However, this is a remarkably cheap price compared to an Apple HomePod (£279 / $299) and the Google Home Max (£299 / $299). And don’t forget, both of those speakers originally cost even more when they first launched.

The Studio can be paired with an  Echo Sub which costs £119.99 / $129.99.

So, for a total for £309.98 / $329.98, you can have thundering bass as well. Plus, if you want stereo sound, you can also buy a second Echo Studio and link them in a stereo pair via the Alexa app, in exactly the same way you can with a HomePod, Google Home Max and Sonos Play:5.

The Echo Studio comes in one colour, Charcoal and has a fairly serious appearance. It’s bigger than a HomePod – as you can see in the comparison below – but roughly the same sort of shape.

On top, it’s great to see the usual quartet of physical buttons for volume, mic mute and ‘action’. The latter has various uses, one of which is to call up Alexa without using the wake word.

Inside the light ring is more charcoal-coloured fabric which hides a 2in upwards-firing speaker. There are two more of these, one facing left and one facing right, plus a 1in front-facing tweeter.

You can, of course, stream your music from other services including Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, SiriusXM, iHeartRadio and TuneIn. Of those, only Tidal offers hi-res streaming and is slated to add 3D music to its catalogue in 2020.

Room Adaptation

Connectivity & hub

Getting back to the Echo Studio, there’s a 3.5mm line in which doubles as a mini optical Toslink connector, the latter of which you could use to get Dolby Atmos straight from a Blu-ray player or a TV, if it supports it.

As you’d expect, there’s dual-band Wi-Fi, supporting up to 802.11ac, and Bluetooth so you can stream music or audio from your phone or another device to the Studio.

Lastly, there’s a built-in Zigbee hub – the smart home hub you’ll find in several other Echo models including the Echo Plus and Echo Show. This can save you from having to buy one or have one plugged into your router taking up an Ethernet port for devices that use Zigbee such as Philips Hue bulbs.

Performance

Of course, the Echo Studio succeeds or fails on its sound quality, but thankfully it is excellent. Previously, you had to use an Echo’s line out or the Echo Input if you wanted to improve the sound quality of an Echo by using your own speakers.

But for the vast majority of people, the Echo Studio solves the problem and offers an all-in-one ‘Alexa box’ which provides top quality sound.

There’s plenty of bass – perhaps not quite on a par with the HomePod – and clear, direct treble from the front-facing tweeter.

Those 2in drivers do a brilliant job of handling mid-range and the combination produces a fantastic sound that’s plenty loud enough to fill even a large room.

You can ask Alexa to “turn up the bass” and various other commands to adjust the equaliser, but you can – as mentioned – pair the Studio with an Echo Sub if you really love your bass. Doing this turns the Echo Studio into a pretty epic sound system, adding real punch to explosions in movies as well as room-shaking bass in tracks such as Ariana Grande’s 7 Rings.

That happens to be one of the tracks available in 3D and is the perfect showcase for the Studio’s capabilities. The synth effects appear to come from the corners of your room, while the backing singers’ voices appear to be high up, behind Ariana’s own vocals.

It’s worth noting that you don’t get lossless quality in 3D: the positioning information uses up the extra bandwidth.

When it comes to HD and Ultra HD music playback, most people should be able to hear a difference from standard quality. As with HD video, everything is clearer and when you listen to tracks you know well, you’ll hear extra details that you didn’t notice when listening to them on standard, compressed streaming services.

There’s also much better separation between instruments, and even in busy tracks such as Fink’s Looking Too Closely the Studio’s sound remains composed and well defined.

While it can’t compete with a proper home theatre system – because it only simulates surround sound – it’s still pretty impressive for under £200 / $200. Plus, it’s cheaper and easier to install than a ‘proper’ Dolby Atmos system with its many separate speakers.

Verdict

If you care about sound quality and you’d prefer to have Alexa as your digital helper instead of the Google Assistant or Siri, buying the Echo Studio is a no-brainer.

Even if you’re undecided or assistant-agnostic, the Echo Studio is better value than Google and Apple’s competing speakers. Given that – for whatever reason – Sonos still doesn’t offer Hi-Res playback even through its top-end Play:5 speaker, the Echo Studio also manages to one-up smart speakers costing over twice the price.

It’s not really aimed at hardcore audiophiles, but it’ll impress everyone else.

Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.