Voice Activated Speakers

[Belle427]

My Dad fancies the idea of one of these but I know very little about them. What sort of sound quality do you get with the likes of the Amazon Echo etc?
I see Sonos now has integration on their play one but have read its a bit hit and miss, I think he would like a system that has a bit of punch sound wise.
I would probably set him up on Amazon music initially and then he could be taught to use Spotify but hes not great with modern tech!
Any advice would be great.

[langtounlad]

The voice activation and instruction works really well. We've just acquired a Google Home mini in the Xmas promotion for £34 so also excellent vfm.
It's adequate for background listening to music and is obviously a mono speaker set-up.
It's definitely not hi-fi or good enough sound for serious listening but perfectly adequate for background listening, either streaming Spotify (connects to free version) or any radio station over the internet.
The full size versions have more & larger speakers built into the unit and so give a better sound quality.
Voice recognition and control is very good once set up.
We also use it for controlling lights, TV - satellite - amplifier - set-ups and the integration with Harmony is very good.
It also interfaces with IFTTT very well.

[anonymous-user]

The echo is surprisingly good. Its never going to be high fidelity but for background its fine. Alternatively if you already have a hifi an echodot works in the way same except it goes through your hifi so sound quality is much improved.

[TartanPaint]

Echo is fine for casual listening. I had ours sitting on the tiled windowsill in the kitchen, and it was ok, no complaints.

Bought a second one for the dining room and put it on a wooden table. It sounded much better than the kitchen one. So I moved the kitchen one to a wooden surface and it too improved greatly. Lots more bass.

So, experiment with positioning/surface.

[Belle427]

keirik said:

The echo is surprisingly good. Its never going to be high fidelity but for background its fine. Alternatively if you already have a hifi an echodot works in the way same except it goes through your hifi so sound quality is much improved.

Thanks I was not aware of that, may be an option to buy a mini hi fi system and add the Echo.

[NDA]

Belle427 said:

My Dad fancies the idea of one of these but I know very little about them. What sort of sound quality do you get with the likes of the Amazon Echo etc?
I see Sonos now has integration on their play one but have read its a bit hit and miss, I think he would like a system that has a bit of punch sound wise.
I would probably set him up on Amazon music initially and then he could be taught to use Spotify but hes not great with modern tech!
Any advice would be great.

I've just got an Echo and, as a voice controlled radio, it's very good. A decent sound and it goes pretty loud too. But it's not high fidelity - however he may not be seeking that. It works very easily with Amazon music.

[Bullett]

As everyone else has said, the echo is not hi-fi but its good enough as a kitchen radio and goes fairly loud.
A friend has a dot attached to a hi-fi and obviously the sound is much improved BUT if you go too loud it can't hear you and you lose voice volume control.
You can use amazon music or spotify, just need to tell it which is primary via the app.