Non Audiophile Speakers for Amazon Echo Dot?

I received my Echo Dot recently and it's been kind of amazing how naturally it's integrated into my life. Even simple stuff like being able to control the exact brightness of my lights, the volume of whatever music's playing, and asking about the current weather totally makes it worth the $50.

I have it hooked up to Spotify at the moment and am looking to get some wireless Bluetooth speakers to help improve the sound quality a bit. Some of the B&O stuff seems to look good, like this one which was recommended for the Echo on Reddit: https://www.amazon.com/PLAY-BANG-OL...&qid=1464026092&sr=8-34&keywords=b+and+o+play

The issue with the Dot is there's no way for it to control audio on a separate source, so the output of the Dot is what we're stuck with. I already have a pair of Joey Roth ceramic speakers that I'm pretty happy with, but I'd like to reserve that for more serious listening and home theater/gaming stuff, so I'm really just looking for something cheaper and in a convenient form factor for casual listening off the Dot.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Why not audiophile?

Don't get hung up on end to end, wall to wall deep-phile audio. The better the speakers, the better the noise that comes out.

But... bought a UE Miniboom that my wife uses with her tablet. Sometimes I say, "turn that off, tell me the URL and I'll play it from the PC into proper speakers..." but sometimes I don't. Because it's better than something that sits on the palm of a hand should be. But it ain't audiophile. And my phone still sounds better out of HD600s.

But there is some allegedly relatively serious bluetooth stuff that I've seen rave reviews of. Riva Audio. Oh! I see substantial price drop too. I'd even try one of shipping to India didn't rule it out!

 

I actually realized that I should have removed the "non-audiophile" part of the title as soon as I hit the post button, because you're absolutely right. Better is better and if there ARE more serious speakers that fit my form factor requirements then why not??

I'll be honest, when it comes to speakers, which in my mind also serve the dual purpose of acting as attractive, pieces of furniture for your living space (hence the premium I spent on the Joey Roth speakers), I'm definitely biased toward the ones that have a bit more emphasis on the exterior industrial design. I tend to gravitate toward products that evoke the styles of guys like Dieter Rams, Charles & Ray Eames, and to go more modern, guys like Konstantin Grcic and the themes of Danish Modern and New Nordic. Four years of hardcore industrial design education means that, for me, form and function are inseparable qualities to shoot for.

That being said, the Riva Turbo X certainly has handsome-enough exterior styling (though I wish they didn't feel the need to plaster their name on every surface) and it sounds like the audio quality is pretty unmatched in the Bluetooth speaker department, based on a few sources including this Head-Fi thread: http://www.head-fi.org/t/764001/rev...bile-bluetooth-speaker-plus-headquarters-tour. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Also, upon further reading it does sound like the build quality of the B/O Beoplay S3 leaves something to be desired (http://gadgetmac.com/reviews/bang-olufsen-beoplay-s3-review) and the SQ seems passable but nothing spectacular.

Generally I've been having a bit of a harder time finding reliable audiophile-centric information in the small form factor/wireless speaker realm. If we can get significantly better sound quality out of an Echo Dot, let's say we opened up our choices to include small-ish, single-unit, wired speakers as well. How good does sound quality get for single unit speakers and how pretty can we get in the aesthetics department?

 

Me too. These things have to be lived with! It might be more important when it's a pair of larger floor standers (I gravitate towards light oak ) but we still have to look at them as well as listen to to them.

It seems that, for international shipping, I have to buy Riva from Amazon.com, and, a quick look shows them not having the $100-off deal that might make these things a no-brainer-not-much-to-loose, give-it-a-try deal. So I'll have to wait and see what someone else thinks of them.