Echo Studio (Newest gen) | Our best-sounding Wi-Fi and Bluetooth smart speaker ever | Dolby Atmos, spatial audio, smart home hub and Alexa | Charcoal

The Studio model is discontinued by Amazon, so any availability is down to what they've got left. I was lucky and got one on sale.My favourite thing about the Studio is it's compatibility with Fire Stick as a home theatre device. I live in a flat, and the sound it delivers for films like on Netflix and Disney+ is a huge improvement vs my TV. The Studio is great at bassy sounds, and fully capable of making the ground shake with every TV explosion.I toyed with Spatial Sound, but the library seems limited. The Studio is also supposed to analyse its own sound quality in the room and change itself to suit your environment better, but I saw no evidence of this actually changing anything.Normal songs play well. It's also a Matter device, so can be used to extend your home mesh network, BUT it cannot act as a Matter server. You need an older Echo device for that, which is hard to come by.Dead easy to set up. Good value for money, especially on sale. Response time seems fine. A great "main" Alexa device for your home.

Sound is personal to each of us and what I hear, someone else will hear differently and vice versa.However, this Echo Studio speaker is absolutely fantastic in many ways. I spent the whole weekend sampling different tracks and different settings until I came up with the settings that worked for me. Which were, Bass, Treble, Mids all set to the middle (flat) and for all but 3D music I turn stereo spacial enhancement OFF.When I get a new speaker or headphones, there are various tracks I like to play though to check performance. There are a couple of excellent public playlists on Apple Music, Spotify or Amazon Music that people have created for this purpose, try them, sometimes hearing songs you are not familiar with help to 'hear' the quality as you have no pre00conceived ideas of what tracks should sound like.So, sound = 5*I connected my TV to the Studio (and I leave it connected) via the Optical out. I currently run an Apple TV and most things go via that, the sound - Superb. That is playing Netflix, Prime Movies or downloaded content. The 360 output from the Studio really is 360. Before receiving the Studio I didn't;t have a lot of hope for the 360 capabilities but having experienced it, I was extremely pleased. It could be to do with placement, not sure as I have not experimented with it in different locations. But for me, it sounds terrific.What works very well for me is that when. I turn the TV on, any music playing/streaming will stop and the Studio will wait for input from the TV. I can easily ask It to resume playing if I wish but in our house the TV only goes on when we want to watch something. Music rules our house, so this works perfectly. No switching inputs manually, no getting up and no fiddling. GreatSound from TV, Netflix, Prime or other steaming services - TerrificI took out the 3 month free trial of Amazon HD and I have been moving from one HD Ultra playlist to the next (there is a lot of HD Ultra content from a whole host of Genres) - The sound from the Studio is simply stunning. Streams from Apple Music (my default music service) are also excellent, I have nothing but high praise for this device.Summary, this device is an absolute monster, it looks great, it sounds incredible with music and with TV, it is simply a joy to use.You may be asking, what is he comparing this too? I am a long time music lover and over the years have spared little expense on hifi kit. For now, this has replaced my Sonos Play 5 (2nd Gen), yes its that good but its also better sounding than my LINN setup from a few years ago. Not only that but it takes up less space and costs loads less.One last thing to mention as there may be some people interested to know. I hooked up my REGA P1 Planner turntable and pre-amp to Echo Studio for a bit of fun. I was very surprised by the output, yes stern separation was not the same as through the LINN but it sounded brilliant, I imagine if I had a pair, the separation would be as good. Try it for fun, you will be surprised.Alexa - Very responsive as you would hope/expect making this a smart speaker beyond all others available at this moment in time. It is going to take some time for someone to beat this in this price range.Price vs Performance - Stunning, what you get for your money here is amazing, this good at this price is unheard of. When you consider what you can get for £200 (Sonos One for example, which the Studio absolutely obliterates) this becomes an absolute bargain.Last but not least, 3D music. At the time of writing, the amount of 3D music tracks is limited (to find them on Amazon Music, search for 3D Playlists) - How do they sound? Different is what I would say. I think the 3D/Atmos mixes simply give the artist/studio another tool to work with. The tracks I have sampled certainly sound different but I am not sure what I expected thus I would imagine, as studios begin exploring the Atmos music mixes, the amount and quality of tracks will only grow and get better. For me, it's great to have a speaker capable of playing the new format ahead of the game.Come Black Friday I will be buying an Amazon 4K TV Stick and I will watch Jack Ryan on Prime first of all to see how the Atmos soundtrack works/sounds. Watch this space...Do I like this? What do you think :)

I didn't realize these were coming out until days before release. Having never owned an echo before, I liked the sound of the studio, so did some homework to see what first impressions were. I'm already an Amazon Music HD subscriber, so having the option to listen to 3d Audio and Ultra HD tracks and Dolby Atmos which I wanted to invest in anyway, this was the perfect speaker.Pros: Big sound from a small speaker fills the room.Sound Quality is amazing for this price. 3D Classical makes your spine tingle.Easy to set up with Alexa app on phone. Easier if u already have an amazon account.Cons: Some tracks in standard, HD and Ultra HD can sound muddled and not as clear. This is probably due to the audio quality the track was recorded in.Alexa app seems to drop out and lose connection at times. Also asking alexa to play a track and manually selecting via Amazon Music isn't as seemless as it should be. Usually get a message stating alexa is unavailable when using manually. Alexa doesn't seem to deferentiate between the two, causing a crash or having to restart phone. The Alexa app seems to be the issue.Despite the app issues, you can still pair up with Bluetooth and avoid using Alexa altogether.It's equaliser options could be be better and the SRS isn't always better on, again dependant on the type of music you listen to. Rock sounds loud and punchy, depending on its original master quality and bitrate. There is a variation and it is noticeable.Overall, despite some issues, I do recommend the Echo Studio, it's an amazing speaker and does show at times what it is and isn't capable of. At this price and the sound you get, it's worth it. I'm considering a second studio and sub to complete my setup, to test it on Movies.As a comparison, I have a Sony A/V amplifier 5.1 setup currently. The studio is much clearer.I love my music and sound is so important, in the days that I've had it, it's made me wow, it's made me cry, it's made me happy.

Fantastic sound.Only 4 because of price---- and based on reviews the Sub-Woofer to match is hopelessly uncontrollable. That said Bass is decent from a single unit.