House of Marley’s latest eco-friendly audio offering is a pair of computer speakers designed for bookshelves and living rooms—although one is battery powered so you can also pick it up and take it with you on the go. As we often see with the company’s gear, the Get Together Duo’s ($149.99 for the pair) design is handsome, with striking bamboo front panels housing the tweeters and woofers. In addition to Bluetooth, they can be connected to a turntable (House of Marley happens to make one that matches the design) or other stereo gear with RCA outputs, and there’s also an aux input for wired playback from any standard headphone jack. The speakers deliver a bright sound signature that has rich low-mids, but lacks much bass depth to anchor things. Ultimately, you can find fuller sound for the price, but probably not in a design that looks this cool or offers as much versatility.
A Beautiful, Eco-Friendly Design
Measuring 7.8 by 5.0 by 4.0 inches (HWD) each, the two speakers that comprise the Get Together Duo are made from sustainable, eco-friendly materials. The front panel is bamboo, and the side panels are covered in black fabric made of reclaimed cotton and hemp. Given their compact size, you’ll either want to place the speakers on a high shelf or buy stands for them. On a desktop, the tweeters will be firing into your torso rather than your ears, which has a marked impact on the sound signature.
Across the top panels, each speaker has an identical set of controls, including individual buttons for power, Bluetooth pairing, plus, and minus. Adjusting the volume on one speaker will adjust the volume on both—tapping the plus/minus buttons adjusts volume, and holding them down skips forward or backward a track. Oddly, the Bluetooth button acts as a play/pause button as well; it works fine, we just don’t often see those two functions doubled up on the same control. The power button cycles between Bluetooth input, RCA input, and off. Both speakers have two status LEDS next to the buttons—when paired, the left button will be blue, and the second indicator handles battery/charging status.
On the back, both speakers have left/right RCA inputs and 3.5mm aux inputs. An RCA cable is included for connecting stereo gear, like a turntable, but you’ll likely need to pull the cable apart down its middle seam unless you place the two speakers side by side—it’s not a super-lengthy cable, and the left portion needs to connect to the left speaker and the right to the right speaker.
The most unique aspect of the Get Together Duo’s design is how the two speakers charge. The left speaker has an actual DC In for the included power cable and cannot be used portably, while the right speaker only has a USB-C charging port—a USB-C-to-USB-A cable is included, along with a power adapter it can plug into. It’s strange to see two otherwise identical speakers charge in different methods—it’s far more common, for instance, to have a power adapter for one of the speakers, and then have the second speaker fed power from the first via a cable. But since House of Marley markets the Get Together Duo as “true wireless” speakers, that’s not part of the design. It bears repeating, though, that only one of these speakers is battery powered and portable, while the other speaker must be plugged in at all times.
The battery-powered speaker can be used independently of the wired speaker. House of Marley estimates its battery life to be roughly 20 hours on a full charge, but your results will vary with your volume levels.
Both speakers have a 1-inch tweeter and a 3.5-inch woofer, delivering 20 watts total. They’re compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and support the SBC Bluetooth codec, but not AAC or AptX. Despite the potential headaches dual speakers present in terms of pairing, we had no issue pairing with an iPhone 8 on our first try.
There’s no app, which feels like a missed opportunity to allow more user control, especially EQ adjustments, but the pricing is low enough that this is a minor complaint.
Clear and Bright Audio
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the speakers deliver a solid sense of bass depth at low and moderate volumes. At top volumes, the speakers distort on this track’s challenging deep bass. It’s not shocking that powered bookshelf speakers this size and price experience some issues with deep lows at top volumes, but there are plenty of speakers in this price range that manage to avoid distortion. At roughly 75% volume from an iPhone 8, the distortion isn’t an issue, however, and the speakers deliver a healthy output.
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Get Together Duo’s general sound signature. The first thing we notice is how much tape hiss there seems to be in the mix, which means the highs are quite dialed up and sculpted. The drums on this track can sound unnaturally thunderous through bass-forward systems that boost the lows too much, but here the drums have a less bass-focused presence than Callahan’s baritone vocals, which get some added low-mid richness. The sound signature here is very bright, and the acoustic strums and higher-register percussive hits are crisp and clear. There’s not much deep bass depth to match the brightness; rich low-mids are pushed forward in the mix, but deeper lows are more or less out of the picture.
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On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives an ideal amount of high-mid presence, allowing its attack to retain its punchiness in the mix. The vinyl crackle and hiss that’s usually relegated to background status also takes a step forward here, and the vocals are delivered with solid clarity, but there’s some added sibilance in the mix. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are more implied than delivered, and the drum loop only gets a little bit of added heft from the woofers.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, tends to send a bit too bright for my taste here. It’s hard to say whether there’s too much boosting and sculpting in the highs or if there’s simply not enough bass coming out of the woofers, but the mix feels thin and the balance leans to the highs.
Plenty of Versatility, But Not for Bass Lovers
There are lots of things to like about House of Marley’s Get Together Duo, including a handsome design, true stereo separation, and the fact that one of the speakers can be picked up and taken with you on the go. Throw in some wired connectivity for stereo gear and mobile devices, and this is an affordable, versatile system. But ultimately, audio performance matters the most, and there’s something missing in the bass department. It’s almost as if there’s a subwoofer designed to work with these speakers, and if that were part of the equation, the sound signature would make a lot more sense. Alas, that’s not the case.
If you want attractive office speakers or a nice pair for the living room, the Get Together Duo sounds great at moderate volumes on certain genres. But as a main sound system, you might find them too light on bass, especially when playing tracks that are already low on bass content, like some acoustic or classical recordings. The $200 Audioengine A1 speakers and the $40 Creative Pebble Plus represent very different prices and approaches to computer audio, but both offer a fuller sound signature than the Get Together Duo. The $80 Logitech Z407 falls in between these options in terms of price, meanwhile, as well as in bass depth.
