The Echo Studio is Amazon's biggest smart speaker. It also features 3D audio, Dolby Atmos, high-fidelity sound with built-in Alexa, and doubles as a smart home hub with ZigBee support to control smart home devices.
Specifications
| Dimensions | 8.1 inches x 6.9 inches |
|---|---|
| Weight | 7.7 ounces |
| Speakers | Three 2-inch midrange speakers - One 1-inch tweeter - One 5.25-inch woofer |
| Peak output | 330W |
| Audio input | 3.5mm or mini-TOSLINK line in |
| Connectivity | Dual-band wifi, Bluetooth, Zigbee |
| Power source | Plugin |
| Extra features | Dolby Atmos, spatial audio processing, 3D audio, automatic room adaptation, mic mute button |
Music verdict
Once the Echo Studio is calibrated, the sound quality is nothing short of outstanding, which is truly amazing. When you consider that the Echo Studio retails for $200, that sounds like a steep price for a smart speaker with Alexa. But the truth is that the Echo Studio's upgraded sound quality is on par with high-end speakers twice its price.
It's clear the calibration is a success as the speaker can certainly deliver room-filling audio with deep, rich bass that rivals other high-end speakers like the Sonos One. But intensity, while overwhelmingly satisfying, isn't the only benefit.
Audio is delivered with sheer crispness and clarity, making your living room feel like a soundstage. Before the upgrade announced by Amazon in September 2022, the Echo Studio had a drawback that the clarity of voices decreased, especially when the volume was turned up.
Trying stereo tracks from both Amazon Music and Apple Music on this upgraded version, I found that background vocals didn't get lost at all, a problem even with much larger speakers that focus more on intense bass and a big punch. As you move around the room, the Echo Studio not only maintains power and clarity, but the spatial audio feature makes it look like you have a set of stereo speakers with just a single unit.
Whether or not it earns the title of best-sounding smart speaker on the market, it leaps and bounds beyond the audio quality of other smart speakers like the Echo Dots, and it's even better than the HomePod Mini. If you want full stereo sound, you can pair two Echo Studio speakers in one room, and you can add an Echo Sub for full audio.
This Echo speaker goes beyond the Amazon Music app with support for Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, SiriusXM, iHeartRadio and TuneIn.
On the downside, to get the most out of your speaker, the Amazon Echo Studio aims to force you to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited, a service that costs $8.99 a month for access to an ad-free music library that features HD and spatial features. Audio Tracks While Amazon Music's HD and Ultra HD tracks sound best on the Echo Studio, I was able to enjoy high-quality sound through Apple Music.
More than music
Obviously, the Echo Studio is a smart speaker with Alexa built-in and works as a great speaker for parties, gatherings or music in general. But we found a pretty nifty alternative use for it as part of our living room media console as a speaker to our TV.
We still haven't bit the bullet to buy a sound bar for our television It's on the list, sure, but it's low on our priorities. Since my house is like a smart speaker graveyard, we've built the HomePod mini as a speaker for an Apple TV 4K, the Echo Dot Duo as stereo speakers for the Fire TV Stick 4K, and now the Echo Studio is joining the lineup.
As a speaker for both the Apple TV 4K and Fire TV Stick 4K, the Echo Studio has become an outstanding speaker for our televisions, delivering immersive cinematic audio for movies and, in my opinion, effectively replacing a quality sound bar.
Audio is intense, yet maintains crispness. It's several steps up from the defunct HomePod in sound quality. And because the Echo Studio has a line-in and optical-in port, it can be used with a television as a sound bar, regardless of your streaming device.
Aside from the pros and cons of having Alexa built-in (although there is a mic mute button), the Echo Studio also supports Zigbee, a communication protocol used in low-power smart home devices. This means you can easily add any ZigBee devices to your smart home network through the Echo Studio, effectively making it a hub for compatible smart home devices.
This is a monstrous?
Eco Studio is not meant to fit on a small shelf or be tucked away next to a small plant; It's here to serve a purpose, and that purpose is to deliver room-filling, calibrated, 3D, Dolby Atmos audio.
This smart speaker is 8.1 inches long and 6.9 inches in diameter and weighs 7.7 pounds. The Echo Studio has four buttons at the top to call Alexa, mute the mic, and adjust the volume up or down. The top of the speaker has a light ring that comes on when Alexa is listening, when a notification is available or the volume is adjusted.
Packed with sound, the Echo Studio's 5.25-inch woofer has a horizontal gap at the bottom to maximize audio distribution and bass output, and it has three 2-inch midrange speakers and a 1-inch tweeter.
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All the details of Setting
If you already have the Alexa app on your phone, setting up a new Echo device is a breeze. Simply plug it in to add it to your home network and open the app for Alexa and it's ready to go. Alternatively, if you don't have an Alexa device in your home yet, just download the Amazon Alexa app to set up an account and follow the prompts.
Part of the setup process will calibrate the acoustics by playing multiple sounds in the Echo Studio and listening to how they reverberate around the room.
Unboxing a Echo Studio
Unboxing the massive Echo Studio was a task. Listen, I always get mad at people for buying things and then complaining about the size when the dimensions are correct in the product description. But this time it was me. The Echo Studio looks like a sleek, full-sized speaker, sure. But I don't know why my brain didn't connect with what I found on Amazon's listing. This thing was huge. and heavy.
But hey, it's up to me not to read the dimensions, and the fact that it has a large footprint isn't a dealbreaker for me. I also have to give Amazon props for eliminating plastic packaging this round: the Glacier White Echo Studio comes wrapped in a reusable cloth Alexa bag inside a cardboard box.
Along with major updates to spatial audio processing and Dolby Atmos, Amazon has released a new color for its Echo Studio: Glacier White, which is what I got. Looking at it in a home, the new speaker looks clean and stylish, more modern than the charcoal color. It could be me, but I think the black speakers are reminiscent of the old subwoofers you'd expect to see in early 2000s McMansions, so I appreciate more color options.
Wrapping it up: Is it worth it?
I'm not torn -- I can't pretend I am. Sure, the Echo Studio is pretty big, but I like it. The sound quality from the five speakers packed into the device makes both the size and price worth it. It's built and engineered to rival some of the best speakers of its size on the market, and it does so in terms of performance.
Honestly, I can't say that everyone should buy an Amazon Echo Studio for $200, but I would probably recommend it to anyone with an Alexa ecosystem looking to add a high-quality speaker or a soundbar to their television. I consider it the best sounding Echo speaker available right now.
Although I'm currently undecided about when I'll buy a soundbar for our living room television, the Echo Studio sits prominently in the center of our media console table, serving as a smart voice assistant, a Zigbee hub, TV speakers, and multitasking music player.
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