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The Splendid Harman Kardon Allure - Alexa Speaker - Reviewed!
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May 29, 2025
Now that third party companies are releasing voice-activated speakers that include Amazon Alexa, it's possible to get a speaker that has far better sound than an Echo. Top of the charts for that is the splendid Harman Kardon "Allure" speaker. With a distinctive design that would fit into even the highest end home or executive office, it offers excellent sound. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ checks out the Allure and finds it's quite impressive though with a couple of hiccups. Learn more: http://amzn.to/2DoaaTb
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0:00
is this the best Alexa powered speaker
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on the market let's find out Dave Taylor
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here and I'm looking at audio gear this
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time of looking at voice-activated
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speakers and this is the Harman Kardon
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allure and it is not only a Bluetooth
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speaker with great sound but it has
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Alexa built into it so that's really
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cool let's give it a try
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now I had to mute it so it wouldn't keep
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reacting to everything I said but Alexa
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tell me a joke
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why are ghosts so popular at parties
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because they always bring the booze I
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will say I would not get an Alexa
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because you really like good jokes not
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it's strong point but as you can see it
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works great and what's nice is that it
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actually you know ties into the whole
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Alexa system so if you have
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voice-activated lights as we do if you
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have a voice-activated lock thermostat
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whatever it is there's so many devices
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that are now in the Alexa or echo
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universe that you can control all of
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them this is the only one that you would
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need now it is let me tell you a little
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bit about it it has 360 degrees sound
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and far-field recognition which means
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you can be across the house or across
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your apartment or across your office and
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you can yell at it and it hears you and
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it will actually process it more
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impressively it can do that even when
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it's playing music so you can have music
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on and you can say Alexa stop and it
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will actually stop which is pretty sweet
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works with bluetooth 4.2 bluetooth feels
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a little bit after the fact in fact even
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the Bluetooth buttons on the very back
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here which is a little clumsy as a
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location but once you've paired it once
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then it is easy to work with afterwards
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so that's cool on the top you can see
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there's a pause play button in the
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middle and then there's the mute button
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which I'm using right now so that it's
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not reacting to every time I say the
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word Alexa and then there's volume
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controls and you can adjust the volume
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so let's go ahead and I'm going to
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actually use bluetooth to push some
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music
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to it mostly because by doing it that
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way I don't have to worry about rights
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to songs off of something like Spotify
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so let's give it a whirl
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[Music]
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okay and now from the app gets loud and
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not only does it get loud but it
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actually because there's a subwoofer on
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the bottom that it actually makes the
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whole surface that it's on reverberate
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so that's pretty cool actually and
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here's the thing is the sound is really
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excellent I mean this is the best
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sounding speaker I've heard yet that
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works within the Alexa universe and
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that's really really nice because prior
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to this I was saying that the Sonos one
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was the best but this kind of wins out
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it's even better sounding now how does
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it do that it's a 60 watt speaker with
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338 millimeter transducers and a 90
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millimeter subwoofer all built into this
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thing now it's pretty heavy it's
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five-and-a-half pounds so this is not a
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speaker you're gonna throw in your
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backpack and take to your class that
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would be a little crazy but boy does it
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sound good now before we talk about the
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price let me just ask if you can click
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on that subscribe button that'd be super
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helpful now the price I know that the
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standard Amazon echo device the series -
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at least it's 99 bucks you can get a dot
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for 49 bucks it's all coming down and
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being less and less expensive but here's
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the reality they don't sound that great
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this one sounds fantastic this Harman
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Kardon is really really nice and they
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come at it from decades of experience
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building speakers so they know exactly
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what they're doing here and it has a
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price tag to match it's two hundred and
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forty nine ninety nine so it's pretty
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spendy this Harman Kardon allure but if
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you're looking for great sound I gotta
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say this is a really good strong solid
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sound that really gives you this huge
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space fill and you could have this in an
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office in a dorm room you could have
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this in a cavity
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area and it would give you great music I
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mean this is a really nice system and
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because it works with the whole echo
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ecosystem it means that it works really
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well with your smart home smart office
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smart dorm room smart apartment smart
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condo whatever it is that you're making
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smart this thing's gonna do a nice job
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with it
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now my only criticism is that it does
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have a built-in light system that
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designs really cool and the only way you
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can turn off the internal light if you
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don't want it to be a little nightlight
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is you have to go into the Harman Kardon
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Alexa app and then you turn it off from
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in there and I find that a little
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tedious I really want to be able to say
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to the device turn off your light but it
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unfortunately doesn't actually know that
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it has a light so so much for smart
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systems right trade-offs anyway Harman
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Kardon tular really big fan it's
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definitely worth checking out if you
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have some gift cards too and you really
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want to get into the echo world but you
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want to get something that actually
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sounds really good this is an excellent
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choice so this is Dave Taylor and I'll
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catch you in the next video
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[Music]
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