Amazon Echo Buds 2023 Review

The Echo Buds 2023 don't whisk you to another world like many of our favorite earbuds. They bring music into yours, balancing in your ears without isolating them from surrounding traffic sounds, conversations, or public transit information. The quality of the music suffers, particularly in the bass frequencies, but your situational awareness does not. They're also very reasonably priced and easy to operate with the help of Amazon's Alexa.

Performance Comparison

Sound Quality

“There is something decidedly different in how sound is expressed through these buds,” says audio expert Gena Bradshaw. While listening to the test mix that includes everything from pop bops to hip hop, heavy rock, and crooning country, we found that the Amazon Echo Buds 2023 offers decent clarity but lacks warmth and punch in the bass line.

That missing power in the lower frequencies leans too heavily on the mid-range and high treble notes. The mid tones feel fleshed out, but the treble notes can lack clarity. When combined with lackluster bass, the sound can feel flat, muddy, and a bit lifeless. As a result, we docked points in both the bass section and the overall sound quality score.

We noticed the lack of strong bass frequencies in songs like “Cuff It” by Beyonce, “Woah” by Lil Baby, “Lungs” by Townes Van Zandt, and “Snatched” by Big Boss Vette. And the drum line in “Itty Bitty Piggy” by Nicki Minaj sounds a little messy.

We appreciate the warmer, cleaner feel of the mid-tones in songs like “Heartbreak Swing” by Sumbuck, “Say So” by Doja Cat, and “Hurricane Season” by Trombone Shorty. Still, while they have good clarity, they feel a bit thin and gutless at the lower end.

Overall, the sound mix feels basic. It's inoffensive, pleasant-even at times, but leaves your favorite songs feeling watered down. We found this true for “Motivation” by Normani, “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony, and “Hard Drugs” (Live) by Susto.

Vocals can also sound a smidge distorted at times. They feel obscured, like wearing your glasses with grime on the lens. Take the 1977 soft-rock hit “Blue Bayou” for example. Linda Ronstadt's soaring vocals in the first chorus sound so piercing at mark 0:45 that we had to adjust the volume between the chorus and the verses.

At times, though, the unique sound profile works in your favor. When we listen to “I'll Show You How” by Cinnamon Soulettes (a musical mystery from 1975), it sounds authentic. The Echo buds pick up sibilance from the vocalist and translate the staticky crackle of a record player.

Since these earbuds lack active noise cancelling and only offer mid-tier noise isolation (which we'll explore in detail below), it's easy to lose details in your music at lower volumes. If you crank them to compensate, you'll lose some clarity, with more frequent vocal distortions. Even at the highest volumes, they feel underpowered.

Soundstage

The mission of an earbuds soundstage is to create the most in-person experience possible for the listener. Since live music and floor-standing speakers are usually in front of you, we're used to hearing music come from that direction, with some sound refracting from the surrounding stadium or walls.

Earbuds tend to produce a more internalized listening experience due to their small, in-ear design. A truly expansive listening experience is rare in an earbud, and it may not be that important to you, unless you're a gamer or audiophile. If so, the Echo Buds may not be your top choice.

Their semi-in-ear design doesn't seal the ear as snuggly as many earbuds in the test, and they don't provide the cleanest soundstage. There's a reasonable separation between individual instruments, especially in the mid-frequencies, but it's hard to place instruments in space around you. We don't notice any distortion muddling the mix.

The sound is more forward and direct than we prefer and can border on bracing, particularly with mellow songs that are light on bass tones, to begin with, like “Spin” by Sumbuck. The soundstage works reasonably well for easy-listening jazz but offers less consistent results with modern pop, rock, EDM, or hip hop.

When we compare the relative volume of each frequency coming through the Echo Buds (shown above as a frequency response curve) to our GearLab House Curve the differences reinforce our listening experience. The bass levels are far lower in the Echo Buds than in our idealized curve, and the mid-tones are louder than most listeners prefer. The treble section is closer to the House Curve but also misses the mark in places.

User Experience

Amazon notes that the Echo Buds have a “semi-in-ear” design. Instead of using an ear tip that seals your ear canal and secures the speakers, they're made to rest in your ear without blocking it. They feel more akin to tiny speakers sitting on our ears than true earbuds. The design lets you hear the world around you, but all that ambient noise distracts from your music.

Comfort

These earbuds are relatively large. They feel jarring and uncomfortable for our testers with smaller ears, especially at first. The rigid plastic can feel painful on the outer ears at times. Though these buds work better for larger ears, and most testers were able to get used to the harsher feel with time, the lack of adjustability is an issue. There are only two size options, while many of our favorite options have far more customizable fits.

Stability

Despite a less than stellar fit and feel, the Echo Buds remain relatively secure in-ear. They keep up with us on workouts ranging from long runs to intense gym sessions. They even held on during our handstand test. What they can't handle is headbanging. A few good head tosses sends them flying.

Customization

Instead of creating a separate application, Amazon requires you to download the Alexa App to pair and control these earbuds, which work with iOS or Android operating systems. If you're already living in the Amazon ecosystem, controlling these earbuds feels especially seamless. Simply press and hold the button on the case for three seconds to enter pairing mode and use the Bluetooth settings on your device to connect.

As you can see in the video above, the Alexa App will help you find your earbuds if you misplace them and lets you easily adjust the relative volumes of the earbuds' bass, mid, and treble frequencies.

You can also access some controls through the earbuds themselves using Alexa on-the-go voice commands or by setting up tap controls via the Alexa App. You'll be able to answer and end phone calls, control your music, and mute the microphone with your voice or by tapping the earbuds.

Connectivity

To evaluate connectivity, we scour all the 1-star reviews on Amazon, checking for any that mention connectivity issues. We didn't experience connectivity issues when testing these buds with both Android and iPhones, but other users have.

The Amazon Echo Buds fell just below average for the group, with 1.42% of 1-star reviews citing connectivity issues. This isn't horrible, but it's not the best we found either.

Noise Cancellation

The Echo Buds 2023 don't actively cancel ambient noise by neutralizing unwanted sound waves. About half of the earbuds in the review do. All of the earbuds provide some level of passive noise isolation by physically blocking surrounding sound waves. Since these earbuds don't seal your ear canal, they are limited in that capacity as well. As a result, they earn one of the lowest noise cancellation scores.

That said, they do mute some surrounding sounds, particularly those in higher frequency ranges, like dishes crashing together in a cafe. You can listen for yourself below to hear the slight reduction. However, passive noise isolation can only do so much, so plenty of that chaotic cafe background still lingers in.

According to Amazon, the minimal noise isolation of the Echo Buds is by design. They are meant to let you enjoy your music and respond to the world around you. We found that they do this, maybe a little too well. It can be hard to hear your music at lower volumes, and you'll likely lose details of your favorite songs or podcasts.

The graph above can shed light on this letdown, which you can see doesn't provide much protection from low or even mid-range frequencies. Again, your music won't sound its best at any volume through these earbuds. It's especially challenging for these earbuds to translate vibrant bass vibrations without a firm connection to your ear.

Battery Life

A longer battery life means that you can make it through your day without your music cutting out mid-run or at the beginning of a long commute home. To test it, we played a continuous stream of music at 75% volume until the batteries died.

The Echo Buds impressed by lasting a full 55 minutes longer than Amazon's claim of 5 hours, offering nearly 6 hours of runtime. That means that the Echo Buds battery life is a little better than average when compared to its competitors. It's likely to get you through your day as long as you don't rock them constantly.

If you have the case powered up, it should give you three full charges on the go. That's 15 hours and 45 minutes before you need an outlet. These earbuds don't have a wireless charging option so you will have to wait for the time it takes to power them back up, though. A quick charge will give you 2 extra hours of blissful entertainment after just 15 minutes in the case.

Call Quality

When you're on the go, crossing a street, catching a train, or walking against the wind, you'll want to know if you can take a call and be confident that your voice will be heard. So we tested how well their microphones pick up your speaking voice in quiet rooms and noisy environments during a phone call. To do so, we gave our head simulator several recordings to emit out of a speaker. It recorded the script that came through the earbuds.

They struggled in our subway cacophony stress test though. With loud noises in the background, some of the words on the call cut out.

Again, the Echo Buds posted an average performance. Without noise in the background, the recording sounds fairly clear. They performed better with our male tester's voice recording than the female voice, which sounded muffled at times. We could also hear some light tapping or clicking sounds when listening closely.

With light office noise in the background, they also performed quite well. We could hear some typing behind the speaker's voice, but that's it.

Should You Buy the Amazon Echo Buds 2023?

If you need a reasonable set of earbuds and want to spend as little as possible to get the job done, these are our top recommendation. This is especially true if you already use Amazon's Alexa App. In which case, these earbuds will slide right into your current operating systems. They're also a good option if you don't like the feeling of in-ear tips and prefer to let your ears breathe. If you're particular about audio quality though, you may struggle to enjoy them. The listless base and temperamental treble will alter the feel of your favorite songs.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?

The only other earbuds we've tested in the same price range have wires. So, if you're looking for wireless alternatives to the Echo Buds, you'll need to be prepared to spend more. If you don't mind wires, the Linsoul KZ ZSN Pro X and UliX Rider are very reasonably priced, offer higher sound quality, better call quality, and have no batteries to worry about. You can't adjust or equalize the sound levels though. If you can afford to spend more, the wireless Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro earn great scores across the board and can often be found on sale for a bargain. They are powerful, with a well-balanced and expansive sound. Their active noise cancelling is far from the best in the test, but it's much better than nothing.