The second-generation Echo Studio is Amazon’s smartest and clearest-sounding Alexa speaker yet, offering immersive spatial audio in a smaller, sleeker package, though its bass is noticeably tamer than the original.
The Echo Studio has long been Amazon’s flagship Alexa smart speaker, delivering the most powerful audio in the Echo lineup and featuring multiple angled drivers for immersive spatial sound. After six years, it’s finally getting an update. The second-generation Echo Studio is smaller, smarter, and packed with extra sensors, connectivity options, and access to Amazon’s more advanced Alexa+ AI assistant. It retains all of the original’s spatial audio capabilities, and you can even link up to five units with a Fire TV streamer for a fully immersive home theater experience. Priced at $219.99, it’s a bit more expensive and offers slightly less bass than its predecessor. Still, it remains the best-sounding Echo speaker available and a strong choice for filling a living room with rich sound. That said, the $99.99 Echo Dot Max is our Editors’ Choice for its lower price and well-balanced audio performance.Design: Much Smaller Than the Original
The original Echo Studio was the last holdout of the cylindrical shape in the original Echo series, but the new model brings it in line with its spherical siblings. It’s a fabric-wrapped orb measuring 6.1 by 5.6 by 5.8 inches (HWD), available in black or white versions. That’s much smaller than its predecessor, which measured 8.1 by 6.9 by 6.9 inches.
A large, concave panel on the front serves as a volume rocker with a mic mute button in the center, making the speaker resemble the Death Star more than a little. An Alexa light ring surrounds the panel, glowing blue and pointing in the direction it senses your voice when you speak to it, and filling up white when you adjust the volume.
Besides the plate, the Echo Studio has a sensor that detects when you tap the top of the speaker. This is a multi-purpose gesture that plays and pauses music, as well as snoozes alarms.
The sole physical connection on the speaker is for the proprietary power connector, located on the back. Unlike the previous Echo Studio, there’s no aux port.Features: Alexa+, Wi-Fi 6E, and Multiple Smart Home Protocols
For wireless connectivity, the Echo Studio features Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, with support for Amazon Sidewalk and LE Audio. It can also serve as a smart home hub for Matter, Thread, and Zigbee devices. It features ambient light, temperature, ultrasonic, and Wi-Fi radar sensors, and can detect the presence of people in the room even without sound.
Like all Echo speakers, the second-gen Echo Studio is designed to be primarily used hands-free with the Amazon Alexa voice assistant.
