Apple Releases New 11.4 Software for the HomePod Enabling Stereo Support, Multi-Room Audio Through AirPlay 2

[gthorson]

With stereo? My single HomePod now sounds terrible. Base has disappeared. Have genius appointment tomorrow.

Nope. I just have a single AirPod and it sounds much better after 11.4. 11.3 seriously worsened the sound from factory installs.

 

[Azmazz]

In music (except for the few songs that pan left/right, which is generally just a gimmick as they can’t reproduce this effect in a live concert) there isn’t any sound that necessarily has to come from the left opt right .

Not at all - stereo is pretty important

Live Music is recorded in stereo.

Music is mixed and produced in stereo on stereo equipment , and should be played back in stereo for the best results.

 

[ersan191]

Not at all - stereo is pretty important

Live Music is recorded in stereo.

Music is mixed and produced in stereo on stereo equipment , and should be played back in stereo for the best results.

Cool dude, you're entitled to your opinion. I prefer Apple's near/far approach over left/right stereo when listening to music.
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Wrong. It sounds fine. We have a mono HomePod attached to an Apple TV in one room and it sounds great. Music is mixed in L/R stereo (because that's the most common denominator) to simulate width and depth, and to a lesser extent height. These are all things that the HomePod doesn't have to simulate because it's capable of projecting sound.

AirPods aren’t a bad idea for one person, but I don’t know if you can have two separate pairs connected at the same time to an Apple TV like you can do with two hopelids via AirPlay 2.

You completely missed the point... I meant that having one HomePod off to one side and behind you (on a nightstand) would sound bad, which it does. One HomePod is fine for TV/Movies as long as you're OK with mono sound, just don't put it behind and to the right of you. The poster I was responding to wanted to listen to the TV while his wife was sleeping.

 

[Mac 128]

AirPods aren’t a bad idea for one person, but I don’t know if you can have two separate pairs connected at the same time to an Apple TV like you can do with two hopelids via AirPlay 2.

This is the biggest problem I have with Apple taking away the headphone jack on the iPhone, and pushing AirPods. You can't share stereo music. I thought AirPlay 2 was going to address that issue for BlueTooth as well, since BT is a component of AP. Guess not. The TV ad where the girl puts one of her AirPods in the ear of a guy she meets on the street, and brings him into her mono fantasy world, half washed out by street noise in the exposed ear really hit this home for me. Hopefully that's on Apple's radar for the near future. Headphones must be able to share the source material with others.

 

[ersan191]

This is the biggest problem I have with Apple taking away the headphone jack on the iPhone, and pushing AirPods. You can't share stereo music. I thought AirPlay 2 was going to address that issue for BlueTooth as well, since BT is a component of AP. Guess not. The TV ad where the girl puts one of her AirPods in the ear of a guy she meets on the street, and brings him into her mono fantasy world, half washed out by street noise in the exposed ear really hit this home for me. Hopefully that's on Apple's radar for the near future. Headphones must be able to share the source material with others.

This was/is a limitation of Bluetooth 4.0 - Samsung’s Galaxy S9 has Bluetooth 5.0 and/or some proprietary wizardry to connect two headsets at once. Apple will get there eventually I’m sure.

 

[Regime2008]

Not at all - stereo is pretty important

Live Music is recorded in stereo.

Music is mixed and produced in stereo on stereo equipment , and should be played back in stereo for the best results.

Watch how apples new headphones will be mono, with homepod adulterated sound. All the die hard Fanboys will claim how much better it is than stereo sound lol.

 

[ErikGrim]

You’re taking one anecdotal story from someone on a forum as proof... of anything? I have two HomePod hooked up to my ATV and it works & sounds great. No reason to hesitate. The sound is a night & day improvement.

I have two HomePods connected to my AppleTV and while it certainly sounds great, no UI or game sounds - only video and music, being sent to them makes it a non-starter for me.

 

[Mac 128]

Watch how apples new headphones will be mono, with homepod adulterated sound. All the die hard Fanboys will claim how much better it is than stereo sound lol.

iTunes has always had some weird stereo remix, combining L&R channels such that there’s a little bleed between the channels. Made iTunes useless when I needed strict stereo separation, like a click track on L and program material on R. Never could figure out how to disable that “feature”, or why anyone would want it.

 

[Regime2008]

iTunes has always had some weird stereo remix, combining L&R channels such that there’s a little bleed between the channels. Made iTunes useless when I needed strict stereo separation, like a click track on L and program material on R. Never could figure out how to disable that “feature”, or why anyone would want it.

Maybe they were doing this in preparation for the homepod. Because it doesn't make sense at all. The tracks are recorded a certain way for a reason.

 

[tubular]

Yay! I'll buy a second one now.

 

[ErikGrim]

iTunes has always had some weird stereo remix, combining L&R channels such that there’s a little bleed between the channels. Made iTunes useless when I needed strict stereo separation, like a click track on L and program material on R. Never could figure out how to disable that “feature”, or why anyone would want it.

Uhm, what? Are you using Sound Enhancer perhaps?

 

[ersan191]

I have two HomePods connected to my AppleTV and while it certainly sounds great, no UI or game sounds - only video and music, being sent to them makes it a non-starter for me.

I wish they could just fix the latency - I don’t see what the big deal is... there are plenty of other low-latency audio processors out there.

 

[Gorms]

I now have two. Stereo sounds absolutely fantastic.

The release of new unannounced features (like Calendar support) on HomePod a week before WWDC doesn’t bode well for any further announcements for HomePod at the conference.

Hopefully, when demoing iOS 12, some features relevant to HomePod like an expansion of SiriKit, they’ll mention it’s availability on HomePod too.

Yeah, as I see it, most updates to HomePod should tie into integrations announced for tvOS/iOS, hopefully WatchOS, and should be ensuring parity with any new Siri capabilities. Not a whole bunch to talk about with a HomePod dedicated section separately beyond that at this point if it’s not a new device in the range, which I don’t expect.
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Same, I am in the UK and I have not seen any discounts.

Sorry, only just saw this. EE in UK through their mybenefits site. They have a 20% code for all audio equipment. Click through to store, order a HomePod, add code, boom.
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Watch how apples new headphones will be mono, with homepod adulterated sound. All the die hard Fanboys will claim how much better it is than stereo sound lol.

AirPods already mix to mono when you only use one of them. It sounds good, but you really notice the difference when you pop a second one in later. Then they sound great.

 

[ipedro]

It turns out this update broke my HomePod’s ability to hear me over music. The microphones appear overall to be much weaker. My HomePod only hears “Hey Siri” when I speak loudly. Previously, it could hear me even if I spoke in a normal voice with loud music playing.

Anyone else having this problem?

 

[k2k koos]

All this multiroom stuff is nice of course, but nowhere have I seen any tech specs on Airplay 2, what I am interested in is if the quality of the audio format has improved over the 16bit / 48kHz resolution in the original Airplay, to something closer to HiRes audio formats (24bit/96kHz), or are we still restricted there, so basically has airplay 2 gone for quantity over quality? I would hope with the support of various manufacturers of ' better HiFi' equipment, this would be the case, who can shed some light on this?

 

[ersan191]

All this multiroom stuff is nice of course, but nowhere have I seen any tech specs on Airplay 2, what I am interested in is if the quality of the audio format has improved over the 16bit / 48kHz resolution in the original Airplay, to something closer to HiRes audio formats (24bit/96kHz), or are we still restricted there, so basically has airplay 2 gone for quantity over quality? I would hope with the support of various manufacturers of ' better HiFi' equipment, this would be the case, who can shed some light on this?

I know airplay 2 supports lots of different formats and bitdepths/sample rates. I don’t know what iOS is using, though - my guess is ALAC but I don’t know the rates.

This is the technical presentation on AirPlay 2:
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/509/

 

[k2k koos]

I know airplay 2 supports lots of different formats and bitdepths/sample rates. I don’t know what iOS is using, though - my guess is ALAC but I don’t know the rates.

This is the technical presentation on AirPlay 2:
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/509/

Thanks, I'd find that before and all he says is ' all platform supported formats', with a few examples on the screen, but even the examples show no higher bit depths and sample rates, so I am not much encouraged by that...

 

[ErikGrim]

I wish they could just fix the latency - I don’t see what the big deal is... there are plenty of other low-latency audio processors out there.

Especially since I can play games on my AirPods just fine. How is plain Bluetooth latency free enough to trust with game/ui audio and not the brand new AP2?

 

[ipedro]

It turns out this update broke my HomePod’s ability to hear me over music. The microphones appear overall to be much weaker. My HomePod only hears “Hey Siri” when I speak loudly. Previously, it could hear me even if I spoke in a normal voice with loud music playing.

Anyone else having this problem?

This appears to be a known bug. I unplugged my HomePod to restart it and it seems to be working normally again. My HomePod can once again here me whispering "Hey Siri" with loud music playing. It's an incredible feat of microphone engineering and it was frustrating when it was gone.

 

[Azmazz]

This appears to be a known bug. I unplugged my HomePod to restart it and it seems to be working normally again. My HomePod can once again here me whispering "Hey Siri" with loud music playing. It's an incredible feat of microphone engineering and it was frustrating when it was gone.

You “whisper” to Siri !!

 

[James_C]

I have been impressed with HomePod. I had a house with a mixture on Sonos pre HomePod, a Playbar, Sonos Play:5 and Sonos Play:1’s. However all my Sonos kit was 1st Gen, so won’t support Airplay 2, unless I buy second Gen Sonos kit. I already subscribe to Apple Music and originally bought a single HomePod to see how I Liked it. Was very impressed with a single unit. It revealed stuff on tracks I had been listening to for years. A single HomePod outperforms Sonos Play:1 and is about the same as a Play:5. Recently got a second HomePod and paired it with the original one as a Stereo setup and quite frankly was blown away by the audio quality, 3D staging is amazing. The rest of my Sonos kit has now gone on eBay.

 

[BeatCrazy]

So I repurposed an old Apple TV 4 as an AirPlay 2 destination as a dedicated source to feed my backyard patio. I got a $20 HDMI-extractor from Amazon, and use optical to feed my multi-zone receiver.

I used my HomePod and Siri on the iPhone/iPad to "Play Jimi Hendrix in the backyard" and it worked pretty well.

My question: are there any recommended settings or best practices for using an Apple TV 4 as an AirPlay destination "headless"? I changed the Audio output to 16-bit. I'm just concerned that due to HDCP or some other witchcraft, I may end up with a scenario where I lose audio output and this will frustrate my family who will use Siri to interact with it.

Previously, I was doing something similar with an AirPort Express, which was pretty stable. But of course the AE doesn't support AirPlay 2, which is pretty useful in my house.

 

[sidewinder3000]

This is the biggest problem I have with Apple taking away the headphone jack on the iPhone, and pushing AirPods. You can't share stereo music. I thought AirPlay 2 was going to address that issue for BlueTooth as well, since BT is a component of AP. Guess not. The TV ad where the girl puts one of her AirPods in the ear of a guy she meets on the street, and brings him into her mono fantasy world, half washed out by street noise in the exposed ear really hit this home for me. Hopefully that's on Apple's radar for the near future. Headphones must be able to share the source material with others.

That is a great point. Seeing the great new interface for Airplay 2, I see no reason why they couldn’t implement something similar for Bluetooth. Could be a technological limitation of the current Bluetooth standard for AirPods, but my understanding is that the next Bluetooth standard will allow dozens of devices to be linked, so maybe that will be what’s needed.

I love my Airpods, but sharing in stereo, whether on a jog with my wife so we can hear the same music or with a friend on a plane so you can share a movie on my iPad, would be great.
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I have two HomePods connected to my AppleTV and while it certainly sounds great, no UI or game sounds - only video and music, being sent to them makes it a non-starter for me.

The improvements with two HomePods is really incredible, especially in stereo, but I had no idea that the blips in bloops of the Apple TV UI do not play through them. I can’t speak to gaming, and my guess is that perhaps the speed of it isn’t appropriate for Bluetooth? That’s beyond my knowledge technically. But I cannot imagine why the UI sounds don’t play through them. That is really weird.

In my fantasy world, there is someone at Apple that pours over the MacRumors forums, and takes copious notes on all of our concerns.

 

[Mac 128]

That is a great point. Seeing the great new interface for Airplay 2, I see no reason why they couldn’t implement something similar for Bluetooth. Could be a technological limitation of the current Bluetooth standard for AirPods, but my understanding is that the next Bluetooth standard will allow dozens of devices to be linked, so maybe that will be what’s needed.

I love my Airpods, but sharing in stereo, whether on a jog with my wife so we can hear the same music or with a friend on a plane so you can share a movie on my iPad, would be great.
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The improvements with two HomePods is really incredible, especially in stereo, but I had no idea that the blips in bloops of the Apple TV UI do not play through them. I can’t speak to gaming, and my guess is that perhaps the speed of it isn’t appropriate for Bluetooth? That’s beyond my knowledge technically. But I cannot imagine why the UI sounds don’t play through them. That is really weird.

I’ve read a lot of things about BT 5, but multiple simultaneous device support isn’t one of them. Hope I’m wrong. Increased distance seems to be the most significant update. Apple sits on the BT SIG board, and is presumably where they came up with their own improvements in the form of the W1 chip. One would think if they wanted to remove the headphone jack, they would have made sure their implementation of BT would handle everything the jack could do (like split a signal and share it between multiple speakers/headphones). It’s clearly a priority for AirPlay. I guess we’ll see what happens with BT, but we’re going on two years now without the headphone jack.

The speed of BT is not really an issue with the way Apple keeps their video in sync with it. Basically they buffer the movie such that the video is delayed in relation to the audio to compensate for any lag with picture on the device. You can’t do that with a video game, because even a delay in milliseconds would be enough to wipe out in real time against the game or with other players.

 

[KrispE00]

I just got a second HomePod. Since using the 2 as a stereo pair, I’ve noticed that there’s a huge delay when using Siri to play music compared with just using one HomePod.
Siri says “one moment”...”hmm”...”one moment”. And 30 seconds later the song plays. This never happened with one HomePod. Anyone have this problem?
My HomePods are updated and I have gigabit fios internet, so that’s not the problem.