and it’s probably best for either larger indoor spaces or going outside. The Get Together 2 XL isn’t quite as rugged with its IP65 protection, so I wouldn’t necessarily wear it to the beach, but I’d be perfectly fine with it in the park or backyard, pool or no pool.

If you want to go even louder, you can stereo pair two of these speakers together for the appropriate left and right channels. Another option is to use Multi Pair Mode to sync two or more of them together, especially if you need to cover a wider area and space them out. I didn’t get to try out any of the pairing settings, so I can’t tell you exactly how strong or effective they would be, but it’s great that you have that choice. Although not too difficult to manage based on the instructions, an app would simplify the process even more.

If you want to make a lot of noise for a similar cost to two of the HoM speakers, the Soundboks Go is built for outdoor party situations more than this speaker, and you can also pair more than one of them in the same way via an app. Not to mention that Soundboks makes a strap for it, even though the Go is significantly larger than the Get Together 2 XL.

As much as I enjoyed listening to the HoM speaker, I also liked how it looked, I felt it was a natural fit for any room decor. Again, as a fan of bamboo, the wood-like trim on the front is almost like mixing retro and modern together. This is something that other louder Bluetooth speakers don’t always have.

At first I thought placing it near a wall outlet was necessary, but then gave up on that when I started moving it around. It’s not really a portable speaker to take and leave anywhere. Its footprint just doesn’t make it that easy to begin with, but I could work with charging it in one place and then positioning it somewhere else where contact proximity doesn’t matter.

HoM rates the battery life at up to 20 hours on a single charge, but for something that gets this loud, that’s never going to happen. It was hard for me to determine battery life given how often I adjusted the volume, but on a scale of 60-80%, I think you can expect about 16 hours on the quieter side and 12 hours on the louder side . It may also change if you use the speaker’s USB-A or -C ports to charge a phone or other mobile device. I’m throwing out estimates so these numbers may vary, but I want to temper expectations as the company talks a lot about battery life for the Get Together 2 XL. The good news is that it charges relatively quickly. I went from empty to full in about two hours, solidifying my choice to leave the speaker away from the outlet.

In this price range, the Get Together 2 XL earns its reputation as both a louder Bluetooth speaker and a nice audio device that fits in well wherever you put it. You’re paying extra for how loud it can get, and to justify the $400 you have to spend on it, you need to be able to turn up the volume with some regularity. If you’re going to be listening at a lower volume on a regular basis, there are plenty of alternatives that won’t burn as big a hole in your pocket.

It also depends on whether you want auxiliary functions. Want to talk to your voice assistant hands-free? Would you prefer a speaker with an app available now instead of waiting for one? Would you prefer the strap to be included in the box? All valid points, but they ultimately don’t detract from what the Get Together 2 XL can deliver, so if audio muscle in a nice frame is what you’re after, this one won’t disappoint.

Editors’ recommendations