You know that feeling you get when, after a long flight, your ears pop, clear, and you can hear again? Right, it’s like the world opens up to you. I had that feeling, however fleetingly, when listening to the new Amazon Echo Dot Max for the first time.
It was just minutes after Amazon concluded its massive device rollout on September 30, 2025, where the company unveiled new Echo Shows, Kindle Scribes, and Echo Smart Speakers. I was ushered into a small room filled with the new Amazon Echos (including the redesigned Studio), where I could finally hear Amazon’s new audio wares away from the thrum of people and noise in the large demo room.
To understand what I was about to hear, you need to know more about this new smart speaker. The new Amazon Echo Dot Max is not just an audio update; it’s a complete redesign. Sure, the body is still round, but the Amazon Alexa ring of lights has moved from the base to a carve-out on the face and surrounds the “stop listening” and volume controls. There’s also a new seamless mesh body.
Inside, however, is an all-new sound system that includes one high excursion woofer and a custom tweeter. This is one fewer tweeter than the fourth-gen Echo, but one more than the Echo Dot. Amazon’s audio engineers worked near magic to open up the aural space of the Dot Max so that every bit of air inside the chassis serves the sound output.
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Listen up
Back to my aural experience.
“Now here you go again
You say you want your freedom,”
called out Stevie Nicks’ instantly recognizable voice from the previous generation Echo Dot. It sounded fine.
A second later, the Amazon exec switched to the Amazon Echo Dot Max.
“Pop!’
Yes, it was like my ears cleared, and I heard the Fleetwood Mac song anew.
“Like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had”
sang Stevie Nicks, and it was impressive. Full of far more bass than a speaker of that size has a right to have, and the clarity at the highs was sharp and pin clear.
Impressive for a $99 speaker.
The Amazon exec switched to the Echo Studio, and if you read my colleague Jake Krol’s hands-on, you know it sounds room-filling and impressive in the way only a speaker of that size and design possibly could.
There are, by the way, many Echo Dot Max features I did not get to try, like its out-of-the-box Alexa+ capabilities, which are assisted by a far-field microphone system. There’s also the new AZ3 processor (the studio gets the AZ3 Pro)that will assist with edge-case AI tasks (one that might not need larger models, like basic discussion cues)
Yes, this new speaker is double the price of the Echo Dot (which is not going anywhere), but you’re paying for the new design, Alexa+ readiness, and, of course, that surprising level of sound quality. Plus, if you invest in up to five of them, you can quickly build a decent home theater surround sound system.
Amazon told us the speakers will be using the new Omnisence technology to read room acoustics and properly adjust the speakers for full Dolby surround sound as well.
For the moment, I’m impressed with the sound, but there is so much more to test on the Amazon Echo Dot Max. Stay tuned for our full review.
The Amazon Echo Dot Max, $99.99 / £99.99 / AU$199 is on preorder now and ships October 29.
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lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com (Lance Ulanoff)
