Echo Studio, Certified Refurbished | High-fidelity smart speaker with 3D audio and Alexa

Got this as an Amazon return for £108.00. - it had no marks or flaws that I could see.The sound is really good and fills the room - you can adjust the Bass, Mid range and Treble in the Alexa App.The voice recognition software is also a lot better than the old echoes which sometimes wouldn't respond if you had the music on loud., this Studio has only done that a couple of times so far and I've had it about 3 months.So far so good really pleased with it - especially for the price (their over £200 for a new one)

Very good

I should say at the outset that I purchased an Amazon Firestick 4K Max and two Echo Studios, one day apart and this review covers all of them.The first Studio and Firestick arrived together. Set up was easy for both as was establishing home cinema. Sound quality for music is absolutely outstanding and I don't believe a sub is necessary for music alone. For home cinema however the bass does not reach required levels and a sub would certainly help. I was looking forward to second studio arriving so I could use both in the home cinema set up.Unfortunately I then ran into frustrating problems as no matter what I tried I could not get the 2nd studio included in home cinema. I kept receiving a message that it was not an eligible speaker for that purpose. After resetting everything and trying again still no resolution to the problem. By chance and in frustration I then checked that system details of both studios were the same. Lo and behold the second studio needed an update. Once I had forced an update connected to home cinema without problems.Now the quality difference between playing music and home cinema swapped over. For home cinema very good. For music however two different experiences. If you play music through alexa as a stereo pair there is a very significant volume imbalance, which currently, there is no solution to. Other reviewers have experienced the same problem and it is surprising that Amazon have not resolved it by now. If I play music through the Stick however it is now balanced beautifully between the two studios. You don't always want to be turning on TV to listen to music and this issue is such a shame. My solution will be to listen to music through one studio only when I get the courage to try to unpair them from the group they are in without affecting home cinema set up.Please also note that in the home cinema the system automatically plays Dolby Digital Plus, which is the compressed version of Atmos. True Atmos is not possible however as nearly all apps such as Prime Video and Netflix use Dolby Digital Plus to achieve Atmos effects this need not be a game changer. Don't expect to get true object based height from the channels though as only true Atmos gives this effect. Dolby Digital Plus gives a flatter, more surround experience.I then went ahead and added a sub. It does improve overall quality.The biggest problem of all however is the repeated failure of the speakers to stay connected in a home cinema setting. I have had them three days and each day so far I have had to reset them and start again.So will I be sticking with them? My first thoughts were positive. The experience is better than my 5.1 system and also better than the two Dolby Atmos sound bars I have tried. I think you would need to get a near top of the range Atmos sound bar to replicate. However a complete game changer is if the home cinema drop outs continue, which was my main purpose for purchaseThere is in my view a little bit of sales trickery going on. Amazon should make it clear for example that it is Dolby Digital Plus you will achieve and not uncompressed Atmos. For what they are though, these have the potential to be excellent products IF Amazon would only sort out the glitches.

I got one of the refurbished ones & can’t tell if from a new one, the sound quality is for a fairly small bit of kit very impressive

Ok

Really impressed with the sound, nice base, overall very impressed

I ordered a refurbished model as I already have a JBL 300 that I like but wanted to try out an Echo Studio as well. Not at all disappointed. Bass is great. Sound quality great. Responds to commands well. As a comparison I do prefer the JBL 300. Mainly because the controls are easy to access, the sound quality is just a notch higher for my ears and it is battery operated so you can move it into the garden. The Echo Studio is 300 watts, the JBL 300 is 100 watts. I set up the Echo Studio so it is near my reading chair and I can listen to music/podcasts at close proximity. Marvellous!

I ended up returning this. Which is a great shame as I really like it…..Positives:This is a very nice, good quality speaker. It looks great and sounds great too. It was fairly easy to set up and was working quite quickly.It plays music fine on its own, and using BBC sounds.It also happily streams Spotify once you’ve set it as default.The badWell the Alexa app is pretty badly laid out, ok I’m being generous, it’s nothing short of diabolical. A totally confusing mess of an app.It has no clear menu and is crammed with annoying suggestions on how to do different things. The really useful settings are hidden away in a variety of different places which is maddening.I followed some instructions to set up a group and to have the group play all music as a default. Main reason I bought the speaker was to have consistent music throughout the house without.Mostly it didn’t work. When it did work it was awesome. Last night it was playing throughout the house beautifully. This morning it would only play on a single speaker. Nothing would persuade it otherwise.I have hard reset it several times, tried different wifi, set up and reset it up, then re-reset up the 2 speakers and groups. It works for a while then won’t work later on.I am returning it because my blood pressure just cannot take it.SummaryA nice idea but basically the software is still beta. It doesn’t work consistently and the app looks like it has been designed by someone for a school project. Utterly useless.It’s a shame because I really like the speaker. But if it won’t play in a group consistently then it’s not what I bought it for.There are a lot of ‘refurbished’ models on sale on Amazon which makes me think that I’m not the first person to return one of these things.Shame because I really liked it. If only it would work as advertised.