First Impressions From New HomePod Owners: Siri's Voice Detection is 'Phenomenal,' Audio Quality is 'Immediately Evident'

[nomad01]

I just returned from the Apple store, ready to buy one of these bad boys. I'm very glad I went and listened to it first. The sound is good, no doubt; but it isn't great. I'm no audiophile, by the way. While the bass sounded very clear and not muddy at all, it was the most prominent thing coming out of this speaker. I listened through a few tracks. Mids and highs also very clear, along with vocals, but they get lost very, very easily behind that bass. Considering where Siri is, the sound of this thing, and the cost, I'm a solid 'no' for the HomePod. Obviously, everyone's ears and use case is different, but if you can listen before you buy, it might be worth it. If bass is your thing, you will like it. It is impressive how much they are pumping out from such a small package.

I’d recommend listening to it away from the store.

Just set mine up at home and initial impressions were not great but you need to give it space. If I sit too close the sound seems muddier.

Now I’m home and a maybe 10 feet away it sounds gorgeous. If anything I’d say the bass was lacking rather than overpowering.

 

[falainber]

Say what? It has been compared to many other speakers in its price range (Sonos comes to mind as well as the Google Home Max) and almost everyone says it's better than anything at its price (or even higher priced). How is that misleading people?

What's misleading is when people compare the HomePod to much more expensive discrete home audio gear, and conclude that it sounds lousy. Or you claiming it was only tested against cheap devices (Echo or Google Home).

As was reported on MR. Sonos 1 sounds marginally worse than HP and Sonos 5 kills it. All these speakers are life style speakers and not really high quality speakers. Many bookshelf speakers (like this one) cost less and probably sound better (I have not had a chance to listen to HP yet)
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Does the HomePod have bass and treble controls? Or any other ways to adjust how you listen to audio? EQ perhaps?

No. Apple Analytics, supposedly, does it for you.

 

[mattopotamus]

Siri does literally all of these things, I don’t know what you’re talking about. In fact HomeKit can automatically arm my alarm when the last person in the family has left because it has GPS occupancy status for multiple users.

If you are “actually” invested in a smart home Siri and HomeKit are far more advanced than the basic interactions you get with Alexa and Google. And it even supports more devices and appliances than the competition via 3rd party programs: https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge

Yes you can add (and remove, unlike Alexa...) from your lists.

I don’t know what you are looking at. Saying HomeKit has more 3rd party support than Alexa is beyond wrong.

 

[bernuli]

This reply makes even less sense.

I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you said. Would you like me to search the web for you?

 

[DevNull0]

A person’s point of view will determine how much that person is prepared to spend on something.

True, but that isn't what we were talking about, we were talking about whether the $350 price point of the speaker is "overpriced" not whether someone is prepared to spend the money on it.

I don't think a 75" 4k OLED TV is over priced at $8,000, but I'm not prepared to pay that much for it because the use and enjoyment I'd get don't justify the price.

I do believe the 2017 MBPs are overpriced for what you get, yet I own one because the use and enjoyment I get provides me more enjoyment than other things I could spend the money on.

There is little correlation between "overpriced", and some specific individual being willing to pay for it.

Prada sells a standard sized paperclip for around $150? Is that overpriced? Some people buy it.

But it a good sounding speaker is a good sounding speaker, and as such will have a value relative to how good it sounds.

How could does that speaker sound when it's playing my TV audio? How about playing sound from my computer? I would argue the HomePod is useless as a speaker, but that's not fair because the reality is it is not a speaker, not marketed as a speaker, and not intended by Apple to be treated as a speaker. It is a lock-in device for other Apple products and services.

IMO, a speaker with the sound quality of the HomePod is good value at $350. The very limited device that the HomePad actually is would be overpriced at $50.

My point is that if the HomePod sounds as good as it reportedly does, then it’s probably worth the money for that alone. All the Siri stuff is just icing on the cake.

My point is that for most of the content I actually wish to play on a speaker, the HomePod sounds exactly as good as a stone I pick up from the ground outside. The HomePod and the stone are equally useful as speakers ***and equally not intended to be speakers***.

I don’t see how you can say it is overpriced, if a comparable sounding speaker would cost just as much, with or without the smart stuff.

Find me a comparable sounding speaker that I cannot connect to my computer or TV and we can discuss it. The HomePod is not a speaker.

I can see them opening things up to HP in time too. They might shift a few more AM subscriptions if they don’t, but they’d likely shift a lot more HomePods if they do.

I know if it sounds as good as indications so far say, I'd buy 1 or 2 at $350 if I could use them as speakers. As the limited ecosystem lock-in device it is, I wouldn't buy it at $50.

 

[deckard666]

Whatever you do macrumors.....make sure you only post positive reviews....it’ll make all those who overpaid for a limited speaker feel better about themeselves.

How do you know they overpaid ? Limited in what way ? I feel good about myself right now and I dont think a home pod would affect me either way to be honest....

 

[dewski]

I own AirPods, an iPhone X and QC35s... they don’t use ports- difference is, they’re all mobile devices that are space compromised, a HomePod has plenty of room for that port which opens so many possibilities.

Ditto. There is no reason to not include a port besides apple's own stubbornness. I have airpods and I still use plug in earphones sometimes when I'm at my desk because I don't want to deal with linking the pods or waiting for the link. Sometimes it is just easier to plug in.

 

[LCC0256]

Here are my thoughts on this Home Pod unit. I believe that Apple will eventually expand and improve Siri but being Apple do it with PRIVACY at the utmost consideration. I for one do not want a listening device in my home from anyone. Apple is the only company I would consider trusting.

Another thought is that with the sound technology that is built in to this speaker it can be expanded and further enlarged (size wise) so that a home could have speaker(s) for every room sans amplifiers/cables/various room treatments. I don't know about everyone else but having the potential for VERY good sounding speakers without the need for amps wires cables music players DAC's acoustical room treatments etc etc etc is very appealing. There will ALWAYS be a very few who fancy themselves "audiophiles" that will never be satisfied with this speaker or the concept. However I have all ideas that they are on to something somewhat revolutionary for the great majority of the public if only those who are in the Apple "ecosystem"

 

[ChrisCW11]

Lol, why does this all sound like Sarah Huckabee Sanders talking about Trump.

 

[tkermit]

Any opinions on reproduction of classical music, i.e. orchestral, chamber, piano?

There's a paragraph in Kirk McElhearn's review where he describes listening to some classical music on HomePod:

I naturally tried out some classical music, with mixed results. A Beethoven string quartet – the Op. 95, by the Tackács Quartet – sounded muddy, with little separation between the instruments, and very little space. Purcell’s Fantasias for viol consort by Phantasm also sounded flat and confused, again, with little space. Some piano music sounds good, and some sounds like it’s being played through a tunnel. But Jordi Savall’s recording of Capt. Tobias Hume, Musicall Humours, for solo bass viol, sounds rich and powerful, though a bit bass-heavy.

Also, jazz:

Moving to jazz, I tried out one of my standard test tracks, Brad Mehldau’s Exit Music (For a Film), a cover of the Radiohead song, on The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3: Songs. I love this track because of the subtle way it builds up, and because of the light touch of drummer Jorge Rossy, as he taps the cymbals, creating interesting polyrhythms with the piano. Unfortunately, the cymbals are too quiet, and the bass gets muddied with the piano, turning an intricate song into a flat-sounding piece for piano trio.

HomePod doesn't really seem well suited for either of these genres.. The whole review is worth a read:

https://www.kirkville.com/homepod-r...od-its-great-but-it-doesnt-always-sound-good/

 

[ersan191]

As was reported on MR. Sonos 1 sounds marginally worse than HP and Sonos 5 kills it. All these speakers are life style speakers and not really high quality speakers. Many bookshelf speakers (like this one) cost less and probably sound better (I have not had a chance to listen to HP yet)
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No. Apple Analytics, supposedly, does it for you.

Practically nobody is saying the Sonos 5 is better, I'm not sure where you are looking.
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I don’t know what you are looking at. Saying HomeKit has more 3rd party support than Alexa is beyond wrong.

https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge
Has over 1000 plugins - Alexa has 400-something, Google is somewhere around 200

HomeKit has been around a lot longer, though.

 

[Boatboy24]

I can't understand why you wouldn't listen in your home, not an Apple Store? Isn't that the way to get a realistic appraisal?

Agree that it is. But the sound in the store wasn't compelling enough for me to take the next step.
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I’d recommend listening to it away from the store.

Just set mine up at home and initial impressions were not great but you need to give it space. If I sit too close the sound seems muddier.

Now I’m home and a maybe 10 feet away it sounds gorgeous. If anything I’d say the bass was lacking rather than overpowering.

Interesting. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[aljawad]

I'm sure many around the world have asked this question to Siri on the HomePod today!

 

[ersan191]

Using Youtube to test sound quality is dumb.
You can use Apple Music (streamed) then download the song to your phone and using Airplay from there. I think that would work.

It would likely still be playing this directly from Apple Music.

I'll compare to Spotify when I get mine today.

 

[Rogifan]

Say what? It has been compared to many other speakers in its price range (Sonos comes to mind as well as the Google Home Max) and almost everyone says it's better than anything at its price (or even higher priced). How is that misleading people?

What's misleading is when people compare the HomePod to much more expensive discrete home audio gear, and conclude that it sounds lousy. Or you claiming it was only tested against cheap devices (Echo or Google Home).

Nilay Patel compared it favorabl to a Play 5. Note that in Apple’s previews with journalists they didn’t have any setups of really high end speakers or home theater systems. I don’t think Apple is claiming HomePod will be as good as the best audiophile speakers. I have a feeling this is going to be a lot like cameras and how dare anyone ever compare a smartphone camera to a DSLR. Or smartphone cameras are great for Instagram and Facebook but not much else.

 

[deanthedev]

As was reported on MR. Sonos 1 sounds marginally worse than HP and Sonos 5 kills it. All these speakers are life style speakers and not really high quality speakers. Many bookshelf speakers (like this one) cost less and probably sound better (I have not had a chance to listen to HP yet)

Cherry picking quotes now?

"blows the [Sonos] Play 3 out of the water"
"I can definititvely say that the #HomePod sounds substantially better than my $1000 #Sonos system. "
"I am an audiophile and the HomePod is an austounding leap forward in audio for price - the separation and soundstage from a "single" speaker is amaze balls"

From this actual article.

9to5Mac has tested the HomePod and state it's better than a Play:5. I'm really curious where you're getting that the Play:5 "kills" the HomePod.

 

[johngordon]

True, but that isn't what we were talking about, we were talking about whether the $350 price point of the speaker is "overpriced" not whether someone is prepared to spend the money on it.

I don't think a 75" 4k OLED TV is over priced at $8,000, but I'm not prepared to pay that much for it because the use and enjoyment I'd get don't justify the price.

I do believe the 2017 MBPs are overpriced for what you get, yet I own one because the use and enjoyment I get provides me more enjoyment than other things I could spend the money on.

There is little correlation between "overpriced", and some specific individual being willing to pay for it.

Prada sells a standard sized paperclip for around $150? Is that overpriced? Some people buy it.

I agree, and that was kind if my point. When you mentioned “overpriced” before you sounded as though you were suggesting that something was overpriced if someone wouldn’t pay the asking price.

How could does that speaker sound when it's playing my TV audio? How about playing sound from my computer? I would argue the HomePod is useless as a speaker, but that's not fair because the reality is it is not a speaker, not marketed as a speaker, and not intended by Apple to be treated as a speaker. It is a lock-in device for other Apple products and services.

IMO, a speaker with the sound quality of the HomePod is good value at $350. The very limited device that the HomePad actually is would be overpriced at $50.

My point is that for most of the content I actually wish to play on a speaker, the HomePod sounds exactly as good as a stone I pick up from the ground outside. The HomePod and the stone are equally useful as speakers ***and equally not intended to be speakers***.

Find me a comparable sounding speaker that I cannot connect to my computer or TV and we can discuss it. The HomePod is not a speaker.

I know if it sounds as good as indications so far say, I'd buy 1 or 2 at $350 if I could use them as speakers. As the limited ecosystem lock-in device it is, I wouldn't buy it at $50.

Fair point. But assuming someone doesn’t need to hook it up to, say an amp and turntable, then in terms of audio quality, for them, it’s not overpriced.

Anyway, I’m picking one up this evening.

 

[ersan191]

Cherry picking quotes now?

"blows the [Sonos] Play 3 out of the water"
"I can definititvely say that the #HomePod sounds substantially better than my $1000 #Sonos system. "
"I am an audiophile and the HomePod is an austounding leap forward in audio for price - the separation and soundstage from a "single" speaker is amaze balls"

From this actual article.

9to5Mac has tested the HomePod and state it's better than a Play:5. I'm really curious where you're getting that the Play:5 "kills" the HomePod.

It's even funnier because 9to5mac literally says "this thing is a Sonos Play 5 killer" in its headline.
The Verge also compared it to a Play 5 and said it was better.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Is there even any strategic value in acquiring Spotify?

Sure there would be a lot of value in purchasing it. They could shut it down and transfer all of the users over to Apple Music. A lot of devices from Google, Amazon, Sonos, Bose, etc. have native Spotify support and that could be pulled forcing people into the Apple ecosystem.

I'd say it would be a win for Apple and help them improve profitability in this area. I like Spotify, but I can see the value in purchasing and closing the largest competitor.

 

[Weaselboy]

Odd. It said it was posted yesterday at 2pm on my phone. Can you merge my thread into that instead perhaps?

I merged it for you.

 

[KeithJenner]

I got my HomePod today, but only had about 30 minutes before having to go out. These my thoughts.

Whilst I an a big music listener, I’m no audiophile. I couldn’t tell you whether it has too much top end, or if the mid range is lacking, or any of that stuff, but the couple of songs I listened to sounded very good. One of the main things I was looking for was a speaker which sounded good from various locations in our L shaped kitchen. I have to say that I couldn’t spot any difference wherever I stood, and the volume was consistent, even round the corner. It has met its principle purpose very well.

Volume was certainly more than adequate for our needs in that room.

I usually listen to specific albums, and wasn’t sure how I will get on with asking Siri to play stuff. In the kitchen it will generally be for family listening, so is a situation where asking for a general playlist is likely to work a bit better. So, for the first time today I asked Siri to play some stuff, and was genuinely impressed by the selection it came up with. Obviously, that won’t be as handy for the rest of the family, and I have turned off listening history. Just playing with the Home App, it seems that it is fairly easy to change the Apple Music library which is used, but it seems to take a minute or two to do so. This is something I will have to play around with a bit more, but it may not be quite as “single user” as I had feared.

Siri works fairly well as expected except for one fairly significant issue. It doesn’t appear to hear me a lot of the time. I generally don’t have trouble using Siri on other devices, but found the HomePod often ignored me saying “Hey Siri”. it worked fine for my wife and son, so seems to be a problem specifically with my voice. I didn’t have time to play with it much, so I can’t say at the moment whether it’s going to be a bigger problem. Once I had attracted Siri’s attention it seemed to be fairly good at understanding us.

 

[Keirasplace]

As was reported on MR. Sonos 1 sounds marginally worse than HP and Sonos 5 kills it. All these speakers are life style speakers and not really high quality speakers. Many bookshelf speakers (like this one) cost less and probably sound better (I have not had a chance to listen to HP yet)
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No. Apple Analytics, supposedly, does it for you.

So resorting to lies now hey. OK then.

 

[roboats]

Ok, after reading this thread, I am tempted to buy one. I had no intention to before because of my current setup: Echo Dot plugged into two speakers and subwoofer (Cyber Acoustics). Link on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cyber-Acoust...8&qid=1518200061&sr=1-4&keywords=2.1+speakers. I know they are cheap and hard to compare to some of the higher quality speakers, but they sound pretty good and have adjustable bass.

Would anyone be able to remotely compare sound quality and volume of HomePod to something like my setup? I have my speakers on top of my desk, and the subwoofer under, so I am curious also how HomePod would sound if you are sitting at a desk with it on it.

Thank you.

 

[ersan191]

Ok, after reading this thread, I am tempted to buy one. I had no intention to before because of my current setup: Echo Dot plugged into two speakers and subwoofer (Cyber Acoustics). Link on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cyber-Acoust...8&qid=1518200061&sr=1-4&keywords=2.1+speakers. I know they are cheap and hard to compare to some of the higher quality speakers, but they sound pretty good and have adjustable bass.

Would anyone be able to remotely compare sound quality and volume of HomePod to something like my setup? I have my speakers on top of my desk, and the subwoofer under, so I am curious also how HomePod would sound if you are sitting at a desk with it on it.

Thank you.

It's going to sound significantly better than $40 2.1 PC speakers, I can tell you that with confidence. There is no comparison to be made.

 

[Gav Mack]

I've had my friends HomePod here earlier and had a listen. It sounded pretty good but blowing all $1000 speakers away in terms of sound quality? Nope. My Naim Mu-so qb sounds better with airplay and as for the Tidal lossless streams via the Naim app with the Muso qb connected via ethernet it's an even bigger jump in terms of quality. I do also have the bigger brother Mu so under the main TV for the Xbox and the kids and also Naim separates for my own listening so a bit of an audiophile here! Kids have my Apple music and Tidal hifi subscription is mine ;-)

I think Alexa will still rule in the kitchen and I might just get a used Muso qb to supplant it for comparable cost of the HomePod.