Amazon launches high-end smart speaker Echo Studio for $199

Amazon is looking for a piece of the audiophile market.

At its product debut event in Seattle Wednesday, the Everything Company unveiled a new smart speaker in its line of Alexa-enabled Echo products: the Echo Studio.

Rather than “directional sound” (where music plays in the direction the speaker is pointing), the Echo Studio will come equipped with “3D sound.” This is a feature, utilizing Dolby Atmos technology, that uses speakers to take a digital sonic read of a room, and calibrates its music output to fill every space accordingly.

It’s also a feature boasted by high end speaker-maker Sonos. Amazon rival Apple says its HomePod also calibrates its output to fit the space (though their process is technically different from 3D sound). Still, we can’t help but see a similarity…

Amazon is also hoping that this new device might get some folks on the Amazon HD Music train with the promise of high fidelity tunes. It says it’s been working with various music licensing companies to “make music available from Amazon’s HD Music.”

The Echo Studio is available for pre-order at $199.99. For anyone keeping track, that’s $100 less than HomePod.