Sound quality: The Amazon Tap had just fair overall sound quality. Bass has almost no impact, mid- and lower bass are lacking, and upper bass is subdued. Midrange is thin, somewhat grainy and becomes harsh at higher volumes. Treble is smeared and sizzly, and upper treble is subdued. It does a mediocre job recovering room ambience in the mid- to upper midrange only. It also lacks fine detail and sounds somewhat congested. No significant difference between WiFi, Bluetooth and wired sound quality. Provides a decent volume level in a small- to medium-sized rooms, but is better suited for near-field listening.
Ease of use: We found the Amazon Tap's ease of use to be good overall. WiFi setup is fairly easy, since when the unit is plugged in, it verbally states to follow the app's instructions. To use the speaker, you'll need to download the Alexa App, open and sign in to your Amazon Prime account; if you don't have one, you'll need to do that first before you proceed. The instructions are intuitive, and involve selecting a wireless network and entering the network password. The instructions also include a video tutorial, which presents how to use the product. However, Bluetooth setup instructions are not as convenient: For instance, instructions are hard to find in the Alexa app's help section. Also, there's an important setup step (which uses the verbal-command method) that's blended among other phrases provided on the "Try Saying" card. Additionally, there is a Bluetooth-pairing button, which has a low-contrast label and is a multifunction button for WiFi setup. Console controls are generally obvious; volume controls are high contrast, marked +, -; and the volume controls work with WiFi, Bluetooth and with the Aux inputs. Switching between sources was not entirely seamless. Line-in use disables WiFi/Bluetooth content, and Alexa voice commands. The App is unable to switch away from line-in until it's disconnected. Otherwise, WiFi streaming has priority over Bluetooth, but the app can't switch to Bluetooth, but requires exiting the app to manually reconnect to paired Bluetooth source. Line-in is plug/unplug, with no delay and is intuitive. We experienced an app-interface latency between streamed content that is playing and the album info displayed.
