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

[_Refurbished_]

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.

High quality audio is not what the word “smart” implies in a smart speaker. Apple smartly designed the the sound, the that’s not what’s being referred to when discussing its smart capabilities.

A processor, A8 in this case, is limited by its software. The software is Siri. Not so smart.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

What an incredible product.

This is the AirPods to speakers (not just smartspeakers): years ahead of the competition.

Some may harp on Siri’s shortcomings, but at the end it’s the hardware that counts, and this one is revolutionary.

I took a listen over the weekend. No complaints, great sound. I wouldn't call it "years ahead" or "revolutionary." It's one more choice in the middle-end bookshelf speaker marketplace, not "THE" choice. As I've said from the start, it's a good option if you live in a small apartment or for an office. It's not really the hardware that counts -- it's the programming of the hardware, i.e., it does things that make it indispensable. HomePod doesn't do really do that except if you subscribe to Apple Music and need a small speaker. It's no Atmos competitor -- THAT would be revolutionary.

 

[NT1440]

Where did I say Apple TV? I said TV. As in the signal from my cable box to my audio receiver. Or Blu-ray player to audio receiver. Or HTPC (which happens to be a mac mini) to my audio receiver.

As for Mac. I actually just spent time googling it again after reading your post. Do you mean airplay to an Apple TV from the mac?

Edit: Okay it looks like you can airplay directly from the Mac with no Apple TV. But not being able to use it as TV audio or with my music is still a non-starter.

It may suck for you, but it doesn’t mean the HomePod is NOT a speaker like you claimed.

If you don’t like that’s fine, but don’t play semantics because it doesn’t suit your needs.

 

[jonnyb098]

Siri isn’t as easily fixable, and the lack of Spotify may never be rectified.

The two issues you listed are checkbox features that were easily added to the iPhone in the next version.

You do know you can still airplay Spotify and use the voice controls for play, pause, next track .....right? I see a lot of people and major reviewers using the blanket statement “DOESNT WORK WITH SPOTIFY”. Which is a false statement. Actually yes it does just not for full voice integration with the Spotify service.....which is no different than an iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, etc. So why is it a shocker? Apple has always been a more closed controlled system and the HomePod is no different.

The way things are looking Apple Music may surpass Spotify subscribers this year anyway. All the while Spotify can’t turn a profit. Spotify is a great service but there’s a legit chance they won’t be around in a few years without MAJOR changes. Apple can do whatever it wants with music since they have the name recognition and more cash than god.

 

[NT1440]

I took a listen over the weekend. No complaints, great sound. I wouldn't call it "years ahead" or "revolutionary." It's one more choice in the middle-end bookshelf speaker marketplace, not "THE" choice. As I've said from the start, it's a good option if you live in a small apartment or for an office. It's not really the hardware that counts -- it's the programming of the hardware, i.e., it does things that make it indispensable. HomePod doesn't do really do that except if you subscribe to Apple Music and need a small speaker. It's no Atmos competitor -- THAT would be revolutionary.

Why isn’t it an option for a small apartment? This speaker gives you clarity at lower volumes that other speakers simply don’t.

 

[_Refurbished_]

You do know you can still airplay Spotify and use the voice controls for play, pause, next track .....right? I see a lot of people using the blanket statement “DOESNT WORK WITH SPOTIFY”. Which is false statement. Actually yes it does just not for full voice integration with the Spotify service.....which is no different than an iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, etc. So why is it a shocker?

You’re taking your phone out to use your new smart speaker.

Magical. Revolutionary.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Sorry mate, it must be hard to you to accept, but I haven't seen anything but positive reviews. As usual, the only critical comments are coming from people who never listened to a HomePod.

Good for you. I'm glad Apple built a perfect smart speaker on their very first try at one, and that no review anywhere has had anything negative to say about it. Perfection for only $349. All hail the Apple.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

There is going to be a lot of denial of the obvious before everyone else starts frantically trying to emulate the HomePod, just like they did the iPhone.

What is the obvious? I know that before the iPhone smartphones were pretty horrible, especially web browsing, because I owned many Palm Phones, all which requires a stylus, not a finger to use. But great small speakers existed before the HomePod. I have many "ancient" ones that still sound as sweet as when they were first broken-in.
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It can play music from Apple Music directly, for what it's worth.

Right but OP was asking about lossless music. AppleMusic isn't lossless.
[doublepost=1518454040][/doublepost]

Why isn’t it an option for a small apartment? This speaker gives you clarity at lower volumes that other speakers simply don’t.

Yeah, you need to go back and read my post a bit more carefully. I said it IS a good option for a small apartment.

 

[steve knight]

I'm starting to think it isn't the Amazon Echo or Google Home that the Homepod will kill off, but the expensive audiophile grade studio monitors. When only one little Homepod can outperform two expensive speakers like these I'd say the speaker companies that market 'audiophile' grade speakers should be very worried.

well not according to my wife. she is blind so her ears are pretty tuned plus she trained as a audio engineer. but she is limited by money. her biggest complaints are it is not in stereo and siri sucks. sonos is much easier for her to stream from. but her speaker setup now that cost 300.00 each and a subwoofer powered by a sonos amp blows it away. but they also blow away her sonos 5 pair in the bedroom and costs less. She has no complaints about the sound quality for what it is. it is better in more locations then most speakers would be. but siri is worse then her ipad in understanding her and the music sources fewer. ith ad to be rebooted once as siri stopped working.

 

[VenusianSky]

I've never heard of Kef, but $999 for a pair of passive listening speakers of that size/configuration seems a bit overpriced. You can get a quality set of 5" reference studio monitors for the same amount or even less. How does one determine or measure what is "audiophile grade" anyways? By the price? I think it is a bit silly when people use that term.
I'm sure the HomePod sounds really good. It is not like Apple to release a product like this that would sound bad, but come on with the "audiophile" nonsense. It just makes this guy sound like a paid shill.

 

[rmoliv]

Who still uses speakers on a regular basis to listen to music? I used to when I was a kid but since then I always use headphones, unless I'm throwing a party or else at special occasions such as Christmas... Other than that I don't want to bother anyone with my music. Won't buy that piece of expensive rotten Apple.

 

[anson42]

I'm not sure it is an actual prerequisite, but being an asshat is definitely helpful

So true for some audiophiles I know. There are many types of audiophiles or folks who call themselves audiophiles. Being rich with disposable income is NOT a necessary attribute.

Audiophiles seek to improve the listening experience, craving "perfect sound forever" or whatever that means. Some use product and room measurements to build a synergistic audio system. Others just use their ears. In order to describe sound to one another, the audiophile world uses many interesting, emotional terms some whose definitions are measurable and some are not; e.g. transparency, imaging, PRAT, DAC, class A, azimuth, off-axis, ad nauseam.

Many audiophiles start out as music lovers and remain music lovers, prizing the enjoyment of music over, say, the equipment they chase and acquire. Many audiophiles value the equipment chase over musical enjoyment, where the quality of sound takes precedence over the quality of the music. Asshats tend to fall into this latter category. Sometimes money can by quality equipment and other times money just buys pretty audio jewelry. It really depends on the manufacturer and the mental state of the audiophile and how much one invests in system and room setup.

I think most audiophiles are somewhere in between, both music lovers and equipment lovers. I personally lean towards the music side. That's not say I haven't spent dollars on equipment as I have over the years. But I have always been a music lover first, equipment second and I have the self discipline to stop with the pursuit of sound quality and instead pursue music that moves me.

The type of audiophile I do NOT get along with is the type who listens to the same 10 LPs over and over again, pursuing yet another repressing of Jennifer Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat all the while never satisfied with the hardware and constantly changing things and winding up no better than the quality was 5 system changes ago. And don't get me started on the $20,000 audio cable market. Like any hobby that invites people with money there is a lot of snake oil that sells products. If you are a budding audiophile or a crazy audiophile, please don't feed the snake oil manufacturers even if you have too much disposable income. There are entities far more deserving of your hard earned income. Like musicians and their legacy, without which there is no point to audiophilia.

 

[steve knight]

You do know you can still airplay Spotify and use the voice controls for play, pause, next track .....right? I see a lot of people and major reviewers using the blanket statement “DOESNT WORK WITH SPOTIFY”.

but you can only pause with outer sources of audio.
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Who still uses speakers on a regular basis to listen to music? I used to when I was a kid but since then I always use headphones, unless I'm throwing a party or else at special occasions such as Christmas... Other than that I don't want to bother anyone with my music. Won't buy that piece of expensive rotten Apple.

my wife she listens all the time to her stereo's. I listen to moves and podcasts on speakers when home.

 

[Lotusman]

Siri isn’t as easily fixable, and the lack of Spotify may never be rectified.

OK, we get it, you're in love with Spotify... I have Apple Music... no need for Spotify, so 'rectifying' that doesn't matter a damn to me and the other half of the planet. Go buy something else that doesn't sound as good and enjoy it...

Ya know, I don't have or need Carplay either... but that doesn't make all cars that don't have Carplay bad.

Come to think of it, I don't much care for pickled eggs either... Eggs, who would ever like eggs.

 

[mi7chy]

Consumer Reports' testing is a little more scientific than this fanboy.

https://www.consumerreports.org/smart-speakers/apple-homepod-early-test-results/

https://i.imgur.com/GCv3L0J_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

 

[Weast]

"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)

An addendum has been added by the mod on that Reddit thread to clarify the graph:

"I'm going to have to sticky something here, since I see it passed around in the Apple-focused press (and since I'm the one who created the graph) by people who don't have experience in measurements:

And here's a look at the Deviation from Linearity between -12 and -24db.

This is not a measure of how flat the frequency response is, and must not be conveyed as such. What the graph actually conveys is how the speaker's response changes between two different loudness levels. It's a useful gauge of how well a speaker handles when being played very loudly.

For those interested, here is how to create that graph for (any) speaker in REW:

1. Take a measurement at a particular volume setting, let's call this "measurement A"

2. Without moving the microphone or making any other changes, re-take the same measurement at a different volume setting - "measurement B"

3. Then add a fixed offset to the least loud measurement, so the graph matches at an anchor point (usually 1 kHz).

4. Create a new graph by dividing measurement A with measurement B.

What you're then left with is how the frequency response changes when you change the volume.

The ideal for these graphs is for them to be flat, but there will always be some deviation in them, and the one for the HomePod is pretty impressive for a 4" driver."

 

[Karma*Police]

I compared it to my current favorite AirPlay Speakers, JBL L8, over the weekend. It’s considered by many to be one of the best, if not the best, speaker in its class and to my surprise, HomePod sounded better. The overall sound wasn’t quite as “warm”, which some people might prefer, but after listening to various songs and genres, the JBL sounded muddled and flat compared to the HomePod which brings out the highs, mids and lows with crystal clear clarity; it brought new life to songs I’ve heard many times before. HomePod is unlike any other speaker I’ve heard before... in a good way. The way it outputs audio is different and immediately noticeable.

As for Siri, it’s better at picking up my voice than the Echo or Dot, especially when playing music and it'll do just as well for what the vast majority of people use smart speakers for; playing back music, home automation, weather and timers/alarms.

That said, I still don't get the appeal of these not-so-smart speakers. For example, it's annoying to constantly tell it to increase/lower the volume... when I AirPlay something to my wireless speakers, I can control it with precision from my AW using the Digital Crown.

 

[johngordon]

High quality audio is not what the word “smart” implies in a smart speaker. Apple smartly designed the the sound, the that’s not what’s being referred to when discussing its smart capabilities.

A processor, A8 in this case, is limited by its software. The software is Siri. Not so smart.

Without mentioning multiple timers, what would you say were, say, five other glaring examples of things that most people might reasonably use a smart speaker for that Siri can't do.

 

[44267547]

The iPhone was a revolutionary product. The HomePod is not.
.

Please stop comparing the HomePod to an iPhone, it’s not relevant at all. The HomePod doesn’t need to be ‘revolutionary’ to be successful. It’s a different product and it’s new to Apple, and it will be successful in its own right without having somebody try to conflate two different things as you’re doing.

 

[anson42]

That said, I still don't get the appeal of these not-so-smart speakers. For example, it's annoying to constantly tell it to increase/lower the volume... when I AirPlay something to my wireless speakers, I can control it with precision from my AW using the Digital Crown.

While it may not be as simple as using the crown, you can control HomePod with your phone (and possibly the AW, I don't have one to check). When HP is playing music, you can see on your phone what is playing as well as control the volume, stop/pause or move to next track. I've used this approach if I happen to have my phone handy. If I don't, then I have to use voice. And then when I do my 5 year old will tell Siri to turn it up again. Grrr.

 

[theluggage]

You’re taking your phone out to use your new smart speaker.

Or: you're making use of the wireless, high-res, full colour, touch-sensitve user interface device that you've already got in your pocket (and already have all your music stored on and/or all your streaming accounts set up on) to control your music rather than duplicating those facilities on a new device that's chained to a wall socket.

As I already said: Apple are selling this as a music device. Its price is competitive for a decent wireless speaker. If you don't have an iOS device, its probably not for you, anymore than you'd buy a chromecast to go with an iPhone. Anything Siri does is a bonus. For me, the ability to turn Siri off would be a bonus. Anyway, trying to access multiple streaming accounts via voice sounds like a recipe for confusion to me: If I say "Hey Siri, Play Redshift" am I going to get British Berlin-school electronica, one or more American bands of the same name or install an interactive astronomy app? I know Spotify can't deal with two bands having the same name.

Also, just some observations:

- the iPhone didn't support third party Apps at first. It does now.
- the Apple TV didn't support third party Apps at first. It does now.
- Spotify, Amazon, whatever, support would rely on those companies making HomePod apps (that worked without a full screen display)
- have Amazon even released their Amazon Prime Video/Music app for the Apple TV yet?
- how many smart devices do you have with out-of-date streaming service apps on them? Might it be smarter to consolidate all your apps on one device and stream to everything else?

All this HomePod-knocking is almost making me want to buy one (to add to my existing drawer full of streaming devices).

 

[NT1440]

Yeah, you need to go back and read my post a bit more carefully. I said it IS a good option for a small apartment.

This is why there shouldn’t be a mobile option for this site, definitely misread it on my phone screen. Sorry about that!

 

[_Refurbished_]

OK, we get it, you're in love with Spotify... I have Apple Music... no need for Spotify, so 'rectifying' that doesn't matter a damn to me and the other half of the planet. Go buy something else that doesn't sound as good and enjoy it...

Ya know, I don't have or need Carplay either... but that doesn't make all cars that don't have Carplay bad.

Come to think of it, I don't much care for pickled eggs either... Eggs, who would ever like eggs.

You know what they say about assumptions, right?

Don’t have Spotify. Subscribed to Apple Music.

I wouldn’t purchase any of the smart speakers. Non of them are worthwhile for my usage. If I had to pick one, it would not be the HomePod.

The CarPlay example is not valid, as I am commenting on the product as a whole, not the individual needs as you suggest. On that matter, I would not buy a car without CarPlay. It’s a must have feature for me when I buy a car next year.

Lastly, I love deviled eggs. They’re one of my favorites.

 

[macs4nw]

I think for its size it's too good. I've been listening all evening yesterday.

I think you missed his point. Read his post again.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Please stop comparing the HomePod to an iPhone, it’s not relevant at all. The HomePod doesn’t need to be ‘revolutionary’ to be successful. It’s a different product and it’s new to Apple, and it will be successful in its own right without having somebody try to conflate two different things as you’re doing.

Huh? I was responding to someone that compared the iPhone to the HomePod. I didn’t make the comparison.