So you think if someone said HomePod sounds better it has to be unanimous across the board to be true?
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Consumer Reports: Google Home Max and Sonos One Sound Better Than HomePod
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No, not at all. Sound is subjective. Your post stated there was “no way” the Sonos could sound better.
If you pick specific songs then yes, but if I had to pick one that has overall better sound there is no contest HomePod is an overall better sounding speaker.
Whoever does not praise Apple is an hater?
When company comes with a new product the first wave of reviews, which an be really a lot in the case of Apple, are from reviewers who cannot afford to say anything bad and these are the reviews we got so far.
I just wait and see a few months to get real users feedback.
Anyways I think these smart speakers are the most stupid thing one can buy ... the entire smart speakers category. Why should I want to spend big bucks on a speaker which gets obsolete so quickly.
I prefer proper real speakers and a smart assistant connected to the Line In because good speakers can last many years like a smart speaker will get obsolete.
Bringing obsolescence to speakers is the most stupid thing I have seen in my entire life ... Thank you Apple, Sonos and Google for such a thing.
This is what I came to post. You can't test a speaker that uses room correcting software in an anechoic chamber.
What's the point?
Should they also test the speakers in a vacuum?
Maybe they can test them under water too....
I also forgot to say that if you turn your Sonos to 100 it is much more distorted than HomePod. Also it is not a new thing to skew or over exaggerate little bit to seem more "critical".
if they do not say what you want to hear then they are telling lies ? I think you are a bit fanatic ... just a bit ... but hey ... make sure they see your comment so they can sue you too.
The audio on all of these speakers (I own none of them) is probably really good for most mortals who just want to fill their room with some background music. True Audiophiles are not the market for any of these speakers, I don't think. Probably because someone who is an actual audiophile has an identity that isn't served with this kind of product anyhow. Regardless of whether a HomePod or a whatever is better. It's the reason that a luxury car snob isn't going to buy a Toyota, no matter how many horsepower it has, or how good it is.
Same reason a lot of Apple folks would never buy an Android (or vice-versa) even if iOS became tragically awful.
Same reason a lot of Apple folks would never buy an Android (or vice-versa) even if iOS became tragically awful.
The exposed the issues of the MSFT Surface and of Tesla and many others .... they are one of the few that does proper reviews and not on the payroll of the marketing departments of Microsoft, Apple, google, Samsung and so on.
However it is true that this current generation of speakers which adjust to the environment should probably be tested in a different way ... that I agree
That's funny. I'm not *that* old and I don't have female genitalia either. Hmm. Also can't remember the last time MR posted a CR report on dishwashers or stoves. I fail to see how CR survives only or once or twice-a-year reports on Apple products. Also seeing how CR is behind a pay-wall or you have to go to the library, I'm puzzled on how people who can pay for access to CR somehow wouldn't be able to afford a $350 speaker. And why would someone read CR, which is solely about what to buy, if they can't afford to buy anything?
I do not regularly read CR, but if I'm buying a major appliance, yes, I see what they say. I like to do my due diligence when I'm paying hundreds of dollars for something. But only after taking a collection of reviews of a product, good, bad, neutral, do I use my own gut and logic to make a decision. No one source is the be-all-and-end-all on what to buy, at least if my money is being spent. It's my decision ultimately, and once done, I don't care what others think.
The question I have is why do so many here take bad OR good reviews personally, as if they designed the product? I wonder why these people don't reserve their energies making their own successes and achievements rather than living though a faceless company that doesn't know they exist except as a demographic or credit card account.
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I found Pogues review intriguing, a properly blind test in a realistic listening environment and it didn't produce the results I expected either, as the couple of times I've heard a Sonos One it sounded terrible to me. If the HomePod really isn't any better than that, I'll be keeping my Harmon Kardon Soundsticks for a good while longer.
However Pogues test isn't without problems either. He only has a few people listening, *if* most of them are used to the Sonos sound then they could be more likely to pick it in a blind test. *IF*.
Ideally a blind test like this needs many more participants from a broad number of backgrounds to get meaningful results. And both it and the CR test contradict most other review, not all of which were done in Apples compromised listening environment.
But yeah, it is interesting.
Taken from Wired's 5/10 review:
This review nails it - they sound the same as the FREE headphones we all have in a drawer somewhere (which I have also never used as they are terrible.) They don't sound bad, but buy virtually any other pair of $100+ headphones (especially wired) and the sound quality will be infinitely better. Like the HomePod, the AirPods are aimed at casual listeners. You will not find them in a recording studio. You can't claim you're serious about music if you have either of these. And that's fine, but don't complain about it.
Obvious how? Again, if they were the only ones out there saying it, maybe you could make the argument. The blind test Pogue did is absolutely telling. You can dismiss it all you want, but the bottom line, in a blind test, HomePod wasn’t the best.
First of all HomePod has software that makes changes to how it sounds based on where it is. If there is no echo it is blind and probably uses some basic profile which is not optimal for anything. Second like in any scientific blind test (which it is not) you need a "slightly" bigger test group. By slightly i mean a lot. Few people that have already been listening to others speakers for much longer can come up with same results blind test or not.
Again, that is your opinion. You just don't like CRs. Consumers, rather than partisans, will look across a variety of reviews to make a decision, then, hopefully, audition the product themselves, put that together with their research, and then make a decision.
Partisans on the other hand will call everything not to their liking biased. That is why they are labeled partisan. Just a few weeks ago people -- probably not in the market for a BMW -- ripped BMW because they are going to switch from a purchase model to a subscription model for CarPlay. They were pissed because it's an Apple product and felt entitled to pillory BMW.
But when Apple offers a paltry 5GB iCloud storage or consumer hostile repair fees or high prices on years old products like the iPad or Mac mini, these same people go out of their way to justify those things as perfectly reasonable. Partisan, not logical, not consumerist, not electronic gadget enthusiast -- just Apple religionist. Don't question Pope Cook.
Priceless! Your comment, sir/madam, has won the brainless award. And kudos to you, as there are lots that are vying with you for this. Well done!
I'm not american and i don't follow CR to care what they do.
With that i agree. Just because i like Apple in general doesn't mean that i like them unquestionably. That would be stupid.
It’s interesting that the Reddit review that has been circulating that says the HomePod is better than a $1k pair of bookshelf speakers started their frequency analysis by trying to isolate the speakers from the room modulation. His method was to first do frequency sweeps to judge the raw performance of the speaker itself before processing.
That’s the only purpose of the anechoic chamber testing and, ironically, in reviewing the CR writeup, I see no reference to them using an anechoic chamber. They describe a listening room with other reference monitors for comparison. I was responding to another post that claimed CR used an anechoic chamber and it appears they didn’t.
You'll get no argument from me there.
No, and you can remove all the words after singing and I can still answer no.
This is silly. Stop making excuses. So I have to put the HomePod in a corner for it to sound good? Schiller himself said you can put it in the center of a room.