Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsGood but not great.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 January 2022
This is an honest review after a few days intensive listening. I’m seriously questioning sending them back because of a couple of issues.
Firstly, for the price, the studios are pretty good, not great but good. They are pretty impressive sound from a relatively small unit. But don’t expect too much from them.
I have an old 7.1 system that needs replacing and am having to compromise with the other half regarding less visible speakers etc. The old system spoiled me but I had realistic expectations for the studios. I bought 2 studios to run paired as a home theatre with my fire tv cube. Set up was pretty easy even with the limitations of the Alexa app. And once connected I set about watching a couple of movies and playing with positioning of the studios. They really need to be pretty close to the screen to get the best effect, I tried them on the floor below the screen but it was obvious where the sound was coming from. I ended up directly below and just in front of the bottom corners of the screen. This was acceptable.
So movies, after initial viewing you begin to get immersed in the film and the speakers disappear, which is good, it’s what speakers should do. Admittedly I missed the surround sound with no effects coming from behind etc. but it’s not a surround sound system so it has limitations. But the overall effect is very good. There isn’t a true separation between the speakers which is disappointing, sounds struggle to be defined as coming from one speaker or the other, during testing you find a sound effect or voice will come predominantly from one speaker but is still evident from the other which makes it a bit cloudy. They were clearly designed to be used as a single speaker and the fire cube software isn’t able to split the signal definitively. But like I said I was willing to compromise, and so far it was acceptable. I have a reasonably small sitting room and had to lower the volume of the studios 2 clicks (on the remote) from max volume (remote gives finer control than voice control) and that’s when another issue reared it’s head.
Volume levels, movies the volume needs backing down slightly from max. Now that’s when I tried them out for music. And disappointment came over me. Even at max volume, listening to Amazon music, Apple and Spotify was lower volume than movies, surprisingly so. With the fire cube remote you get something like 1-28 clicks to max volume, voice control is 1-10, listening to music you get zero sound from the speakers at half volume, you have to go past 10 clicks on the remote before sound becomes audible. And then when you get to full volume I feel it needs 2 clicks more to be acceptable, full volume on movies is deafening and sounds like you will damage the speakers, in music it doesn’t even get to the same level, not even close. And that’s a dealbreaker for me. I like my music loud, as loud as I have the movies but I just can’t get that.
Now it seems to be a software issue, I have experimented with paring in theatre and stereo, unparing with cube, playing through Bluetooth etc etc and nothing has changed the volume. Except one thing…..I had an online chat with Amazon customer services who advised all sorts and eventually it worked!!! Volume was loud in music!! Too loud, just like movies and I had to turn down the volume. Great, problem solved, chat ended and then a few minutes later I realised only one studio was working!! So more testing was done. One studio is very loud, so tried the other and that was very loud. But as soon as you pair them the volume changes. Also, if you listen very carefully, you realise the software is controlling the volume. Listen to music and you will hear volume being controlled in louder parts of the tracks, the music doesn’t get louder when you expect it to, it’s not clipping, it’s definitely being controlled by the software. And that leads me to another issue with listening to music, pair them as a stereo pair and you don’t get true stereo, you get a messy version of it, similar to movies. Which is a little disappointing to say the least, it’s obvious the software isn’t sending a true stereo signal to each studio speaker but rather some sort of pseudo stereo signal. Listen to tracks that have definite left and right sound stage and you don’t get a clear separation, you get something with less clarity, guitar that should be coming from the right speaker sounds like it’s near the centre to the right because there is still the left speaker joining in. It’s definitely a lower effect from the left speaker but it’s noticeable and makes things messy.
Overall, these are good speakers, they have limitations which I was expecting. What I wasn’t expecting was the volume issues and messy soundstage. All of which seems to be software rather than hardware, the performance of the actual speakers is impressive for the size, to be honest I was considering adding a subwoofer after watching a movie because I feel they are missing some real deep lows in the soundstage, which is understandable for a 5 inch woofer in these. Music also could benefit from a subwoofer too as they struggle with bass heavy tracks.
Now I’m left with a decision, do I keep hold of them and hope Amazon updates the software to address the issues I’ve mentioned? Which Amazon doesn’t have a great track record of doing, and regret doing so. Which also means investing in a sub too. Or do I send them back and find something else.
It’s such a shame because Amazon came so close to making a great speaker.
Sorry for the long review but I think it’s necessary for anyone thinking of investing in them.