The Amazon Echo and the Echo Studio offer great sound quality at a reasonable price. The Echo Dot and Echo Pop, meanwhile, are much cheaper but do not feature the same great sound. While the more recent generation Echo Dots have improved the speaker, we found the Pop was quieter and had a weaker bass in testing.
If you ever find the sound on your Amazon smart speaker to be lacking, you can easily connect it to an external speaker to make music sound better. Here is how to connect your Echo device to another speaker for better listening.
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If you wish to plug a speaker in to your Echo, you will need a standard 3.5mm audio cable with male connections on both ends and a compatible device. Unfortunately, the Echo Dot (5th Gen)—with or without the clock—and the Pop do not have an audio output jack.
For all other models (Echo Studio only has an input option) Plug one end of your audio cable in to your speaker's Aux In connection and the other end into the Echo's Aux Out connection, right next to the power cable's connection.
Now, when you power on your connected speaker, it will play the audio would normally play from the Echo when you ask Alexa to play music.
Pair Your Echo Device to a Bluetooth Speaker
Don't want to futz around with cables? You can instead stream the sound from your Echo to a Bluetooth speaker. Amazon certifies compatible speakers with the Works With Alexa label, so you know which devices to buy. Once you have a Bluetooth speaker, make sure it's in pairing mode, then open the Alexa app.
Head to Devices > Echo & Alexa, then choose the Alexa device you wish to connect to your speaker. Select Connect a device under the Bluetooth Connections section to make the app search for nearby Bluetooth devices to pair with your Echo. Tap the name of your speaker when it pops up.
After the pairing is successful, the speaker will show up in the Alexa app as a Bluetooth connection for that Echo device. Alexa also announces the successful pairing. You can now ask Alexa to play music and perform other tasks, and the sound is piped through your Bluetooth speaker.
If you wish to disconnect the speaker, tap the name of the speaker in the Alexa app and tap Disconnect. You can also say "Alexa, disconnect." Alexa tells you that your Echo is now disconnected from your speaker. To re-establish the connection, say "Alexa, connect" to connect your Echo to the last connected Bluetooth device.
You can permanently remove the entry for your speaker by tapping the name of the speaker in the Alexa app and selecting Forget Device. You will then need to go through the pairing process again to reconnect it.