How to Keep Your Marshall Speaker Always On

I received a Marshall speaker from my wife as a birthday gift. It has an “Energy-saving” feature that automatically turns off the Bluetooth connection if no audio is played for 15–20 minutes. The problem is that when I’m busy and come back to my PC, the speaker has already disconnected and I have to reconnect it manually — which I really don’t like.

I found a suggestion on Reddit that said you can create a silent WAV file and play it every 5 minutes to keep the speaker active so the Bluetooth connection never turns off. And here’s how I did it.

Create the audio file

You can either create a true silent file or a very-low-volume short tone (some speakers ignore absolute silence and still sleep; if that happens use the very-low-volume tone). In this case, I use Python.

# save as make_silence.py and run: python make_silence.py silent.wav
import wave, struct
duration_s = 1.0
rate = 44100
nframes = int(duration_s * rate)
with wave.open("silent.wav", "wb") as w:
    w.setnchannels(2)
    w.setsampwidth(2)      # 16-bit
    w.setframerate(rate)
    silent_frame = struct.pack('<hh', 0, 0)
    w.writeframes(silent_frame * nframes)
print("written: silent.wav")

# save as make_silence.py and run: python make_silence.py silent.wav
import wave, struct
duration_s = 1.0
rate = 44100
nframes = int(duration_s * rate)
with wave.open("silent.wav", "wb") as w:
    w.setnchannels(2)
    w.setsampwidth(2)      # 16-bit
    w.setframerate(rate)
    silent_frame = struct.pack('<hh', 0, 0)
    w.writeframes(silent_frame * nframes)
print("written: silent.wav")

You may use FFmpeg as well for absolute silence wav

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i anullsrc=r=44100:cl=stereo -t 0.5 silent.wav

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i anullsrc=r=44100:cl=stereo -t 0.5 silent.wav

Or just a very low tone (100 Hz) for 0.2s, low volume

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=100:duration=0.2" -af "volume=-30dB" silent.wav

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=100:duration=0.2" -af "volume=-30dB" silent.wav

Scheduler options (run every 5 minutes)

I use Scheduled Task (schtasks) + PowerShell script

Save a tiny PowerShell script C:\keep_alive\keep_alive.ps1

# keep_alive.ps1
$path = "C:\keep_alive\silent.wav"
$sp = New-Object System.Media.SoundPlayer $path
$sp.PlaySync()

# keep_alive.ps1
$path = "C:\keep_alive\silent.wav"
$sp = New-Object System.Media.SoundPlayer $path
$sp.PlaySync()

Create the scheduled task (run elevated Command Prompt once):

schtasks /create /sc minute /mo 5 /tn "KeepMarshallAwake" /tr "PowerShell -WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\keep_alive\keep_alive.ps1" /ru SYSTEM

schtasks /create /sc minute /mo 5 /tn "KeepMarshallAwake" /tr "PowerShell -WindowStyle Hidden -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File C:\keep_alive\keep_alive.ps1" /ru SYSTEM

This runs every 5 minutes as SYSTEM (no user needed). If you prefer your account, remove /ru SYSTEM (you’ll be prompted for credentials).

To delete later:

schtasks /delete /tn “KeepMarshallAwake” /f

schtasks /delete /tn "KeepMarshallAwake" /f

schtasks /delete /tn "KeepMarshallAwake" /f

Based on a Reddit post on r/Bluetooth_Speakers titled “Marshall Speaker Guide (Bypass Standby) : https://www.reddit.com/r/Bluetooth_Speakers/comments/1eldf4b/marshall_speaker_guide_bypass_standby/