Amazon Alexa Smart Home

How do I make the Echo Show 5 sound less like Barry White’s love child?

control bass on Echo Show 5
Bass heavy: temper Amazon's little speaker

The speaker on the dinky Echo Show 5 is surprisingly powerful, but it’s all about the bass. As one commenter on an unoffocial Amazon forum notes: “It is like the whole speaker is a sub woofer.” So how do you stop making Barry Gibb sound like Barry White?

How to control bass on the Echo Show 5

The bass-heavy nature of the Echo Show 5’s audio is due to the way the speaker is designed. All of the sound emerges from a single speaker grille which is downward facing.

That means you need to be careful about where you place the Echo Show 5. If you plonk it on something hollow, for example, you’re merely going to exacerbate the bass. You ideally want it placed on something as solid as possible – a sturdy bedside cabinet or bookshelf, for example.

There is another way to control bass on the Echo Show 5 and that’s by fiddling with the graphic equaliser.

For some reason, this control isn’t available from the Alexa app on your smartphone. Instead, you have to delve into the settings on the device itself.

Swipe down from the top of the screen, hit the Settings cog, select sounds and then look for the Equaliser setting and tap that. From here you can drag the sliders until you get the sound exactly as you like it. It’s a good idea to do this with music playing, as the sound responds live as you move the sliders.

control bass on Echo Show 5

Whilst we’re talking about sound controls, don’t forget that it’s possible to add the Echo Show 5 to an audio group with other Alexa speakers in the home. This gives you multi-room audio, allowing you to wander from room to room and have the same music or radio station playing in sync from mutliple speakers. You can set up a new audio group using the Alexa app on your smartphone.

About the author

Barry Collins

Barry has scribbled about tech for almost 20 years for The Sunday Times, PC Pro, WebUser, Which? and many others. He was once Deputy Editor of Mail Online and remains in therapy to this day. Email Barry at barry@bigtechquestion.com.

Add Comment

Click here to post a comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.