Audiophile Review: HomePod 'Sounds Better' Than $999 KEF X300A Digital Hi-Fi Speakers

[jhwalker]

"Audiophile" - the fella is a tit - he tried to tell me the HomePod has a perfectly flat frequency response. Even £10,000 studio monitors don't have a perfectly flat frequency response - further more the HomePod wasn't designed to have one.

His actual graphs show anything but perfectly flat, they show huge peaks and troughs everywhere - which is fine, it's a consumer hifi product and Apple haven't designed it to be flat, they've used every trick in the book to get big sound from a small speaker and to make it sound "wow" when you first play something through it "how is that bass coming from this" - the woofer is plenty big enough to get good bass, but they've gone for psycho-acoustic processing as well to make it even bigger.

To be honest this sort of sound is going to work well for most people, it's the sound signature they're used to. The way sound is presented only starts to change if you listen on studio monitors which are designed to be neutral flat and revealing - many people may find that sound "boring" or overly "clinical" compared to a HomePod type sound though. But when you get into the £300+ headphone market that is what they try to do as well, the £1000 Sennheiser HD-800's are more or less as flat as you can get in a headphone. The idea being to just present the music in as much detail as possible as it was from the studio without applying any sort of EQ curve or enhancement to it in anyway.

But it's a bit like getting a high end TV calibrated - some people watch with the shop "vivid" mode on their TV and some people want a perfectly calibrated TV. Many people would think the calibrated one looks flat, boring and too yellow, yet it's the accurate representation of what the original picture is. Horses for courses - depends if you want hyped or accurate, you can't have both.

The HomePod is a perfectly good "hyped" speaker, but it is anything but revealing, clear, detailed, open, transparent, flat, bright or even top end hi-fi. It does however sound better than 90% of the stuff most people will have heard or bought before, which is all Apple needed to do (and yes it destros the entire Echo range and easily puts Sonos to shame, not that i'd ever want to listen to either for extended periods)

Um . . . that's pretty freakin' flat, even for a very high-end speaker. Have you ever actually looked at frequency measurements before? Certainly not "huge peaks and troughs everywhere". LOL.

 

[JohnBooty]

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.

I've read a lot of objective data regarding the quality of Apple's DACs over the years. I've been impressed by their objective performance, as well as by my subjective experiences comparing them to DACs from Schiit and Audioquest. I find very little (if any) audible difference between onboard Apple DACs and external DACs in the $100-$200 MSRP range. Maybe there are $50,000 DACs that deliver some kind of cosmic awakening to the listener but frankly, my belief is that those $100-$200 DACs are already resolving about as much detail as a human ear can discern.

I have heard cheap CD players and laptops with terrible analogue sound output, so while I don't have "golden ears" I'm not completely deaf. Technically speaking, I think it's probably their onboard amplifiers and not the DACs themselves, but for the purposes of this discussion they're one and the same.

Sources:

If you scroll down a bit to his Apple reviews (they're sorted by brand) you'll find lots of detailed measurements of iPhone, AppleTV, iPad, etc DAC performance measurements: http://kenrockwell.com/audio/index.htm#reviews

Similar praiseworthy results for the iPhone 4 and 6: http://archimago.blogspot.com/2014/10/measurements-apple-iphone-4-iphone-6.html

 

[dannys1]

Um . . . that's pretty freakin' flat, even for a very high-end speaker. Have you ever actually looked at frequency measurements before? Certainly not "huge peaks and troughs everywhere". LOL.

Here is the actual response, there's a big peak at 200, thats the psycho-acoustic modelling pumping more perceived bass out of a small speaker - and after 3k you can see it roll off dramatically, which is exactly what I hear.

There are 20db shifts there.

Compare that to studio monitors

But it's irrelevant, the HomePod like all other small hifi speakers in this price range are NOT designed to be flat or neutral. That doesn't mean "bad" just different. It's for different things - it's for background/pleasurable hearing for the average person not critical listening for the professional.
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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.

Their 700 and 800 series speakers are great - but they're beyond the realms of their normal consumer stuff, sorry but the Zeppelin is junk, for that money you could buy Andrew Jones designed Elacs.
[doublepost=1518474966][/doublepost]

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.

Oh I agree - and it's perfect for consumers. I'm not saying it isn't. Just that if you're going to start going the audiophile route and spend £700 on two of them, you can certainly get into very good hifi territory there with a very different signature and buy good amps that'll have AirPlay 2 in them too.

But yeah, putting around places in the home rather than places set up to listen to them, it is perfect for that, definitely.
[doublepost=1518475095][/doublepost]

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.

Well the idea of a flat profile is just to present the music at it was in the studio. But that can be not "exciting" enough for some people. Studio monitors are designed for clinical work for the professional and usually have a narrow sweet spot, where as the HomePod is a very very different product made to sound impressive and you could put it anywhere. It's just when you're used to studio monitors, the lack of detail in consumer hi fi products tends to be a bit grating.
[doublepost=1518475522][/doublepost]

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.

Are you the Redditor by any chance?

Listen - the speaker is hyped, it was always supposed to be hyped - it's a small speaker pushing out a big exaggerated sound. It is not and never was supposed to be a flat, detailed, studio monitor speaker.

You don't need graphs to tell you that, you can hear it with your own ears in a matter of seconds and it doesn't have the smiley curve - in fact it rolls off quite dramatically after 4khz and is very dark sounding speaker but for it's size has huge massive bass.

Compare this to a set of Adam A7X studio monitors which have two 7 inch woofers and can't create bass that sounds anywhere near as big as the HomePod because they're accurate, they're flat, everything is balanced, it's detailed, it's clear, it's clinical. It is not however hifi, pleasing or for many easy to listen to. They have a small sweet spot where as the HomePod obviously has one all the way around considering it has a non-directional woofer and 12 tweeters all the way around - it has no "front" to make off axis measurements from.

As I said, it is what it is - it's a good sounding hifi speaker with the Sonos style sound - which it beats it at.

 

[0947347]

I just listened to Scapula and Dead Soon on my Totem Forest speakers with sub setup in my stereo. I then listened to the same two songs on the HomePod.

Of course the Totem setup is in a different league than a stand alone single speaker. But the HomePod does a pretty respectable job with the music. Pretty happy/impressed with the HomePod so far. If you have a small/medium space to fill the HomePod does a great job. I will probably get another one once they get a few code revs in to try having 2 of them in the same room.

Thank you. Very much appreciated

Tipper’s tracks are amazingly mixed and mastered. And the fact, that it is in surround, made me wonder, if all the sounds there are audible on HomePod. I do not live anywhere close to an Apple Store to test it myself

 

[gnasher729]

The HomePod can't hold a candle to my old Ohm C2s, Boston Acoustics VR-M90, VR-M60, VR-40s, etc. Keep in mind the source. HomePod streams mp3s from Apple Music. I'm playing aiff/wav files, and some even higher (from HD Tracks) directly to my stereo.

You won't find a single .mp3 file on Apple Music.

 

[csbo]

By adjusting the treble and other acoustics of the song so users can hear vocals clearer, no matter how big or small the room, is tampering with how it was meant to be heard.

No, it isn't

This is exactly why studio monitors when played at very low or high volumes, the listener is still able to hear and enjoy the same intricacies withought change. Big or small room, all they need is to adjust the volume. No need for adjusting bass or treble here like the HomePod.

Except that studio monitors also have different frequency responses. And they play in rooms with different effects on reproduction. And they are dependent on the signal fed to them.

Honestly, all the people going on about what studio monitors are like in this thread amaze me. Are you just unaware that some studio monitors(and not just the cheap ones) have controls to adjust frequency response?

but the various levels of detail volumes would have been adjusted based on position of the HomePod in the room. That’s like an artist singing louder because he’s standing in the corner of a room as opposed to standing in the middle of the room. So while the sound it produces might be realistic, it isn’t a true reproduction of how it sounded with the music in the recording studio.

The weird thing is, this is an accurate description of how a conventional speaker will behave in various rooms but seems inconsistent with what Apple claims to be doing

 

[johngordon]

Back on the stereo thing, wha

Someone went out and found a more expensive speaker that sounds worse than a HomePod. Imagine that.

I'd like to listen to the song the way it was intended acoustically. Not an Apple engineer's version.

If you heard three variations of the same song, that all sounded great, through pretty decent equipment, would you know which of the three was the one it was intended to sound acoustically?

 

[gnasher729]

Is it separate from the A8? That processor is more than capable of being an effective DAC. But at the end of the day, does it really matter? What if it was designed in house and not an off the shelf part like a Sabre or Analog Devices? What if it a simple single bit design vs multi-bit? Does that make the HomePod less or more than it is? I have a few outboard DAC devices in systems around the house and what chip they use is hardly a concern as long as they sound good to my ears.

DAC = Digital to Analogue Converter. DSP = Digital Signal Processor. The A8 is a perfectly fine Digital Signal Processor, that is a device that does all the mathematical calculations to produce the best possible signal. But that's all digital, and because your ears cannot hear digital, you need a Digital to Analogue Converter at the end. Plus an amplifier. (According to that review, HomePod has 7+1 speakers, each with its own amplifier).

 

[Guy Clark]

HomePod reviews from the tech press came thick and fast last week, and while the smart speaker's sound quality was consistently praised, most reviews were based on subjective assessments and didn't take into account professional-grade output measurements. Early on Monday, however, Reddit user WinterCharm posted exhaustive audio performance testing results for HomePod to the Reddit audiophile community.

Using specialized equipment and a controlled testing environment, the review features in-depth analysis of the smart speaker's output when compared to a pair of $999 KEF X300A digital hi-fi monitors, representing a "meticulously set up audiophile grade speaker versus a tiny little HomePod that claims to do room correction on its own".

As expected, WinterCharm criticized the HomePod for its AirPlay-only output limitation and Siri's often-lackluster performance as a virtual assistant, but the speaker's audio quality appraisal was a different story. Interested readers can check out all the details and technical minutiae here, but in short, WinterCharm offered the following summary after a battery of exhaustive tests.
Do you agree with WinterCharm's review? Let us know in the comments. And make sure to check out our HomePod roundup if you're new to HomePod or planning to purchase one -- it's got everything you need to know about HomePod along with a running list of our HomePod how tos.

​

Article Link: Audiophile Review: HomePod 'Sounds Better' Than $999 KEF X300A Digital Hi-Fi Speakers

It all depends what constitutes an Audiophile.

An Audiophile has a Linn Sondek, NAIM Amplifier, Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck and Spendor Loudspeakers or equipment of similar ilk.

Airplay and Bluetooth are in a FAR, FAR lower league.

 

[0947347]

Ok, I'll bite.

TIPPER - AMBERGRIS - Siri would not comply - indicated unavailable for streaming
Tipper - SCAPULA - ok, this was available. This is some interesting techno/electronica. I love a lot of the genre, however, this track is not really for me. However, I gave it a go at mid, low and max volume. It sounds similar to most all other tracks that feeds Homepod, it is clean and tight with no discernible distortion at any volume level. Does it have depth? yes, but so does everything you feed this kit.
Tipper - Dead Soon - this is a completely different track, much more mellow, sedate even. This I enjoyed more. Again, the Homepod emulates the sounds with clarity, distinction without being overly bright, but super clean. I also detected a few really low bass drops around the 3 min mark, and they are clear and no distortion that I could discern.

As far as a full surround sound emulation as in fully surrounding you, hard to tell for me, everything that plays on the Homepod sounds "alive" to my ears, but if that is what you are really going for, 2 Homepod's would probably get you very close and would not disappoint.

Thank you for taking your time to do this for a stranger. Much appreciated.
I enjoy mostly stronger bass and treble, like my mids less pronounced. Maybe it could be the speaker for my small living room after all

 

[vipergts2207]

Here is the actual response, there's a big peak at 200, thats the psycho-acoustic modelling pumping more perceived bass out of a small speaker - and after 3k you can see it roll off dramatically, which is exactly what I hear.

There are 20db shifts there.

Compare that to studio monitors

But it's irrelevant, the HomePod like all other small hifi speakers in this price range are NOT designed to be flat or neutral. That doesn't mean "bad" just different. It's for different things - it's for background/pleasurable hearing for the average person not critical listening for the professional.

Looking at the chart, I'm struggling to see how it's 40Hz -20KHz at +/-3 dB. It looks more like +6/7 dB to me. Perhaps the chart isn't accounting for Fletcher-Munson?

 

[0947347]

I challenge sombody to play a CD through it.

It’s all good but does it have a cassette slot?

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

It's rather easy.

Purchase a pair of one meter Nordost Valhalla 2 stereo analog interconnects for $7,599 and your audiophile wallet card will be included in your order, at no additional cost.

While you're at it, you might as well pick up a pair of their two meter speaker cables. For an additional $11,849.

You'll be impressed by their soundstage depth and smooth tonal balance with interconnects and speaker cables working together in concert.

Companies who produce cables like those are evil genius' stealing idiots money. You'd think it was a joke, but I've known people to defend the claims. Physics. What's that?

 

[dannys1]

You seem to live in a rarified audio world and you certainly have a lot of Apple kit. One question. Would you ever own a HomePod?

Oh, actually two questions. How do you like the iMac Pro?

I do own a HomePod and the initial iMac Pro went back, but i'm ordered a higher model soon, I loved it!

 

[csbo]

Here is the actual response, there's a big peak at 200, thats the psycho-acoustic modelling pumping more perceived bass out of a small speaker - and after 3k you can see it roll off dramatically, which is exactly what I hear.

Actual rolloff there doesn't start until 6k, and it appears that's the graph after removing compensation.

Compare that to studio monitors

No, don't. These measurements are almost certainly taken in a controlled environment. His frequency response measurements show some pretty clear room modes

But it's irrelevant, the HomePod like all other small hifi speakers in this price range are NOT designed to be flat or neutral. That doesn't mean "bad" just different. It's for different things - it's for background/pleasurable hearing for the average person not critical listening for the professional.

On one hand you're correct, these are definitely not designed for studio use. But Apple isn't marketing them that way. And most pros I've talked to over the years think have made clear they'd never use studio monitors at home, because you don't really want to hear every last detail when listening for pleasure. It seems like the HomePod is designed for listening to music for pleasure, as are many of the other speakers you endorse

 

[dannys1]

Looking at the chart, I'm struggling to see how it's 40 Hz -20 KHz at +/- 3 dB. It looks more like +6/7 dB to me. Perhaps the chart isn't accounting for Fletcher-Munson?

I honestly don't think we should really pay as much attention to this random guys charts - I think i'll wait till the people who know what they're doing put one out. I mean he thinks it's got a lower THD than Adam A7X studio monitors...

Also i'm not sure passing a sine wave through at each frequency is going to give you an accurate response with the amount of processing Apple is running on it - I mean it'll be doing it's own processing and compensation.

My own ears show me it doesn't have the frequency curve he's come up with - anyone who's heard any studio monitors can hear it's not remotely flat - it's got a 4" mid-bass woofer and the thing sounds like it's attached to an 8" subwoofer!

Also he did "off axis" results and put degrees around the HomePod - it's effectively a non directional speaker. It has one upwards facing woofer and the tweeters go all the way around it - there is no front, there is no off-axis.
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because you don't really want to hear every last detail when listening for pleasure.

I do! Thats why I spend so much on headphones that reveal it and try to listen to stuff on my Adam monitors as much as possible.

 

[csbo]

I honestly don't think we should really pay as much attention to this random guys charts

Except to claim the speaker is not flat, then you ignore what he actually says about the chart you posted and say it's the result of the compensation(rather than the decompensated response)

I do! Thats why I spend so much on headphones that reveal it and try to listen to stuff on my Adam monitors as much as possible.

Fair enough. But it seems like you're treating your preference as more authentic, or more knowing, or whatever. Having listened to more than a few studio monitors, I can appreciate them as tools but would never pick them as a means to listen to music for pleasure. That's not a preference for "hyped" speakers, it's recognition that speakers meant to expose the flaws aren't really meant for pleasure

 

[Hmm]

Companies who produce cables like those are evil genius' stealing idiots money. You'd think it was a joke, but I've known people to defend the claims. Physics. What's that?

Reminds me of the people drawing on their CDs with magic marker to improve the sound.

 

[falainber]

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

I suspect most Apple fans have not heard about AVS either

 

[AppleScruff1]

How does one become an audiophile? Is it something you go to school for or does it apply to anyone who spends a lot of money on audio gear?

The same way one becomes an Appleophile.

 

[vipergts2207]

I suspect most Apple fans have not heard about AVS either

That's certainly true, but a bit beside the point. This guy was naming all kinds of audio brands many people here have probably never heard of, but apparently he himself has somehow has never heard of KEF, a rather mainstream company in the audio industry.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I think it’s someone who can hear better than you

The walls are high in the Apple garden. It distorts the sound.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

I suspect most Apple fans have not heard about AVS either

Maybe - but I'm sure there are plenty, like me, who do know about AVSForum and have participated in many discussions there,

 

[AppleScruff1]

It's most certainly not mono.

This is mono.

According to some, it could be 7.1.

 

[csbo]

Looking at the chart, I'm struggling to see how it's 40Hz -20KHz at +/-3 dB. It looks more like +6/7 dB to me. Perhaps the chart isn't accounting for Fletcher-Munson?

Generally we'd only want to judge that based on measurements in a better environment. If you look at the response he's getting on the KEF and compare it to controlled measurements it's pretty clear his room is affecting the response curve