I love all these experts here bashing the HomePod with out ever hearing it. Just like they did with the iPad and IPhone. Probably the same anti Apple people from 10 years ago. We should public mock them, but the mods ban you when you do.
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Audiophile Review: HomePod 'Sounds Better' Than $999 KEF X300A Digital Hi-Fi Speakers
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I love all these experts here bashing the HomePod with out ever hearing it. Just like they did with the iPad and IPhone. Probably the same anti Apple people from 10 years ago. We should public mock them, but the mods ban you when you do.
You could just as easily ask "how does a car enthusiast/tinkerer become a 'gearhead'?". It's not a certification, there is no school (or membership card, or secret handshake), it's a (usually self-applied) label for someone who likes/appreciates high-end audio equipment because of the sound it produces. And there are debates amongst audiophiles about who qualifies as a true audiophile. Arguably, the more purist view is that an audiophile is one whose goal is to produce a listening experience that is indistinguishable from an actual live performance - not in terms of volume levels but by how lifelike the sound is, how well the original soundstage (placement of various instruments in 3D space) is recreated.
As with any enthusiast community, though, there are those who place huge emphasis on specific parts of the experience while discounting others, as well as those who are just interested in merely looking like they fit into the group (e.g. wearing the right clothes, though that's not so applicable to the community in question) in order to gain perceived prestige.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, most consumer audio gear is designed to sound "impressive" in the store, rather than to sound accurate, just as most televisions are designed (or at least preprogrammed) to appear eye-bleedingly vivid in the store, rather than accurate. "High-end" audio gear/companies tend to go more for realism and accurate reproduction, though there are also plenty of companies quite willing to sell you snake oil (like $500-per-foot speaker wire), if you have more money than sense.
How have you never heard of KEF?
Here are two threads pertaining to KEF speakers currently on the first page of the AVS speaker sub-forum.
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speakers/2956230-low-profile-center-speaker-kef-q100-please.html
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speakers/2956342-ls50-vs-q150-audition.html
And here's the KEF owners thread at the top of page two.
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speakers/724103-kef-owners-thread.html
It’s not that it’s a hassle, it’s that it defeats the purpose of buying a smart speaker in the first place.
Maybe not; but the IMF Studio IIIa/TLS-80s come pretty damned close:
http://www.imf-electronics.com/Home/imf/speaker-range/reference-speakers/tls80
And the cool thing is, they didn't cost ANYWHERE near $10k. More like $1600.
It's not just those YouTube reviews either. It's also Consumer Reports. I'd trust them over some self proclaimed audiophile. They actually have the proper testing environment and are unbiased since they do not sell advertising or are paid by Apple to review the product.
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I'm not sure, either; but that's not what the RELIABLE A/B/X tests show...Maybe you just need friends with better hearing?
But seriously, I also don't know if there is something in the app I was using for the lossless files that influenced the sound. But it was easy to hear the difference between the two.
This is why I don't generally identify as an audiophile (even though I love good audio), because there's a lot of baggage and claptrap associated with the word. Really, most audiophiles just want equipment that produces good audio. But then you have a small group that purchase stuff like the above, speaker wire that costs into the thousands of dollars range, and speaker wire risers, and then make wild and stupid claims about how it all produces a better sound.
I like to refer to the latter group as 'audiophools'.Here's the problem with "inaudible" (high frequency) signals: They can "beat" against the AUDIBLE frequencies, and cause very audible artifacts. So, just because something sings like a bird at 80 kHz, doesn't mean you have to be a dog to hear the effects it has on our lowly human-range of frequencies.
And, shielding is shielding. Plus, some things don't actually lend themselves to wrapping them in tinfoil. Ever hear of "Ground bounce"? Just TRY to get rid of THAT!
There are a few (completely understandable) misconceptions to correct here.
1. "Perfectly flat" is understood not to mean literally flat. Imagine if you read a car magazine's review of a car that praised its "perfect handling." You would understand that it doesn't mean the car can literally make perfect 90-degree turns like the light cycles in Tron. In the audio industry, "flat" is usually understood to mean +/- 3dB, measured anechoically. That's pretty much the limit of human perception, and under realistic conditions things like the room's own properties will dwarf +/- 3dB variations in response.
2. The article features in-room measurements of the Apple and KEF speakers, taken in the author's highly imperfect room. These will always look worse than anechoic measurements. He did this intentionally to simulate real-world conditions and to test the HomePod's adaptive calibration.
3. The measurements in the article show anything but a "hyped" (boosted treble and bass, recessed midrange) sound. If you still feel this is the case, please link to the specific measurement that you feel illustrates this point and I'll try and understand it for you.
1) I'm afraid this simply isn't true. There are tons and tons of posts regarding varying iPod D/A conversion quality over the years. My iPad's 2017 conversion quality I believe is sub-par compared to other equipment I have and even compared to my Galaxy S8 (they have a more tinny sound to them).
2) Apple bought Beats and their knowledge and engineers they brought over helped to create the HomePod. Sadly some reviews coming out are suggesting they are overly hyped in the bass frequency response. I'm not at all surprised given Beat's history with headphones.
I do admire your ability to do that and I also try to run flat as possible. But sometimes good music comes in badly mastered forms so EQ is a necessity, be it analog or digital. Basically, no one system or setting can make all music sound good. So one either accommodates these recordings or not listen to them at all
And I'm not even getting into the room EQ side of things. Either the room accommodates the system (with drapes, no overly reflective surfaces, bass traps, treble traps, speaker placement) or the system must accommodate the room.
This generally tracks my view. The theoretical "best" sound in a perfect listening environment with optimal equipment will be unmodified. For that reason, purely acoustic solutions such as room treatments are sonically preferable to signal processing when possible. But very few people are in a position to do too much with room treatments and many of us have sonically-challenged rooms for one reason or another, or we have inadequate equipment (for example, many low-fi audio systems pump up the bass because they are physically incapable of accurately reproducing the bass in the source material). In those situations, some amount of DSP may be acceptable if it helps mitigate the problem. Also, the audiophile community generally has been coming around to the value of DSP in recent years (although obviously avoiding it where not needed), in large part because it has gotten much better than it once was.
This, I think, is HomePod's value proposition. The HomePod speaker drivers themselves won't begin to touch most KEFs, etc. But the net effect of very smart driver positioning within the HomePod system combined with what by all accounts is very good DSP makes for a product that digitally exceeds the sum of its analog parts. Among other things, that mitigates room problems and allows the HomePod to be placed pretty much were the user wants it. For many people, that will fit their needs. (Note: Given Siri's limitations, the lack of a line-in, and the inability to use HomePod with most music sources without AirPlay, I'm limiting my commentary to the audio aspect only. I would never choose such a locked-down system for my own use.)
Here's one nearly free ($15) solution to the "AirPlay Only" issue:
https://connect.airserver.com/
And also here's a MR Article about using Spotify with HomePod:
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/homepod-spotify-airplay/
Apple isn't talking; but from the reviews, it sure SEEMS like the HomePod is doing some "acoustic holography" techniques to create a pseudo-soundstage from just one HomePod. And the people who have heard the pre-release version of the "Stereo" software say it is fairly incredible...
You study up and take the Audiophile+ certification exam
If you spend a lot of money on Apple gear, I'm sure Apple would grant you such a title
Considering there is AirPlay available on MANY non-Apple Devices, I wouldn't say that the HomePod is "Locked-down" at ALL. That's like refusing to get a WiFi Router at home, and then complaining your smartphone is "Locked Down" to WiFi.
Here! AirPlay unleashed!!!
https://connect.airserver.com/
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Just shot your crediblilty with that comment.
Apple Music is based on 256kbps AAC. AAC is MUCH better than MP3. Apple has NEVER dealt in MP3s. Never.
Apple bought Betas to up-sell people on cheap plastic audio equipment.
They had brand recognition and a nice logo.
Margin is everything.
They are countless real headphones on Amazon without any gimmicks that are better at reproducing sound.
Tipp: Buy an external headphone amplifier. Worth every penny.
Wired headphones are the way to go.
Like most hobbies, there are a lot of ways to approach it!
Most of us just have fun and laugh at the crazy people that spend $10,000 on cables or whatever. Unfortunately, the commercial "audiophile" world (including the magazines) cater to those kinds of crazy people because that's where the profit margins are. Most of the valuable journalistic work in the audio world is being done by dedicated hobbyists these days.
Here's my recipe for fun in this hobby.
1. Have a love of music!
2. Enjoy a little bit of tinkering.
3. Invest a little bit of time learning. Once you understand some basic principles you'll understand why megabucks gear is totally unnecessary, because audio reproduction has been very well-understood for decades, and what sounds "good" to the human ear is pretty well understood from an objective standpoint these days.
Contrary to popular belief it is not necessarily an expensive hobby. With smart shopping, for the price of an Xbox or PS4 you can get great sound. For the price of a Macbook you can get truly incredible world-class sound. As an added bonus your audio gear will still sound fantastic decades from now. So it's an investment that will really deliver enjoyment in the long term.
Good sound will sound good to trained and untrained listeners alike!
The TL;DR is that a flat (accurate) frequency response, with a slightly downward tilt as one moves from higher to lower frequencies, is what listeners tend to prefer most of the time. Aside from applications like movies or car audio where some people might desire an exaggerated bass response that rattles their chest.
It's a common misconception that you need to be "trained" just to know what sounds good. You already know what sounds good, because you have ears and you like listening to things.
The only real benefit to being a trained listener is if you are working in the audio industry, or you really wanna go down the rabbit hole as a hobbyist.
There's been a fair amount of research regarding trained and untrained listener preferences. Sean Olive from Harman International has published a lot of work in this area.
Spotify Solution:
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/homepod-spotify-airplay/
Pandora (and others) Solution:
https://www.imore.com/how-stream-spotify-pandora-soundcloud-and-more-homepod
Let's think about it for a second.
Given that audio reproduction has been a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry for over a century, wouldn't it actually be more shocking if people hadn't poured lots of time and resources into determining what sounds good in an objective way? =)
Just like achieving accurate video reproduction, sound reproduction is not really that much of a "dark art." It probably has a reputation as such, because of the popular perception of audiophiles as idiotic wanna-be aesthetes with too much cash to burn, but that doesn't mean it's actually the case.
Just because you're not aware of the engineering and research that goes into this stuff, doesn't mean it's not there. The reality is that the amount of objective research that's been poured into this endeavor over the last century is absolutely staggering, and much of it is publicly available.
There's no reason to dive into it unless that's what really floats your boat. If so, Floyd Toole and Sean Olive are two big names that spring to mind. But yeah, the matter of "what sounds good" is fairly well understood at an objective level. Frequency response, RT60, harmonic distortion, etc etc etc etc. The TL;DR is that (shockingly!) low distortion and accurate frequency response over as much of the human hearing range as possible is what "sounds good." No surprises there.
That said, you are 100% entitled to your preferences regarding sound! We all hear things a little differently due to physical variations in our ears and so forth.
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Very keen insight. Thank you.
You mentioned a neutral flat headphone set but what about a neutral flat bookshelf or freestanding speakers that are comparable to the Homepod? I understand what you're saying but I'd really like to go out and hear it to get a feel for the difference.
Also, is music supposed to be heard flat or is each piece released with a EQ profile it should be heard in? This goes for classical and lyrical.
I am fully aware of the brand-bias that tends to influence consumers' minds, and I, again, completely agree with you. Don't get me wrong, reading cons about HP wouldn't be an issue to me. If it turns out to be a bad device, I simply won't spend my money on it. Or, differently, I don't feel any pressure to like every single Apple product ever made.
Thank you for your this discussion and your thoughts.
Yeah, but at that point you still need an amplifier and in the average household the Homepod will still sound better than any thing else. Everything you mentioned CAN sound better but in the average consumers kitchen it won't. Your are getting much more than just dumb speakers for $350.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Actually, I hope I haven't steered you away from it. It seems to be a generally well-reviewed device. Apple typically makes exceptional stuff- I know, I own LOTS of it. For this one, there's just so much misinformation flying around- especially be the extremists at both ends, that I've felt compelled here and there to chip in something trying to be more towards the center.
I really don't want to talk anyone out of it or into it- just encourage everyone to "think different." Speakers tend to last longer than phones, tablets and computers. While it's priced much lower than those products, I personally take the purchase decision much more seriously because of that use longevity. Of course, not everyone is me and some may not care about stuff like that. To each, his own. Hopefully, everyone will make the best choice for themselves.
At the time 10 years ago when the first Zeppelin was released it was a great wireless speaker. The current evolution Zeppelin Wireless receives top marks from many trusted audio websites for its drastic improvement over past versions, and excellent sound quality. But never mind the websites, I have owned a few previous Zeppelins including the latest and it sounds amazing, much more than a “big boom box” like you say.
B&W is one of the most respected names in audio around the world, from top recording studios to the common household,and you speak about them as if they were trash.
Like I said, your credibility went out the window. The end.