That being said, if you had told me a year ago that I’d have an Echo Studio front and center in my home entertainment system, I would’ve cackled. But even if we’re a HomeKit family with a HomePod Mini, I can’t say I was ever against buying an Echo speaker. No, I welcomed Alexa into my home with the sole purpose of pitting her against Siri to see how the voice assistants performed side by side. In the end, the Echo Studio has become a staple at the heart of our living room. It functions as a rich, powerful pseudo-sound bar for the TV, where we all gather to watch movies as a family; it’s also our go-to speaker, with Alexa routines to play music and have the smart lights above change colors when the kids say “It’s party time!” Review: HomePod Mini: for Sirious Apple users
Out of the box: A white Echo Studio
Unboxing the gigantic Echo Studio was a task. Listen, I always rag on people for buying things and then complaining about the size when the dimensions are right there in the product description. But this time that was me. The Echo Studio looks like a sleek, full-size speaker, sure. But this thing is huge. And heavy. I chose the new Echo Studio color, Glacer White. Looking at it in a home, the new speaker looks clean and stylish, a touch more modern than the Charcoal color, to me. I feel black speakers tend to be reminiscent of the old subwoofers you’d expect to see at McMansions back in the early 2000s, so I appreciate more color options.
Sleek or monstrous?
The Echo Studio isn’t meant to fit onto a tiny shelf or be tucked away next to a little plant; it’s here to serve a purpose, and that purpose is to deliver room-filling, calibrated, 3D, Dolby Atmos audio. Also: What is a bookshelf speaker, and which brand is best? This smart speaker stands 8.1 inches tall, measures 6.9 inches in diameter, and weighs 7.7 pounds. The Echo Studio has four buttons at the top to summon Alexa, mute the mic, and adjust the volume up or down. There’s a light ring at the top of the speaker that comes on when Alexa is listening, when a notification is available, or when the volume is adjusted. Jam-packed with sound, the Echo Studio has a horizontal gap at the bottom to openly distribute audio and maximize bass output from a 5.25-inch woofer, and it also has three 2-inch midrange speakers and a 1-inch tweeter.
Setting it up
Also: How to add your HomePod to the Home app and Wi-Fi Part of the setup process involves calibrating the Echo’s acoustics by having it play a series of sounds and listening to how they reverberate around the room.
Audio: The verdict
Once the Echo Studio is calibrated, the sound quality is nothing short of outstanding, which is surprising, really. When you hear that the Echo Studio retails for $200, it sounds like too high of a price for a smart speaker with Alexa. But the truth is that the upgraded sound quality of the Echo Studio is on par with high-end speakers twice its price. Also: The 5 best smart speakers It’s apparent the calibration works, as the speaker can certainly put out room-filling audio with deep, rich bass rivaling that of other high-end speakers, like the Sonos One. But intensity, though overwhelmingly satisfying, is not the only benefit. Whether or not it earns the title of best-sounding smart speaker on the market is up for debate, but I found the audio quality is leaps and bounds above that of other smart speakers like the Echo Dot, and it’s also better than the HomePod Mini. If you want full stereo sound, you can pair two Echo Studio speakers in one room, and you can also add the Echo Sub for fuller audio.
More than music
As a smart speaker with built-in Alexa (and a mic mute button), the Echo Studio makes a fantastic speaker for parties, gatherings, or music in general. But we’ve found a pretty nifty alternate use for it as part of our living room’s media console as the speakers to our TV. We haven’t bit the bullet and bought a sound bar for our televisions just yet. It’s on the list, sure, but it continues to stay low on our priorities. Since my home resembles a smart speaker graveyard, we’ve made the HomePod Mini the speaker for an Apple TV 4K, we’re using the Echo Dots as stereo speakers for a Fire TV Stick 4K, and now the Echo Studio has joined the lineup. Connected to both the Apple TV 4K and the Fire TV Stick 4K, the Echo Studio became an outstanding speaker for our television, putting out immersive cinematic audio for movies and, in my opinion, effectively replacing a quality sound bar. The audio is intense, yet maintains crispness. It is several steps above our defunct HomePod in sound quality, though I can’t speak for how it compares to the new, resuscitated HomePod – yet. And since the Echo Studio has a line-in and optical-in port, it can be used with televisions as a sound bar regardless of the streaming device you have. In addition to built-in Alexa, the Echo Studio also supports Zigbee, a communication protocol used in low-power smart home devices, and Matter. This means you can easily add any Zigbee- and Matter-enabled devices to your smart home network via the Echo Studio, effectively making it a hub for compatible smart home devices.
Is it worth it?
I’m not torn – I can’t pretend I am. Sure, the Echo Studio is fairly large, but I like it. The resulting sound quality from the five speakers packed into the device makes both the size and price well worth it. It’s built and engineered to rival some of the best speakers of its size on the market, and its performance shows that. The Echo Studio sits prominently in the center of our media console table, working several jobs as a smart voice assistant, a smart home hub, a TV speaker, and a music player.
Alternatives worth considering
The brand-new HomePod is Apple’s top-tier smart speaker, doubling as a HomeKit hub with built-in Siri. Though physically quite similar to the discontinued HomePod, the new version works with Matter and Thread, and has temperature and humidity sensors. Though more expensive than the Echo Studio at $300, it’s the best choice in smart speakers for an Apple ecosystem. The Sonos One speaker is one of the best-sounding smart speakers, and it not only supports Alexa, but also Google Assistant. It features touch controls instead of buttons on the top panel, and is a couple of inches more compact than the Echo Studio in both height and width.
