Smart Speaker - Black

We bought the first generation Echo along with a couple of Echo Dots four years ago and have been using it in the kitchen. It took some counter space but was not really in the way. The sound was decent, much better than the Echo Dots. I wanted some better sound. I looked at the Studio along with a couple of high end speakers with Alexa capability. The issues with Alexa performance noted in the reviews of the high end speakers turned me off on them. We use Alexa a lot and I didn't want something that didn't work well with it. I thought the specs on the Studio looked good so I decided to try it.I love it when puts things on sale. The Cyber Monday price was really good. Unfortunately, it was back ordered and couldn't get here by Christmas. It came a couple of days ago. I opened the box with great anticipation. I moved the first generation Echo and put this in it's place. It was overwhelming on the kitchen counter. My wife really didn't like it there. We have a split level house where the family room is down stairs from the kitchen. There is an open space in the family room wall into the kitchen. We decided to put the Studio on the desk in the family room. Problem solved!The Studio sound is night and day different from the Echo. It's like comparing a tricycle to a sports car. The Studio sound is not only powerful enough to fill the family room and the kitchen. At full volume, it will fill the whole house!A setup comment. The Alexa app asked me which room the speaker was in. I originally had it in the kitchen. I told it kitchen. I didn't realize that it had created a group called kitchen and put all my echo devices in that group. I have a smart switch named kitchen. Alexa could not turn that switch on and off. When I realized that the group was conflicting, I removed it and the problem was solved. I don't know why it asks for a room. Other Echo devices don't do that.There are adjustments in the Alexa app for base, mid-range and treble. I have read where some have complained that this is inadequate. I don't claim to be an audiophile. I do appreciate good sound. My favorite place to listen to music has been in my Mercedes which has a really nice sound system. My new favorite is becoming the kitchen and family room.This may not be a Sonos or Bose name brand and I don't have their speakers to compare. This is an excellent product and sounds amazing! It's price is very attractive. I highly recommend the Echo Studio.

Worth the money! Great sound. Alexa works even when the volume is all the way up.

So I installed two of these on the back porch out by the pool along with an echo sub that I had in my family room previously. Before this I had two original Echo Plus speakers on the back porch. The difference is night and day. My neighbors agree LOL. I do wish that the power cords were longer and I wish that the speakers were louder than they are at Max , maybe 50% more would be perfect. But regardless I'm very happy. I would put them inside as well but I have 2 home theater setups one of my family room and one in my man cave and these speakers would pale in comparison to what I already have there. Might consider getting another set for my garage though. If I decide to I will update this review later.

I come from the audio industry and I own an upscale analog audio system and I'm blown away by the Echo Studio. I personally believe that digital music currently does not match digital music. But I'm a believer that digital music, done right, can equal analog music at a fraction of the price. , with some help from Dolby and Sony, has now established that this can be achieved in a closed, controlled, environment. has put together a "front to back" music system that is beyond belief. Their Echo Studio is the perfect companion to their just introduced HD/ULTRA add-on subscription to Music.I can't believe the sound quality of the Echo Studio for the price. I guess is removing all the hardware cost barriers so they can sell subscriptions to their HD/ULTRA Music service, which is where the real income is generated.My only criticism is that the Echo Studio can have a tad bit better audio quality. Great Bass and good Treble, but the mid-range can be muddy. This can be fixed with the great Alexa app that is dedicated to the Echo Studio. But the real hardware fix for this comes at a cost expense, so I'm sure that in a year or two we will see an "audiophile" Echo Studio II at a premium price.

Ever since I learned I could pair Echo speakers with my FireTV Cube, I had the Studio on my list to consider as a future purchase. I assumed I would buy only one. With a $200 price tag, I wasn't going to rush into anything. I was pretty happy with my two Echo Dots, daily checking the price on the Studio, looking for a decent used or refurbished price. I was just about settled on waiting for the next Prime Day, assuming that would be the best opportunity to buy one.Well, as luck would have it, as I performed my daily ritual to check the price, everything looked like normal - $199 new, $149 refurbished. Still too pricey for me to commit. But then, I saw a bundle and save promotion buried way down in the listing - bundle with a $15 smart light bulb, and save $100 off the price. I've seen pricing errors on before, where it says one thing but then it says another as you click into the details. Nope. No mistake. $115 gets you the Studio and a smart light bulb. I ordered one immediately. It took me less than 5 minutes to reach the conclusion that it would be doubtful that even a Prime Day special would beat this, so I ordered another.While I waited for them to ship I perused reviews, help sites and YouTube videos to learn as much as I could. I'm not a tech geek or sound geek. I don't have the latest or greatest of anything, so I knew I would have a bit of a learning curve to overcome. I've read some reviews of the Echo products, even the Studio, delivering a tinny sound. But most reviews seem favorable. So where does the truth lie? I had been very impressed with the rich stereo sound I've been getting just from my Echo Dots, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with these. The most helpful video I saw was one suggesting that you turn off the 3D audio feature (Stero Spatial Enhancement, under audio settings for the device, in the Alexa app), unless you're going to use the Studio exclusively for HD quality audio (look up 's HD music service, or Spotify, etc - they feature higher than CD quality audio streaming). The reviewer said that this "3D" feature, with audio that isn't HD quality, performs an upscaling of the audio artificially, which in turn can result in the less than stellar sound quality that some people are experiencing. So, armed with this info, I waited patiently for the Studios to arrive.Side note, if you are considering any Echo or Alexa-enabled device, make sure you download the Alexa app. I don't believe it is required for Echo devices, but to not have it on your phone or tablet will severely limit your experience with the device.Like the other Echo devices I've purchased, when they came, all I had to do was plug them in and let them initialize. They were already linked to my account, so setup was quick. I will note here, if you're OCD about WiFi security and you have MAC filtering set up in addition to password encryption, then you should turn it off during initialization. You'll need to find the MAC address of your Studio and add it to your list of accepted devices, before turning MAC filtering back on. Here again, the Alexa app is crucial to your experience. By using the Alexa app as a conduit for your Echo devices, you can tweak your settings so that Echo and Alexa-enabled devices connect to your home network without having to input the user ID and password. However, MAC filtering is not bypassed with this convenience...After the Studios initialized, they showed they were on my network, but they didn't show up as eligible devices to pair with my FireTV for a home stereo system. I decided to restart my router and let everything refresh. That still didn't do the trick, but as I went back into the Alexa app I saw on the home page that there was still some optimization to do, so I went through that. I tried to set up the home theater pairing again, but only one of the speakers showed up as eligible. Undeterred, I went through the optimization process again, for the speaker that didn't show up. That seemed to do the trick because I was able to pair the two with my FireTV. Then I remembered what one of the reviews said about setting up two of these speakers at once. This is important if you're buying them as a pair - plug one in and get it set up completely on its own, to where it's fully functional as a single unit, then plug in the other and set it up, and then you can pair the two as a group or with your FireTV.Another important note here, for anyone unfamiliar with the limitations of home theater grouping with Echo speakers. 1) You can only pair two compatible Echo speakers together, or a pair of speakers with the Echo Sub. At least as of now, you cannot pair more speakers to the set (two, or two with subwoofer) to create a true surround sound system. 2) Any other connection with these speakers (or any other Echo speakers) will undo the home theater grouping. So, you can't physically connect your TV or cable/satellite box to the speakers (via optical input on back of Studio) and also have the FireT...