The end result —
slightly louder volume, with more highs coming through — is the same in both versions, and you still have the option to turn off Beats in the system settings.
Not exact matches
Control the
Volume — Music should be just
loud enough so that people have to talk above it
slightly.
Music sounded full - bodied, but we did note this time a
slightly tinnier quality to our test tracks, and distortion at the
loudest volume level.
Since the earpiece was never intended to get as
loud as the bottom - firing speaker, it will have
slightly lower
volume.
However, they're more than
loud enough, and sound perfectly adequate at
slightly reduced
volumes.
Using the same headpiece, speaker, amplifier and sound chip as the iPhone 6, I noticed no differences in the overall quality — though the mono speaker, located on the bottom, was
slightly louder at maximum
volume due to a
slightly bigger cage.
The second thing that's
slightly odd about the Echo Plus is that the
volume balance seems to have changed on timers and alarms, so they're now not as
loud as they used to be.