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

[ouimetnick]

As I said before, this Still isn't going to compare with a real audio setup. I have several different amps, different preamps, and lots of speakers (change them out every so often)

Measurements are important, but artificially changing the frequency response to sound "better" is another thing. 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. I tried a HomePod at the Apple Store last night and was not impressed with how loud and clear it was, but the bass and treble were a bit overpowering with the mids sounding a little lacking.

Probably a great speaker for MOST people though.

 

[Heineken]

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?

It's most certainly not mono.

This is mono.

 

[RickInHouston]

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.

 

[_Refurbished_]

"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?

Huh?

The HomePod is going to sell amazingly well and will be a very successful product.

It is consistently criticized, and deservedly so, for offering less than stellar results when pertaining to Siri and the inability to use other platforms. My previous post was honest, not sour.

It doesn’t astound me that MacRumors members get defensive about the deficiencies of a new product.

 

[roncron]

The test reported here compares a single KEF X300A to a single HomePod. The X300As were engineered to be used in a stereo pair (and are sold that way).

I own the non-wireless version of the KEF X300A, which listed for $799 when they came out about 4 years ago and now commonly sell for $600-700. I play FLACs and a decent turntable through them. It’s hard for me to imagine that a single HomePod streaming 256Kbps AAC would sound better.

But if it does, I’ll be happy for everyone that buys a HomePod. And if I ever want to replace my X300A’s, I will definitely audition a pair of HomePods playing in stereo.

 

[jonnyb098]

That's probably the best summary of the Homepod anyone could make. Also a great summary of video. As with everything digital there's a vast difference between audio, video and photography looking and sounding good versus being accurately reproduced.

As someone who used to run a print business we came across so many problems with people expecting what is on the screen being 1:1 albeit we had all of the calibrated equipment and they had non calibrated laptop, phone and tablet screens that you get such a range of expectation versus reality.

Which is why most designers worth anything use a calibrated screen.....or a Mac. Haha. A Mac is the closest accurate color you’ll get out of the box with any computer. Instead of the obnoxiously blue tinted screens put in most garbage PC systems.

 

[_Refurbished_]

So apart from the single biggest factor in a music speaker?

A music speaker that can’t play Spotify, Pandora, or any other music service? It also uses Siri as it’s intelligence. I’d say there’s a bunch of empty check boxes that should have been checked. Great sound is only aspect of creating a well-rounded smart speaker.

 

[JoeWal]

"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. It only changes if you start listening on studio monitors which are designed to be neutral flat and revealing - many people may find that sound "boring" compared to a HomePod type signature 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 course - 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 destroyed the entire Echo range and easily puts Sonos to shame, not that i'd ever want to listen to either for extended periods)

I think you missed a lot of important points that WinterCharm describes in his review.

Firstly HomePod uses fletcher-munson like “dynamic loudness“. Your hearing does not have a flat frequency response, the response differs depending on the signal strength. Just google “fletcher-munson curve“ if you‘re unfimiliar with it.
This is why HomePod doesn’t measure perfectly flat at lower volumes. This is not just about V-shaping the sound, it‘s a design decission to make it sound better a lower volume levels.

Secondly he measured HomePod in a small room without any acoustic treatment. Under these conditions HomePod performed better and more linear (at 100% HomePod volume, at this point HomePod seems to be the most linear due to the dynamic loudness I mentioned) than the KEF monitors he uses which have a pretty flat response in studio conditions or an anechoic chamber. Outside of those conditions you will never see any speaker just measure perfectly flat and HomePod does INCREDIBLY well in this regard.
Which means most people can buy a HomePod, put it anywhere and get great and Hi-Fi worthy sound and probably better sound than they have had all their life.
This is why he says, HomePod deserves a standing ovation. Not because it will replace your studio monitors in your studio. Nobody said that and HomePod is actually a terrible choise for that because of so many reasons.

 

[citysnaps]

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?

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.

 

[Heineken]

No. 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.

This is insane. I can only classify this as madness.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

As I said before, this Still isn't going to compare with a real audio setup. I have several different amps, different preamps, and lots of speakers (change them out every so often)

Depends on your use case, and price level. Can you find better stereo setups, that are properly setup and when you are in the main listening position you have an amazing experience. Oh hell yes, most definitely. I've got one of those in my lounge It is wonderful sitting there, closing your eyes and be transported away and enjoy it.

But is the HomePod competing or even targeting that market segment. No of course not. Firstly you won't be able to get anywhere near that experience for the small amount of money Apple is asking. You need to spend a fair bit more money.

But is it good enough to replace a half decent traditional stereo setup say something like a Denon M41DAB paired with any good bookshelf speakers like Q-Accoustic or Dali or Monitor Audio or Kef or B&W, with associated stands and cabling etc....

Yes, most definitely it is. We have one like that in our Dining room, there is no MLP, people move in an out. The quality of what a single HomePod provides is more than equal to a separates setup. That really surprised me.

Then move on to the kitchen, and bedrooms etc and the picture gets painted and complete...

It is interesting though to see the measurements, and that seems to match with what I'm hearing.

 

[ke-iron]

There is also the question of: how does one play lossless music in the HomePod? Is AirPlay the only way?

Yes since there is no wired connection to the HomePod. AirPlay protocol also allows uncompressed audio transfers.

 

[1JPK1]

I got the HomePod on Friday and the sound is great and much better than expected. As an audiophile (with very expansive and discriminating equipment), I am impressed. That said, the measurements issue is a red herring. Measurements are a very bad indicator of sound quality. They used to care about measurements a lot in the 70's and 80's until they found out that listening to music is the best way to judge audio (DUH!). The review by "What Hifi" is a much better positive review. They actually listened to music in making their judgement.

 

[belvdr]

Also, according to the OP, he said NEAR-perfectly flat, and yet here you quote him as perfectly flat and prove he's wrong by talking about ten thousand dollar speakers.

While I have no audio geek in me, the reviewer states it different ways. I am not sure if they are contradictory, but I don't see "nearly flat" anywhere:

https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/7wwtqy/apple_homepod_the_audiophile_perspective/

Emphasis is mine:

What we can immediately see is that the HomePod has an incredibly flat frequency response at multiple volumes. It doesn’t try to over emphasize the lows, mids, or highs. This is both ideal, and impressive because it allows the HomePod to accurately reproduce audio that’s sent to it. All the way from 40Hz to 20,000Hz it's ±3dB, and from 60Hz to 13.5Khz, it's less than ±1dB... Hold on while I pick my jaw up off the floor.

So, not only do we have a little speaker that manages uncharacteristically low distortion, and near-perfect frequency response, but it does so while adapting to the room

I cannot read any of these graphs, but I question a $75 USB microphone and some off the shelf free software for measurements. Usually tools are calibrated, and I'm guessing audio gear should be calibrated too. The reviewer makes a mention of calibration using some downloaded calibration file. I'm not sure if anything else should be done.

To that, I'll add if a speaker produces sound, it is usually good enough for me.

 

[user1234]

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?

When you spend more on a pair of speaker cables than an average person spends on rent you can be pretty sure you're an audiophile. I'd say though that I believe audiophile is more of a state of ambition than anything else. I know of "audiophiles" who spend tons on audio equipment but can't really hear a difference, and then there are those who are perfectly fine with a $500 setup who calls themselves audiophiles.

I think the hard thing is to know when you cross the point of diminishing returns. Is an improvement you can only slightly hear if you really focus worth spending twice the amount for? I don't think so, but I don't call myself an audiophile either. I'd say I'm quality conscious though.

 

[Craiger]

While I have no audio geek in me, the reviewer states it different ways. I am not sure if they are contradictory, but I don't see "nearly flat" anywhere:

https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/7wwtqy/apple_homepod_the_audiophile_perspective/

Emphasis is mine:




I cannot read any of these graphs, but I question a $75 USB microphone and some off the shelf free software for measurements. Usually tools are calibrated, and I'm guessing audio gear should be calibrated too. The reviewer makes a mention of calibration using some downloaded calibration file. I'm not sure if anything else should be done.

To that, I'll add if a speaker produces sound, it is usually good enough for me.

"The resultant graph shows the near-perfectly flat frequency response of the HomePod."

 

[Abazigal]

A music speaker that can’t play Spotify, Pandora, or any other music service? It also uses Siri as it’s intelligence. I’d say there’s a bunch of empty check boxes that should have been checked. Great sound is only aspect of creating a well-rounded smart speaker.

And for the right user, that’s really all that matters.

 

[fhall1]

Good to see more intensive test write ups coming through. David Pogue's blind head to head test also came up with some interesting results.

The results of this were very interesting in a head to head test indeed

 

[ManDark]

"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. It only changes if you start listening on studio monitors which are designed to be neutral flat and revealing - many people may find that sound "boring" compared to a HomePod type signature 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 course - 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 destroyed the entire Echo range and easily puts Sonos to shame, not that i'd ever want to listen to either for extended periods)

Hello, im sorry, but where is your analysis for the HomePod ? If i understood your response reply or whatso ever, you are saying that the througly test article is Crap ? Because it sound like this

"His actual graphs show anything but perfectly flat, they show huge peaks and troughs everywhere" - have you seeen a "perfectly flat curve" for other speakers ?

What my opinion here ist the guy invested a lot of time and ressources to test this a documented everything, so until you or someboy else has a more thorougly test with a better equipment then shut up an read and study what is this all about because writing this is not true in a polite way can do anybody but prooving it on behalf of some backing this is something different.

 

[Smeaton1724]

Which is why most designers worth anything use a calibrated screen.....or a Mac. Haha. A Mac is the closest accurate color you’ll get out of the box with any computer. Instead of the obnoxiously blue tinted screens put in most garbage PC systems.

Yes agreed, but Joe Public just wants the photo printing like they see on the screen they have, it is technically challenging on calibrated equipment - including the over saturated colours or blue tint, there's no print or display calibration setting for ''Kindle Fire Oversaturation'' . The quote ''well it looks like this on my screen'', is the equivalent of ''this sounds good with Homepod'', its subjective to the person but on a technical level easily discernible with calibration and testing equipment.

Funnily enough I'm picky about photo reproduction between print and screen but I don't really care about audio on a technical level - I just want it to sound decent to my own ears. The Homepod launch reminds me of back when new iPods would get released, Apple would advertise the thinness and extra storage capacity and then you'd have about 8 people arguing over Audio quality for weeks.

 

[huffhuff]

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'd say this speaker has two, distinct 'smart' elements. Yes, siri is supposed to be the traditional 'smart' part - but the real smarts is in the A8 processor, the beam forming and adaptive audio electrickery which goes into making it sound so amazing regardless of what space or dark corner you place it in.

 

[chiefsilverback]

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, 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.

I'm surprised any 'audiophile' could like the HomePod, with a fixed power cord and no physical inputs there is no way to hear the warmer mid-range, punchier bass and treble as crisp a virgin snow on a clear winter morning, that is imbued by a $500 optical cable, and the $800 power cord made from unicorn hair.

 

[Ragnar51]

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?

As with many things I expect a lot of them are self appointed.

 

[johngordon]

A music speaker that can’t play Spotify, Pandora, or any other music service? It also uses Siri as it’s intelligence. I’d say there’s a bunch of empty check boxes that should have been checked. Great sound is only aspect of creating a well-rounded smart speaker.

It can play Spotify, Pandora or any other music service.

What sorts of things are people typically actually using Alexa for semi regularly, the Siri won't do?

 

[spacemnspiff]

This graph alone to me is pretty impressive.