I’ll answer this, as I just sold around 4 OG HomePods in preparation for the 4 midnight HomePods on the way.
I trust that the sound quality will be as good or only slightly worse than the originals, any upgrade in any way is a nice bonus but not why I’m buying these.
I’m buying these for their up-to-date (relatively speaking of course…) chipset and functional parity with my 4 minis.
It was very annoying not having the U1 in my OG HomePods.
It was annoying that OG HomePods, while mine were all still functional, eventually conk out, and one that I had was starting to ‘maybe’ develop the popping/hissing issue once a week.
A renewal on the chance to add AppleCare to each of them is welcome too. In case these also have issues.
Any other questions? This only scratches the surface of why I’m upgrading all at once.
I made around $700 selling them. Pays for 2 out of my new 4.
Savvy.
The truth is I believe that even with reduced tweeters and mics, this HomePod is going to sound significantly better to this trained ear.
I don’t know about everyone else’s ear but not everybody is a music producer.