That may be what you inferred, but read the thread again. Mono means single-channel. The post you were replying to merely claimed that the HP’s multiple channels makes it more than mono.
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Apple's Phil Schiller on HomePod: We Want to Create a New Kind of Music Experience in the Home That Sounds Incredible
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
You can airplay from 
TV. This talks to that topic pretty well: http://streaming-blog.com/redirect-apple-tv-audio-to-alternate-airplay-speakers/ and here's another airplaying to AirPods: https://www.macworld.com/article/3250084/home-tech/how-to-use-airpods-with-apple-tv.html but the approach should be the same.
TV. This talks to that topic pretty well: http://streaming-blog.com/redirect-apple-tv-audio-to-alternate-airplay-speakers/ and here's another airplaying to AirPods: https://www.macworld.com/article/3250084/home-tech/how-to-use-airpods-with-apple-tv.html but the approach should be the same.
I agree with this entire post, but this is the crux of my problems with HomePod. You cannot get more information (sound quality) out than what was stored in the file in the first place. Yes you can use algorithms to make the file smaller. But the type of compression Apple is using is a “lossy” type. Information is not being saved and can’t be restored from the remaining data. The question then becomes are those losses in data (sound) perceivable?
Most consumers either don’t notice or don’t perceive enough of a difference to care. Those that do can’t make someone else hear what they hear. Lots of products promise to improve sound quality- not sure if brand names are allowed- for reasons that audio engineers say is hogwash.
But for accurate sound reproduction, you can’t ever get more out than what information the file contains.
And Apple Music isn’t encoded using the best sound file format.
You can’t have better sound than your source.
Maybe using AirPlay 2 you can use a better format and the sound will cross that threshold of least perceivable change, where the improvement is likely to be noticed. I don’t know. Right now, I don’t know if anyone outside of Apple CAN know, since we don’t know what Airplay 2 standards are.
I fully expect that the HomePod will sound much better than a $30 Dot. The quality of speaker a company can afford to put in a $30-100 speaker set shouldn’t compete with a speaker costing 3 times more.
But what if you hook the HomePod up to a lossless file source and compare that to a HomePod hooked to Apple Music? Would the sound quality difference be noticeable? Does anyone here know for certain?
No. But we are back to you can never have better sound than your source contains.
Well, once Apple bought Beats you could tell it was more about marketing than actual quality any more.
I still can't get over the fact that Apple turned a man who publicly beats women into a billionaire but says they stand for civil rights.
As with the watch, Apple could accessorize this product: Titanium knitting needles to stick in the side, just be careful not to puncture a mic or speaker.
I have Apple Music but I usually download the tracks onto my iPhone so I can access my music without internet if needed and it saves on download usage. If I were to summon Siri to play a track on the HomePod will it automatically play the already downloaded track from my iPhone or redownload it from iCloud music library? It would be nice if it were seamless and I wouldn’t have to manually connect to Airplay to play songs from my phone.
Don’t take this as gospel, but from what I understand Siri controlled music is streaming music. The only way to play music downloaded to your phone, iPad or computer music will be Airplay, and I think it has to be Airplay 2, and you will not be able to use HomePod Siri to control non Apple Music or iTune Match songs. I haven’t seen anything about using your devices Siri to command/play music on your HomePod using AirPlay 2, so I don’t know if it is possible.
I have 6 Macs in my house, 3 iPhones, 2 Apple TVs, 1 iPad.
$350 is too steep for this product. I already bought multiple $40 Echo Dots for the house and use them like intercoms to call my kids down for dinner, etc. Alexa is better than Siri on my iPhone 7.
The Echo Dot in the living room plays music through the surround sound AV system in the living room via Bluetooth. It works flawlessly. AV receivers now have standby mode and Bluetooth, which means another device can turn the receiver on and switch it to Bluetooth input automatically. So I just say, "Alexa, connect speaker" and the receiver is on and switched to Bluetooth. Then I say, "Alex, play artist David Bowie..."
And you can get really high quality Bluetooth speakers from Harmon Kardon, Polk Audio, Bose and an Echo Dot for a lot less money than the $350 HomePod.
Considering the disappointing sales of the $1,000 iPhone X, I won't be surprised if this product fails miserably.
$350 is too steep for this product. I already bought multiple $40 Echo Dots for the house and use them like intercoms to call my kids down for dinner, etc. Alexa is better than Siri on my iPhone 7.
The Echo Dot in the living room plays music through the surround sound AV system in the living room via Bluetooth. It works flawlessly. AV receivers now have standby mode and Bluetooth, which means another device can turn the receiver on and switch it to Bluetooth input automatically. So I just say, "Alexa, connect speaker" and the receiver is on and switched to Bluetooth. Then I say, "Alex, play artist David Bowie..."
And you can get really high quality Bluetooth speakers from Harmon Kardon, Polk Audio, Bose and an Echo Dot for a lot less money than the $350 HomePod.
Considering the disappointing sales of the $1,000 iPhone X, I won't be surprised if this product fails miserably.
I might consider it. I'll want to see how intuitive it is first. Intuitive software has not been Apple's strength the last 4 years. It could be an asset in my home office, maybe not. Let's see after 6m.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Conceptually, yes- a better quality source will sound better on "best quality sound" hardware.
The key to the debate about this topic comes down to can our ears hear a difference? It's an odd topic in a thread where we're simultaneously trying to rationalize the higher price of a speaker mostly around "best quality sound." We're basically trying to say, "yes buy this speaker because it has the best quality sound" while also saying "no, people's ears are not good enough to hear higher quality sources." Result: we are supporting Apple's push to sell this speaker in spite of locking it to the same lossy source of audio. More simply, the speaker is a sonic upgrade but the source is fine "as is." It's almost an argument of our ears needing to pay up for better sound but cannot hear better sound at the same time.
Whether one buys the argument of 256kbps is all humans can possibly hear or not is almost irrelevant for these purposes. Very soon, people can put one of these in their own homes and listen to a track from AM and then the same track from a lossless source like Tidal... or a lossless rip of the very same track from a CD or other even higher quality source. Then, they can let their own ears be the judge. Conceptually, a very high quality speaker will sound it's best with a very high quality source file. As you wrote, a lossy format cannot accurately make up the details it jettisons to achieve it's small size. Instead, it's best guessing to fill in those blanks.
Apple has a lossless format too. Why would they bother if 256kpbs is all that human ears can hear? IMO: AAC (well) serves it's primary purpose of being able to fit a lot of good-sounding-audio into a pocket. If it was the end all, be all, there would be no need for any format capable of more. And yet, even Apple has put the time and support into an Apple lossless format.
And consider this: if we ACTUALLY believe what some of us are saying abut this, what if Apple decided to do a retina for audio and pair this HP with an Apple Lossless stream option? Would we be calling Apple stupid for the audio file overkill? Of course not: it's only stupid while Apple is not yet endorsing something more. Right up to the launch of a 4K
TV, we passionately argued that 1080p was good enough... with a pile of recycled rationale why none of us could even see a difference. And then Apple endorsed 4K video files and nobody called Apple stupid for the visual overkill. Same here. Apple endorses 256kbps as "good enough" so it is. If Apple rolled out lossless, we'd all be propping this HP up even higher on the strength of finally being able to hear ALL of the fine details NOT available from Echo and Google music's inferior lossy audio formats.Our ears could suddenly hear those nuances. Apple just needs to tell us they can.
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First, you're conflating market and technology. "Mature market" doesn't mean there is no more technical development.
Second, looking at the market, Sonos had $1billion in sales way back in 2015! In 2016, there were 14 million wi-fi speakers shipped, with Amazon and Sonos taking the bulk of this market. Numbers for 2017 aren't public yet (as far as I can find from a quick search), but the market was predicted to grow 3x in 2017, and apparently it met or screeded that.
So there is still plenty of innovating and development left to go. The technology may not be "mature," but I would say that a market where just one competitor surpassed $1bil in sales 3 years ago and the market as a whole is now producing north of 30mil units per year is certainly mature.
Unfortunately, based on Apple’s recent track record, the AirPod is an anommaly.
I actually am more understanding of those who have grown to be more skeptical recently, whether it be over recent product releases or os features.
Yes, it’s better to wait for the actual product to be released and then make a judgement. But what’s the fun in that on a rumors website?
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Tidal isn’t in its current state because it went after the hifi market. The average joe can equally enjoy the same music in tidal at a similar price to Apple Music.
Tidal needs major improvements in the user interface (bugs, usability, etc.), and music library. Plus isn’t it Apple that’s going for better sound quality with their home pods?
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To me that's a nice feature, but not a reason to spend $350. Also, how many times do people move speakers around? The one's I have are still in the place they were put years ago. I mean it's not a battery-operated portable speaker that moves from venue to venue. I can see the usefulness for transient apartment or dorm dwellers, but for homeowners it's a limited use feature that makes set-up easier, yes, but that's it. Essentially a one-time use feature.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Well sell that thing. Apparently just 1 HP > than _____________ (fill in the blank with anything else).
Or buy 54 and you'll have 54*7 (tweeters) = 378.54-channel surround sound.
Jokes aside: per Apple's measurements these are really SMALL. I hope the quality of sound collectively imagined is really possible from such a tiny little package. Bass in particular tends to benefit from larger not smallest. I look forward to hearing some music from one of these myself.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
In support, my receiver came with a microphone on a long wire to be used for setup purposes. Put the device in the sweet spot seat or center of the room, choose an option in the receiver menu to start, and it would auto-optimize the speakers for the room.
Speakers and sweet spot seat have not moved since. Thus, no need to re-optimize with that device again (yet).
Now granted, this HP is tiny. It has much more potential to be mobile than traditional speakers. I can imagine people taking it with them to friend's homes or even to the community pool etc. for a few hours. So the question becomes how much of a difference can the self-optimization make in the output? Is it a big, noticeable difference or more so a hardware gimmick that sounds better in theory than in practice? TBD.
I will add this: before & after optimizing the speakers with the receiver device, it was hard to notice much difference- if any. I suspect it might be toward a placebo affect if it was done in a hundred homes for a hundred families. "With optimization, what do you think?" "Oh so much better. Wow!" "I haven't actually done the optimization yet."
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Conceptually, yes- a better quality source will sound better on "best quality sound" hardware.
The key to the debate about this topic comes down to can our ears hear a difference? It's an odd topic in a thread where we're simultaneously trying to rationalize the higher price of a speaker mostly around "best quality sound." We're basically trying to say, "yes buy this speaker because it has the best quality sound" while also saying "no, people's ears are not good enough to hear higher quality sources." Result: we are supporting Apple's push to sell this speaker in spite of locking it to the same lossy source of audio. More simply, the speaker is a sonic upgrade but the source is fine "as is." It's almost an argument of our ears needing to pay up for better sound but cannot hear better sound at the same time.
Whether one buys the argument of 256kbps is all humans can possibly hear or not is almost irrelevant for these purposes. Very soon, people can put one of these in their own homes and listen to a track from AM and then the same track from a lossless source like Tidal... or a lossless rip of the very same track from a CD or other even higher quality source. Then, they can let their own ears be the judge. Conceptually, a very high quality speaker will sound it's best with a very high quality source file. As you wrote, a lossy format cannot accurately make up the details it jettisons to achieve it's small size. Instead, it's best guessing to fill in those blanks.
Apple has a lossless format too. Why would they bother if 256kpbs is all that human ears can hear? IMO: AAC (well) serves it's primary purpose of being able to fit a lot of good-sounding-audio into a pocket. If it was the end all, be all, there would be no need for any format capable of more. And yet, even Apple has put the time and support into an Apple lossless format.
And consider this: if we ACTUALLY believe what some of us are saying abut this, what if Apple decided to do a retina for audio and pair this HP with an Apple Lossless stream option? Would we be calling Apple stupid for the audio file overkill? Of course not: it's only stupid while Apple is not yet endorsing something more. Right up to the launch of a 4K
Our ears could suddenly hear those nuances. Apple just needs to tell us they can.
I would like for some independent agency to test some of this, but that type of testing has never settled this form of controversy.
ARE human ears capable of hearing the difference between lossless and lossy files, if everything else remains constant? How common is it that people can perceive the change, if some people can? 1% of the population, 3, 10%?
Going back a ways blind A/B tests were done with speakers, amplifiers, cables, records, cd’s and digital formats testing if people could tell the difference between one part of a sound system and another when the rest of the system remained constant.
Amplifiers yes, usually, speakers yes, definitely but from there it gets fuzzy. Many times people could hear a difference but may not like that change. Or they did. Was that change ‘better’?
Your analogy between Apple TV and the HomePod was spot on.
ummm...he said he wants it to sound incredible. Averagely Incredible?
Will HomePod eject dust one like in Apple Watch which ejects water when you turn watch crown? May be I need to buy Apple Vacuum to take out dust.... I am just planning myself ahead of the launch show.
If my friends with an Echo are anything to go by, there will be people who move the HomePod from room to room. Every time I visit them, the echo is in a different spot.
I'm sure a lot of people will set up the HomePod once and then never move it again, but others will want their speaker to be wherever they are (at least until they order a second, or a third or a fourth one).