Amazon Echo Sub-Woofer
Where do I start? At this point I am here to say this is a GREAT product, well worth the money.
Five Stars for sure.
But I digress...
I started out with an Amazon Echo, first generation, paid nearly $100 for it, but was quite pleased with its performance. I was very pleased with the sound output of that small device. I liked it so much I bought another for another room. Being an Amazon Prime member, I started listening to music from Amazon. Again, pleased - and I decided to add the unlimited subscription to Amazon Music.
I have a traditional stereo system - two speakers, an amplifier, and a CD player. I got to thinking I would like to feed the Amazon music into the stereo and researched the subject on the internet. Turned out to be stupidly simple. I bought a third generation Dot, now less than $50, and a simple adapter cable. The cable plugged into the output jack of the Dot and into the right and left stereo inputs on my amplifier. I had to do a little volume adjustments of the Dot and of the stereo amp to get the levels right - but that was a five minute exercise, and suddenly I had beautiful music in full stereo.
But in researching the stereo bit, I discovered something else interesting on the internet - that it was simple to set up two identical Echo units to give full stereo. Well, I have two identical first generation Echos. So I tried it, setting up in a different room. A note here - it is unlikely that most of us could ever set a stereo pair up without some very simple instruction from the internet. You have to use the Amazon app on a smart phone. But with that instruction it is a very simple exercise. I did it. And it sounded great.
And that’s also about when I discover the existence of the Amazon Echo Sub-Woofer. OK. I admit at first I was skeptical. How could a six inch diameter speaker generate significant base? But then how could a tiny Amazon Echo Dot sound so terrific? But they do.
The gold standard for bass performance for many is the piece, “Thus Spake Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss. To quote Wikipedia, “The piece starts with a sustained double low C on the double basses, contrabassoon and church organ.” This corresponds to a tone of some duration at a frequency of 32 hertz. Only higher end classic stereo systems will deliver this tone. In most, it plays as a low level buzz that would be obnoxious were it any louder.
So OK. I pulled up the specs on the unit. Hmm. Goes to 30 hertz at minus 6 db. You know, that ain’t bad! And you could goose up the low end a bit with the equalizer in the Amazon app. The built in 100 watt amplifier and cross over network built into the sub-woofer help a lot. Hmm. OK, I went ahead and ordered it. And immediately discovered that at the time there was a 4 week wait for delivery.
The unit did show up as promised, and I was anxious to get it going. A comment here: normally I am rather contemptuous of “unpacking” videos on the internet. But, the packing and packaging of this unit is a performance art master class on how it should be done. I will say no more on that subject except that I was hugely impressed.
Setting it up was mostly easy - but NOT as easy as the Amazon site suggests. The main issue is that if you integrating it into an existing stereo pair of Echo units, as I was, first you have to unpair the existing units, then rebuild with the addition of the sub-woofer. Very simple to do on the app - but NOT intuitive. Again, the internet is your friend. I easily found simple instructions and proceeded - and five minutes later had everything networked and playing.
It sounded OK, but honestly not all that terrific. Certainly not what I was expecting. Playing “Thus Spake Zarathustra” was, frankly, disappointing. But, I have had experience with base woofers before, and had a suspicion it wold improve. It seems such speakers need to be used a bit to loosen up to reach their desired performance levels.
I am very happy to report that this proved to be exactly the case. After a few hours, the speaker was clearly doing better. A few days and it was sounding great. And today, I was sitting in my chair listening to Hans Zimmer’s sound track for “The Dark Knight”, a piece I had played several times before. But this time, it seemed like the whole room was shaking from an outstanding base source. I was astounded - and hugely delighted! I am truly pleased.
A closing note - truly serious audiophiles are guaranteed to turn up their noses at this system. I am talking about the people that only use virgin vinyl records for a music source, heavy oxygen free copper cables to the tube amplifier with heavy iron transformers, huge engineered bass reflex speakers or the like etc. etc. Good for them - and perfection has its price. But for us lesser mortals who love music, the Amazon system offers a quality system offering a lot of pleasure at a modest price.
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Echo Sub
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Size |
8.0” x 8.3” (202 x 210 mm) |
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Weight |
9.3 lbs (4.2 kg) Actual size and weight may vary by manufacturing process |
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Audio |
4L sealed chamber with 6” (152 mm) downward-firing woofer, 100W Class D amplifier |
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Low Frequency Response |
30Hz (-6dB) |
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Crossover Frequency |
50 Hz - 200 Hz adaptive low-pass filter |
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Power supply |
Auto-switching 100-240 V, 50-60 Hz AC universal input. |
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Wi-Fi |
Dual-band Wi-Fi supports 802.11 a/b/g/n (2.4 and 5 GHz) networks. WiFi 6 (802.11 ax) is not currently supported. Does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) Wi-Fi networks. |
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Alexa App |
The Alexa App is compatible with Fire OS, Android, and iOS devices. A list of supported operating systems can be found here. |
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Accessibility |
The Alexa app and Alexa-enabled products include several features for customers with accessibility needs related to vision, hearing, mobility, and speech. Learn more about Alexa accessibility. |
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Warranty & Service |
1 year limited warranty and service included. Optional 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year extended warranty available for U.S. customers sold separately. Use of Echo Sub is subject to the terms found here. |
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Reviews with images
Could be 5 Stars once app experience is improved, would buy again.
Context Disclosure: I began writing and completed this review in real time during my setup experience of my Echo Sub.Received the Echo sub after some issues with the carrier since Amazon ships it only signature required in my area, took an extra day for me to make arrangements to pickup the item elsewhere.Upon unboxing the Echo sub the first thing I noticed is its fabric doesn't match the Charcoal echo design or any other currently available Echo fabric. I don't mind this much but it would have been nice if they matched. The Echo sub has this large sticker over the power connection that says to NOT configure it until I have configured my other Echo devices first.I purchased this Echo sub with a pair of brand-new Echo devices as part of an Amazon Bundle. I unboxed my Echo devices and began setting them up. After completing the setup process and naming my 2 new echo devices (I have more than 10 echo devices in my home, it's becoming a little confusing when keeping track of the new ones) I proceeded to setup the Echo Sub.I had already noticed in adding devices to my updated Amazon Alexa app that there is a new Echo sub option, so I proceeded through that setup process. The setup process makes you watch a video on your device that helps you understand the capability and recommended placement of your new Echo Sub. I really didn't need to watch this video for the information it provided so it would have been nice to skip this.After the Video was completed I proceeded through the steps of connecting it to my home wireless network and setting up a speaker pair / group. I got to the screen where I could clearly see my new Echo devices that I had previously labeled "One" and "Two" and to my surprise they were unable to be added to the speaker pair / group. The reason for this is both devices indicated they needed an update and I should check back in "~2 Hours".Knowing you can force Echo devices to update faster by muting them I placed both on mute and began typing this review. I'm pleased to report that by the time I got to this paragraph that both devices had completed the update and have rebooted themselves... One moment while I continue through the setup... (you can imagine, as I did, that I thought I was going to come back 15 minutes or so later after playing with the devices before reading the following paragraphs and my summary)I still had the app open on my screen before the updates took place. Post the echos completing their self update, the devices still said they needed to be updated in the app. I couldn't select them, and my only option was to add other devices to the group or cancel. I chose the cancel button which took me back to the previous setup screen and I again was able to select "Continue" to setup a group. After the page refreshed, I could now select my "One" and "Two" Echo devices.I selected my One Device and immediately all other devices went into "Connectivity Error/Not Compatible" on the app. If I unselect "One" all devices go back to available. If I select "Two" all devices co back into "Connectivity Error/Not Compatible".As I was unable to select 2 devices to pair together with my Sub. I again could not continue with the setup process. I again chose to "Cancel" the creation and go back to the previous screen. I repeated the same steps above and this time both devices showed "Online”, and I was able to add them to the group/pair and continue. I received a message requesting I select which channel Left or Right for "Two". I selected Right and both One and Two devices began to flash white while the app indicating it was connecting to the speakers.... (waiting while I'm still typing this for this step to complete)...well I think the step completed, not sure as the app went back to an "Add Group" Screen with no indication of a success or failure of the task. I scrolled down on the app and found a new group called "Stereo Pair" that has been created. I selected the "Stereo Pair" and was show the option to unpair them... not doing that. One moment while I jack with this app and figure out if its working or not... (insert Jeopardy music)Well I can't rename Stereo Pair on the app, let’s see if I can do it from the Web Interface https://alexa.amazon.com ... nope group doesn't exist there yet or at all, maybe it takes some time. Let’s see if the pair even works. Yup it plays music on the speaker pair but WITHOUT the sub in the group... Wasn't I setting up an Echo Sub when I started this?I proceed back to the app and attempt to add a group and I'm greeted with the message that I must unpair existing speakers before adding them to a pair. So, I proceed to unpair the Stereo Pair group I just created. (wish it would let me give this a name other than "Stereo Pair")Recreating the Speaker Group, I realized I found my error. I must select One, Two, and the Sub to pair the 3 devices together.... Funny because I was setting up the Echo Sub when this pairing screen was presented, you would think they would have included the sub automatically.To locate the Echo Sub in my case, I had scroll down on the pairing screen to find the Sub at the bottom. I suspect I wouldn't have made this error if I didn't have a ton of Echo devices already. Attempt to add all 3 to the group "Failed to Initiate playback on Stereo Pair" Error message yet it still created a new group called "Stereo Sub Pair" (these group names are awful).Success? I tried playing some music to the "Stereo Sub Pair" group and it's working!First impressions are it's significantly better sounding than I thought it would be for such a small setup. Upped the Volume, Upped the Bass, now it sounds perfect for my listening enjoyment. Now to go set the devices where I plan on using them and try it out.Lastly, I tried to see if could rename the “Stereo Sub Pair” Group name to something else by the time I completed reviewing my notes from this review and unfortunately, I can report you can’t change the group name yet. However, once the speakers are paired you don’t need to say the group name to get them to play together like you do with multi-room music.Summary: I am pleasantly surprised with the Echo Sub and despite the issues above from being an early adopter of the device, I would buy it again. Sound is great and just what I needed for my "Bass-lacking" audio space.Overall, I give this experience 4 stars only because of the issues I encountered that I’m sure will be resolved in time combined with the fact the sub doesn’t match the echo devices themselves. The Sub audio itself, I give 5 stars.
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