Echo - dildo discontinued by Tantus - review by Antipova

The Echo is billed as the perfect dildo for those of us that love the sensation of insertion. Five head-edge ripples make up the shaft, so you'll feel the satisfaction of five ridges with every thrust. An included bullet placed in the hole in the base of the Echo makes vibration possible, though the sensations from thrusting are stimulating enough on their own.

The Echo is 18cm tall, with about 15.5cm insertable. Most of my dildos are glass, so I gulped and wondered what I had gotten myself into when I saw that the widest head (the top one) was 4cm in diameter. Luckily, silicone is squishable enough that insertion was a breeze, and I didn't have any trouble accommodating the girth. The ridges are gradually smaller continuing down the shaft, and the smallest head is just under 3cm.
Each ridge is most pronounced along the "front" of the dildo, and each smoothes toward the back, so the Echo has one ridged side and one smooth side. The ridges feel most natural pointing up (toward the belly button), but they are just as stimulating when flipped over, providing a massage to the back of the vaginal canal. I have not used this anally as the head seems too broad for comfortable insertion for me, though I expect the sensations would be wonderful for those who care to try.

Tantus makes the Echo as they make all their products: of the highest quality body safe materials, with functional and beautiful designs, in America. My Echo is molded from gorgeous swirled copper platinum-cured silicone, which can be cleaned with soap and water for regular use, or sterilized with a 10% bleach solution or boiling water when switching users or orifices. The slick glossy silicone likely won't need much lube, but water-based lubes will work well if you desire, and silicone lubes can be spot-tested on the underside of the base before use. Because silicone picks up lint, keep the Echo in a Ziplock bag.

As a lover of insertion, I had high hopes for the Echo, and it has lived up to them completely. The first time I used it, I was disappointed because the ridges seemed more subtle in use than I had been hoping for. I think this was a combination of me not being used to the "give" in silicone, and the fact that I had had sex recently. (This can work the other way, too—if you think you'd like the Echo but are a little intimidated by new textures, have a few orgasms by another method first, and the Echo will slip in easily.)

After that first ho-hum use, though, the ridges have really wowed me in the way I expected them to. The Echo feels best when sloooowly fully thrusted (another reviewer compared this sensation to a "gentle chainsaw," and that's an apt analogy), or when it's quickly shallowly thrusted. I have had my favorite Echo orgasms this way—the head of the Echo fills me up and puts pressure on all the right spots deep inside, and I can thrust enough to feel the fifth ridge penetrate again and again.

There are only two things I would change about the Echo. Because the vibrations are not important for me, I tried using the Echo with no bullet. Then, though, the shaft had far too much give at the bottom, and I couldn't get very much pressure from the bottom ridges. I either use the Echo with the bullet inserted but not turned on, or with my finger in the bullet hole to fill it up. Both of these hacks are a trifle annoying, but not enough to make me overlook the Echo when I want to feel its delicious sensation. (As an aside, if you do like vibration, the Echo carries them up to the top quite effectively.) My other mild complaint is that the base is just a bit too small, both in diameter and thickness. If you stand it on your desk, a light breeze is enough to topple it over. I also think it would slip out of a harness too easily to make harness play successful.

Despite these small complaints, I am just as happy with my Echo as I had hoped I would be. The wonderful sensation of penetration again and again is even worth getting Bing Crosby stuck in my head each time it catches my eye.

My biggest (well, only) complaint about the Echo I bought last spring was that, if the bullet wasn't inserted, the lower portion of the dildo was too easy to squeeze.

I must not have been the only one, because Tantus listened to us and made a huge improvement! Tantus thickened up the base to make it able to stand on its own easily, and to improve its performance in harnesses. While they were doing that, they beefed up the bullethole---it is now deeper to let the vibrations for those who want them penetrate the Echo more fully, and it is also reinforced to allow for a sturdier overall design.

Comparing my old, copper Echo with my new, pearly white Echo:



And a closeup of the new bullethole (actually taken of the Flex, another 5-star Tantus toy):




So if you were on the fence due to floppiness before, get off the fence and get an Echo! They're sturdier now!