How to get the most out of your Alexa smart speaker for music

Amazon Alexa has a number of features and capabilities to enhance your music experience. Here’s what you need to know.

If you have an Amazon Echo or any other smart speaker, chances are you use it for music. And it makes sense: these speakers have all the hardware you need to make your music sound great, no matter where the device is placed. And having Alexa makes it easy to manage the songs you want to listen to. Just say what you want to listen to and the voice assistant will take care of the rest.

But for many Alexa users, this music experience can be faster and more audible. Here’s how to get the most out of your Alexa smart speakers for listening to music.

Choose and use your favorite speaker

You can have multiple Alexa devices in your home, between Echo Show, Echo Dots, and other screens. And if you haven’t synced them by asking you to play your favorite song at full blast, you can start playing in another room on a low-power, small Echo Dot.

Determining your favorite speaker is very easy. Just go to the Alexa app and then click on the “Devices”tab. Then select the group that contains your preferred speaker and click Select Speakers. Select the speaker(s) you want to listen to music on and click Next. Then specify if you want this to be the only speaker playing music or the only one when you are in that room.

Choose your favorite music streaming service

If you are using a service other than Amazon, namely Amazon Music, take a few seconds to change the default streaming service.

In the Alexa app, under More > Settings > Music & Podcasts > Default Services, under Music, Artists, and Stations & Podcasts, select Choose your preferred streaming service.

Now, when you play music, you don’t have to specify which service you want to play it from. If you still want to use Prime Music or Amazon Music Unlimited, you can always say “Alexa, play [song title or artist name] on Amazon Music.”

Adjust the equalizer

Newer speakers and Echo displays have an equalizer that allows you to adjust different frequency ranges of the audio signal. And to do that, just tell Alexa to boost the bass or cut the treble.

If you want to be more specific, go to the Alexa app, then click Devices > [Your Device], then click the gear icon on the top right and sound settings. From here, you can adjust the frequencies as you see fit.

Use multiroom audio

If you want your music to follow you as you move from room to room, you need to have all your Echos on the same page. Just say “Alexa, play music everywhere”to get started. If that doesn’t work, open the Alexa app, then click Devices and scroll down the page. You’ll then see a Anywhere group that you can click and edit to make sure all of your speakers are on.

Filter explicit content

When you don’t have kids, you listen to whatever you want, sometimes very loudly. On the other hand, when there are children at home, we can prevent our dear little pets from learning bad words. Fortunately, Alexa has a special filter that prevents, so to speak, from playing adult songs.

To enable this filter, in the Alexa app, tap More, then Settings, Music & Tackles, and Explicit Filter. On this screen, you can activate the filter, as well as activate voice recognition to allow voice commands to control the filter (and prevent your child from asking Alexa to turn it off).