Which Amazon Echo is Best for Me?

Which Amazon Each should you choose?

Amazon now has 3 versions of its popular Echo speaker, home automation, information hub, thingy. bluetooth speaker that does wi-fi streaming of Internet radio all on its own. But it also can hear your spoken commands to play songs or stations. Playing songs does require you have an Amazon Prime account however, and even that is a bit limited but still fulfilling considering the low cost and total return of an Prime account. But that is for another article, onto the choosing the best Echo for you.

Besides playing streaming music it can control your lights, thermostat, door locks, read you the news, tell you how your sports teams are doing, tell you the weather, and a lot more. Yeah, it's pretty difficult to classify this device. The original one is a

Here are three scenarios for consideration.

I listen to music and want the simplest solution for one room

This situation is easy. The original Amazon Echo is your best choice. It's a singular device that has touch-free (you can be across the room) interaction capability that lets you talk to it to chose a station on Pandora, iHeart Radio or Amazon music as well as others. It also will tell you the weather and do all the other cool Echo tricks.

I want to move around the house or yard or go to the beach

The Echo Tap would be your best choice here. With 9 hour battery life and all the normal Echo features you'll be free as a bird to listen and ask wherever you are. Be warned that the price of this freedom is you'll have to "tap" a button on the front of the Echo in order to get it to listen. This will be worth it given it's freedom to move and the neat charging station that comes with it. If you mostly listen to music and don't plan on a lot of interaction with the device, like obsessively asking Alexa questions, then this is your best choice.

You want the best music experience along with the power of Amazon Echo's Alexa

The only device of the three Echo's is the Amazon Echo Dot. This small, puck sized device has a speaker but it's not designed to play musics. But it does have something the other Amazon Echo's don't have, a 3.5mm audio out jack. This allows you to attach the Echo to any powered speaker or home audio system for a full stereo experience. Oh and it also has the 7 mic array as the original Echo so you can talk to it without touching it. Nice.

So that's it. Choose the Amazon Echo that's best for you and start your first experience into the world of intelligent devices. See below for a handy chart showing the key differences between the different Echo devices. If you found this helpful, please share, and thanks for reading!

How MDF Speakers are Made

MDF, or medium density fiberboard is used in most mid-level speakers and in many high end ones as well. Speaker companies use it because it is easy to work with, inexpensive and is extremely rigid. The rigidity and density is important so that the speaker cabinet does not color the sound as it bounces around inside the cabinet.

Do MDF speakers look worse than real wood?
In short, no. A high quality speaker company will make them look very nice. Since MDF is made from wood fibers glued under heat and pressure, it offers a extremely dense material that is, unlike wood, dimensionally stable. This gives you a very uniform material to make speaker cabinets from. Unfortunately in its native state, MDF is pretty ugly. To address this, manufacturers attach either a wood veneer (real wood) or vinyl woodgrain (not real wood : ^) outer covering on the MDF before making the speaker cabinet.

How are they Made?

1. Vinyl woodgrain or wood veneer are glued to the MDF. This is a permanent process, but of course the quality and thickness of the vinyl or veneer come into play. The thicker the veneer or vinyl, the more sturdy it will be over time.
2. A Groove Cutter cuts a V groove into the MDF right down to the vinyl or veneer.
3. The MDF is then "folded' to create the cabinet.

In better speakers a brace is usually added for extra support and to add rigidity.

Good as Wood or Better
Overall MDF speakers look and sound every bit as good as a speaker cabinet made of wood alone, probably better. In most cases they will look better, no knots or other imperfections, and sound better due to higher density and conformity of the material.

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