That's not what some people here want to hear!
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Audiophile Review: HomePod 'Sounds Better' Than $999 KEF X300A Digital Hi-Fi Speakers
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That's not what some people here want to hear!
Agreed. I've got some Tannoy speakers that sound absolutely BEAUTIFUL. It's not just about tech, it's also about aesthetics.
Most chefs I know (including my brother, a 15 year veteran of the industry) hate the word foodie. I imagine a career audio engineer might feel the same way if someone says "I'm an audiophile" at a dinner party...
Could anyone, who owns HomePod, and likes electronic music, give a listen to
TIPPER - AMBERGRIS
TIPPER - SCAPULA
TIPPER - DEAD SOON
and tell me, how does it sound?
The thing with Tipper’s music, is, that it is very skillfully mastered in surround sound.
Sounds good in stereo, sounds amazing in surround. Just would like to know if HomePod is good enough to reproduce the sound like this
Thank you
TIPPER - AMBERGRIS
TIPPER - SCAPULA
TIPPER - DEAD SOON
and tell me, how does it sound?
The thing with Tipper’s music, is, that it is very skillfully mastered in surround sound.
Sounds good in stereo, sounds amazing in surround. Just would like to know if HomePod is good enough to reproduce the sound like this
Thank you
It's a bit like having taste or talent .
One can just claim to have it, or spend a lot of time and effort to actually acquire the skills .
As speakers and such go, they always try to cheat physics, but will never be able to beat physics .
People should just enjoy these toys for what they are, and stop fantasizing about them being the 2nd coming .
Too bad "Audiophiles" lose perspective. They focus more on their tweaking of their overpriced equipment to enjoy musical performances. I was once an "audiophile". I spent obscene amounts of money on stupid stuff and then the enjoyment of listening to musical performances was lost because I ended up listening to perceived and imagined acoustic defects in my expensive setup.
The HomePod makes the musical delivery system as transparent as possible.
Most audiophiles don’t care much about measurements. They can help to explain a few things, but there are very few (if any) standards for producing said measurements and even then they’ll be endlessly debated. You know when you see headphones that claim “20 to 20,000 Hz” frequency response they haven’t measured jack. It’d be like basing a camera purchase on DP Review sensor tests only. They trust their ears and experience counts.
Having said that I do suspect (I’ve not heard it myself) it does sound amazing for the price and the size. It’s doing an intense amount of DSP which is what most consumers want and need. The problem with very high grade equipment without DSP is that poor recordings and mixes sound bad; sometimes very bad and you kind of have to do digital (or analogue) EQing on the fly. Active speakers with DSP largely negate that need. But well matched analogue equipment with a good mix can sound amazing and can’t be matched.
Having said that I do suspect (I’ve not heard it myself) it does sound amazing for the price and the size. It’s doing an intense amount of DSP which is what most consumers want and need. The problem with very high grade equipment without DSP is that poor recordings and mixes sound bad; sometimes very bad and you kind of have to do digital (or analogue) EQing on the fly. Active speakers with DSP largely negate that need. But well matched analogue equipment with a good mix can sound amazing and can’t be matched.
The iPhone was a revolutionary product. The HomePod is not.
The HomePod is inferior to other products already on the market, except when pertaining to sound quality. Apple is the one playing catch-up here. They need to figure out the “smart” part of a “smart” speaker.
I think it’s someone who can hear better than you
Pretty refreshing to hear those comments though. As far as whether obsessing ruins the experience...there’s a sweet spot; it’s as much in the mind as the DAC converters.
Not sure where to ask this. But exactly how does the Homepod play the music?
Is it using Airplay from the phone?
If I have all my devices off, how does it serve the music?
I'm concerned about lossy audio files.
If I play an Apple lossless file on my phone, is HomePod checking Apple Music for a lossy AAC version or does it just play from my device?
Is it using Airplay from the phone?
If I have all my devices off, how does it serve the music?
I'm concerned about lossy audio files.
If I play an Apple lossless file on my phone, is HomePod checking Apple Music for a lossy AAC version or does it just play from my device?
So apart from the single biggest factor in a music speaker?
Since Flat Earth is back, does this mean people want compressed Digital Audio from a mono speaker instead of Hi Fi Stereo Audio?
If its Apple Music, it streams it directly to the HomePod.
If its a third party service like Spotify, it uses Airplay to stream it from an iOS device.
Here’s a great example. I was at work one day discussing audio and my coworker claimed he’s an audiophile because of his love for audio. He’s enthusiastic about audio so it makes him an audiophile. (Which Is also the definition. When looked up.) He has no training what so ever. As I have worked five and a half years as an audio consultant for Harman International and went to school for audio engineering...
Of all the critisism I read about the HomePod before it launched, nobody said the audio quality would stink. The fact it sounds awesome isn’t surprising at all.
But I sure hope the others don’t emulate the HomePod’s inability to work with all but one streaming service.
Never understood the price criticism of the HomePod. Google "high end streaming speaker" and the HomePod starts to look distinctly like the economy option. Anything Siri can do is just icing on the cake - and its not like Apple is advertising this as anything other than a music device.
Amazon and Google's devices (a) don't seem to be in the same league audio-wise and (b) are subsidised loss leaders - Google wants to sell your life to advertisers and Amazon hope you will use Alexa for all your shopping. At the moment, Apple want to make money from the hardware and hope you will buy music from them - and that's about it.
Now, for me, the lack of compatibility with anything other than Airplay is maybe a deal-breaker - like most new Apple products they lack versatility - but for plenty of people that's exactly what they need. Its not as if Android offers a single "just works" solution beyond Bluetooth, and at least it looks like any iOS App will be able to Airplay to these speakers (even Chromecast still depends on application-level support).
Anyway, Apple seem to know about tiny speakers - the iPad speakers are incredible for their size (which is not the same as being incredible in absolute terms) and even the iMac speakers are pretty impressive for what they are (they sound muffled, but not as muffled as they should do without any visible grilles...).
NB: can anybody answer this - is the HomePod strictly mono, or does it use beam-forming/psychoacoustic tricks to produce some semblance of a stereo image?
Amazon and Google's devices (a) don't seem to be in the same league audio-wise and (b) are subsidised loss leaders - Google wants to sell your life to advertisers and Amazon hope you will use Alexa for all your shopping. At the moment, Apple want to make money from the hardware and hope you will buy music from them - and that's about it.
Now, for me, the lack of compatibility with anything other than Airplay is maybe a deal-breaker - like most new Apple products they lack versatility - but for plenty of people that's exactly what they need. Its not as if Android offers a single "just works" solution beyond Bluetooth, and at least it looks like any iOS App will be able to Airplay to these speakers (even Chromecast still depends on application-level support).
Anyway, Apple seem to know about tiny speakers - the iPad speakers are incredible for their size (which is not the same as being incredible in absolute terms) and even the iMac speakers are pretty impressive for what they are (they sound muffled, but not as muffled as they should do without any visible grilles...).
NB: can anybody answer this - is the HomePod strictly mono, or does it use beam-forming/psychoacoustic tricks to produce some semblance of a stereo image?
"Apple is doomed because they aren't catering to a small niche of nerds that hardly makes any revenue"
This is exactly the Android vs iOS fight over again. Apple's not going to lose because they have leverage. An installed base of over 1 billion iOS devices is leverage. Having aggregated the most affluent customers is leverage.
It's actually astounding to me that there's people in the Macrumors comments who think Apple's approach isn't the right one and that they're somehow going to "lose".
Could the grapes in this thread be any more sour?
At least the excellent audio makes up for absolute garbage that is Siri.
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Cringe
I don’t know about any of that stuff I’m in no way an audiophile, I do find the HomePod impressive tho and have been using it daily since mine arrived on Friday, I’ve listened to all kinds of music at different volumes and i can’t hear any distortion which in itself is impressive, the fact that Siri can hear me from across the room when talking at a normal level is also impressive. The HomePod in my opinion is great I think Apple have a hit on their hands (yet again as with the AirPods).