I think the biggest problem is that suddenly, testing and environment and tech etc is of immense concern when reviewing these speakers, where all the many product reviews before were taken at face value (by those likely complaining now).
It's a consumer speaker, so why all of a sudden are people demanding full audiophile/studio precision in speaker testing and reviewing?
I love how Apple's product messaging gets people debating the flaws evident in the review and experiences of their product categories because Apple has introduced terminology to people that they a) never cared about previously (though already existing) and b) don't likely understand or appreciably recognise going forward otherwise. Apple are very good at making people suddenly aware of important things they had no idea about, would not recognise/understand, or cared for previously...
It's pretty simple why people don't like it, and it's obvious why it's not selling well.
The Homepod does not have an aux cord.
The Homepod does not allow you to use its onboard bluetooth 5.0 hardware to play music from another device
The Homepod does not allow you to play spotify, unless you play it from an airplay-equipped device (so not android without a workaround), which means you cannot ask it to play spotify at all, or for that matter, play any other service except their own.
Many reviews are reporting a lack of features in the homepod's Siri, as well as poor performance of existing features.
I agree with you when you say apple is great at getting people to care about things that nobody cared about before. Are you suggesting that those things actually matter? Do you believe apple is getting people to care about these things out of an abundance of compassion and drive to educate the masses? I think it's more plausible that Apple will get their customers to care about whatever leads them to purchase products from Apple.
It's a consumer speaker, priced on par with professional (albeit entry level, but still professional) hardware. It's no wonder apple is offering these at 50% off to employees. That is the only reason there is one sitting at my house right now, because at that price it's worth it as a speaker, despite the shortcomings.
> I think it's more plausible that Apple will get their customers to care about whatever leads them to purchase products from Apple.
I also think this. Apple definitely do not want to truly educate, as that would lead to people moving off their products into the genuine enthusiast space.
Well, to tell you the truth, I pulled that out of my ass. I have no idea if the Homepod is selling well. I am basing this on the fact that Apple allows employees a 50% discount, something they do not do for any other product other than the Apple Watch (as far as I know or can tell). This, in addition to the litany of poor reviews, leads me to believe the Homepod isn't doing so well. I can't be sure, though.
> We completely reimagined how music should sound in the home. HomePod combines Apple-engineered audio technology and advanced software to deliver the highest-fidelity sound throughout the room, anywhere it’s placed.
Give me strength. I'd need a bucket to read any more.
Yeah exactly my point. People are now going to start arguing that the reviews are not 'audiophile' enough, even though the audiophile field has far more specific focus than what most people can appreciate considering hearing ability, genre interests, environment, past experiences and technical understanding.
Basically Apple's formula: take something from an 'enthusiast' level of a product. Build a reasonable quality thing around that, slap on a 'upper consumer/lower enthusiast' price on it and market it as the 'the coolest thing of these ever made' and...
You get all the mostly regular consumers suddenly arguing in the between space: they are better than all the other regular consumers but too cool to be an enthusiast nerd. GG Apple.
I will tell you the problem with it. It's 350 dollars, and at the point you are getting into the entry price for a pair of studio monitors.
The thing has 7 tweeters and only one woofer to cover the mids and bass. So you are not going to get a good left or right channel. Instead the left and right will be mixed into one woofer, and the reduced by probably 3 db to appear at the same volume.
Near field studio monitors are good for making great audio in a small volume. With a well designed room they can work for larger areas. I use $2k of monitors to get really good reproduction in a volume of about 1 cubic meter. Outside that it gets weird.
The HomePod sounds good across two rooms with a volume of about 150 cubic meters. That’s pretty amazing. (80% open between the rooms)
A single HomePod gives an interesting stereo experience. There is some separation in the middle and high end. Lows don’t separate well. It is a pleasant listening experience, but not the same as well placed stereo gear with a listener in the sweet spot.
You can buy a pair of, say, Yamaha HS8 for AU$740, add a cheap secondhand sub for under $250, and they will do a mighty fine job in a living room, in my opinion.
For at least a little while longer, Massdrop is selling pairs of JBL LSR-305 equivalents for $179.
(Equivalent because they're marked as LSR-30x, are available only in glossy black finish, and pairs are matched to within 1dB of each other.)
So for half the cost of a HomePod, you get really nice stereo speakers, with built-in amplification, but no room correction, no Siri, and no built-in networking or microphones listening to you.
The future is tiny speakers crammed in a tiny box in the corner of the room, "beamforming" 7 tweeters worth of tinny sound in every direction for $350!!
Get out of here with your properly placed stereo speakers!!
I don't think a single home pod claims to produce separate channels. Looking at their animation it distributes ambient sound throughout (I assume the stuff through the mid-range woofer) and focuses the highs into the center of the room (through constructive/destructive interference between the 7 tweeters I guess).
Not arguing it's a good or bad speaker. Haven't heard it and already have a nice speaker setup in my LR. Would be nice if the homepod had a sub out.
Some of the reviews have been mixed. The Screen Savers tried a blind sound test of several devices, and there wasn't a clear winner, everyone had different favorites (which is probably not what you'd expect from Apple's marketing, I personally had expected an obvious improvement over competitors). Jumping straight to the results in the video:
The Screen Savers aren't the only one to have done a blind sound test where the HomePod lost to the Google Home Max. Yahoo's David Pogue[1] and the Washington Post[2] also did blind sound tests.
You can also just buy single monitor, and it will sounds good. However, you will loose the difference between the right and left audio channels especially if you mix the two channels into one.
I am saying for the money you could get a pair of monitors that give you both left and right audio channels and sounds good.
If your playing music, but not really setting up a listening environment why buy a 350 dollar speaker. Let alone one that downmixes stero to mono channel.
My understanding going in, and experience with the studio monitors I have bought, was that they are built specifically for listening at optimal angles and distance only.
I have seen how sonos and other wireless products are used - to fill a room with sound. That's it - they aren't looking for stereo separation, they want a nice sounding... pa system.
There are needs beyond sound quality and price. I replaced stand-mounted KEFs with a Google Home because my baby seemed like she was going to climb the speakers.
It's so funny how people aren't talking about those things. This is such a disposable product.
Also it won't work for video. For $350 you could buy a complete entry level surround system that would be so much better than this, and have the bonus that it works for video and won't be completely useless when Apple decides they want everyone to buy the latest shiny trinket.
But of course that doesn't fit into the Apple consumers' aesthetic because it has wires and the speakers need to be adequately placed, not one tiny box in a corner. Aesthetics over everything apparently.
Homepod is the epitome of form over function - so far from something I'd consider buying, it's crazy.
For me the biggest problems with the HomePod are that (a) for the same price you can have a stereo pair of Sonos Ones and (b) I haven't found a surround sound or center channel story for the HomePod a la Sonos soundbar/base station + Sonos Ones.
Going from point source to multiple sources makes a very substantial difference.
I'm very curious about just how much DSP magic the HomePod is doing (as opposed to what's physical enclosure magic), since in playing with my Sonoses I can't spot a huge effect from their TruePlay tuning in most configurations I've tried out. It's there, but minor sounding for most typical arrangements - perhaps it would be greater if I tried more and more sub-optimal placements, but trying to sabotage my setup isn't my ultimate goal. ;)
If Apple let the DSP be shut off so it could be measured that would be interesting from a technical perspective, but should it actually affect the reviews? If anything, the HomePod makes reviews better if now reviewers are actively aware that they should think about what it'll sound like in the user's room vs in an ideal layout.
1. The quality is better than a pair of Sonos One.
2. AirPlay2 will support multiple units.
3. All of the magic behind the HomePod is in the software. Otherwise it is just a bunch of tweeters in a circular shape and a woofer. It's the software that determines what each tweeter is going to output and the strength of the woofer output.
4. The reviews I've read have been careful about not just testing the HomePod in ideal conditions. Since the ability to "just work" in non ideal conditions is what the entire device is designed for.
Anyway all of this is moot. Sound quality is important but more so this is an ecosystem play. HomePod reinforces investments in HomeKit and iOS.
I've seen as many reviews contradicting your first point as supporting it. Distributed source vs point source - the Sonos's have a huge advantage out of the gate in terms of ambience and imaging, and adding additional units helps with volume and quality as well.
I've seen a lot of talk about stereo AirPlay but not about surround. What would you use as the center channel, another homepod? That would look awkward, though sound fine.
The enclosure has always been a huge part of speaker design. The software side, ever since the computing power got cheap enough to enable stuff like Audyssey, has been a newer but not unheard-of part. Apple would be fools if they didn't optimize the physical design of the speaker as much as the software side.
Ecosystem lock in only works if you have a reason for me to buy a HomePod to use with my iPad instead of a Sonos in the first place. Sonos+Alexa+iPad works perfectly fine for me, so...
I'm thinking of getting one. I have a nice stereo in the room but my wife would rather use the crappy $20 Alexa puck because its easier just for 10 minutes of music. Drives me nuts. At least with a HomePod I wont have to listen to tinny tunes.
I took advantage of holiday sales to replace the girlfriend’s pair of Dots and outfit every room of our homes with better Alexa-enabled speakers. Everyone in our households are listening to music more often and the sound experience is alright as each speaker is covering a smaller space, but more importantly, we’ve got everything Alexa offers, everywhere.
I’m curious to see what Apple’s ultimate strategy is. Will they push into lower-end products to get Siri into more places, open Siri up to 3rd-party devices, or is an expensive music player that happens to also be a voice assistant be as far as they go?
As invested as I now am in Alexa hardware, I’m willing to give Siri a shot. $350 for a HomePod in rooms I consider most important isn’t terrible... but to me it’s a non-starter without less premium options for other rooms. I want one voice assistant to rule my home.
Why not spend your $350 on a device that can hook into the nice stereo in the room that is easy for the wife to use? Then you get even better sound with probably less money outlay.
One of those programmable universal remotes might help as well? So it's one button to get to tunes.
Its the thing with these devices are always on and hands free. There is a big difference between a voice command and one button. To me I'd push the button every time, but to others these devices are preferred.
HomePod works, requires no maintenance, and sounds great. No one has time to dick around with custom one off solutions that require rebooting, tweaking, and is less reliable except single guys who want to spend half the time fixing something vs. using it.
a wife has no time nor tolerance for half ass home baked tech.
> a wife has no time nor tolerance for half ass home baked tech.
Apparently wives differ, because my partner has proved to be capable of pressing a couple of buttons on a remote, and is rewarded with better quality sound from better speakers.
Also that comes with the added bonus that I don't have to buy a $350 device that is going to be completely useless in a couple of years when Apple decides it won't support the only proprietary, closed way to persuade it to actually perform it's sole function which is to emit music, so all the lucky s̶h̶e̶e̶p customers are forced to purchase the next shiny disposable trinket.
Homepod is a completely throwaway product, something that embodies the worst aspects of our society, a disposable object for a myopic consumer.
You wold be amazed how the tiniest amount of UX friction can eliminate that as an option. My wife agrees that the speakers and amp in the living room sound way better but would choose a home pod (if we had one) even though she only has to press two buttons.
I think of the home pod much like air pods just serve a different function. Sure there are better sounding headphones for 160$ but I personally still use them all the time over my studio headphones because of the better usability, form factor, and aesthetics.
I would love to buy a pair, but until they can be used with video, I'm staying on the sidelines. Customers report noticeable audio delay that makes them unsuitable for usage with videos. I watch TV (via laptop or laptop-to-TV) in every room where I would consider buying a HomePod. I'm not going to drop hundreds of dollars on a speaker for music if it can't also be used with video.
Airplay 1 currently has a built in delay of 2 seconds (its an old protocol). Airplay 2 will be released later this year and will fix this problem. For video it will not be suitable unless you use an apple tv which automatically corrects teh latency.
Then on the sidelines I shall remain...unless perhaps Airfoil comes up with an ingenious solution to this predicament! But given the ratings and relative price of the Sonos—and their current compatibility with both audio and video, from what my friends tell me—maybe I'll spring for a pair of Ones.
It's a consumer speaker, so why all of a sudden are people demanding full audiophile/studio precision in speaker testing and reviewing?
I love how Apple's product messaging gets people debating the flaws evident in the review and experiences of their product categories because Apple has introduced terminology to people that they a) never cared about previously (though already existing) and b) don't likely understand or appreciably recognise going forward otherwise. Apple are very good at making people suddenly aware of important things they had no idea about, would not recognise/understand, or cared for previously...