Responds to your touch, too.
Tap the top of HomePod to play, pause, or adjust the volume. The top also shows you when Siri is listening, with an LED waveform that animates with your every word.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
HomePod First Listen Impressions: 'Incredible' Audio With Bass-Heavy Sound That Easily Beats Echo
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Responds to your touch, too.
Tap the top of HomePod to play, pause, or adjust the volume. The top also shows you when Siri is listening, with an LED waveform that animates with your every word.
I agree. The Dot was the thing that got me into this type of product and this speaker doesn't compete with it. I can plug the Dot into a stand alone speaker, a high end receiver, a vintage receiver, Bluetooth Audio to Bluetooth compatible speakers, receive a Bluetooth signal, etc.
This is more for people that just want audio in a room, don't care about video, and really value convenience. It is pretty much the same audience as the Sonos market.... though this has Siri and Sonos has more options across a wider range of price points.
Much of how I feel about this product will depend on whether my other Airplay devices get updates. If they do, then these could build on that ecosystem. If they kill that ecosystem, I am more likely to move to Casting because Apple just doesn't have anything like Chromecast Audio if the Airport Express is killed off. I am hoping that at minimum this doesn't kill off my current Airplay ecosystems. I am pretty happy with the setup I have now.
I think you could generally expect the Hi-Fi to have more bass at higher volumes due to it's larger diameter woofer, but less sophisticated than HomePod when it comes to providing the same audio experience regardless of where you're sitting/standing in a particular space. I think you could also expect the stereo experience for HomePod to be wider from a single unit due to the SoC controlling sound direction.
I've never used Google Home, but own multiple Echos and Siri-enabled devices. The quality of answers for I get from the Echo is lightyears beyond that of Siri at this point. I can as a plainly phrased question to the Echo and get a direct answer, when I have yell at my device to get Siri to even key up, then ask the question, get a "hmm let me look for you" and get a "web answer". There is no contest between the two right now, the Amazon blows away Apple in that department from my experience.
I do really wish all my Echos were linked though.
As it happens with all Apple products that are released, people with non-Apple products are generally the first to defend their purchase choices. No one is saying you have to upgrade, change your chosen platform, etc.; if your chosen device is that much better, you clearly aren't who Apple is gunning for. It's the folks who've been holding out for a fully Apple-compatible solution that the first-generation hardware will interest.
Anyone see any mid-range drivers on the Homepod??? I'm surprised if the demos offered good mid-range. I would really like to see a comparison to Sonos Play 1s. The Homepod seems to be good for music and I really hope that AirPlay 2 plays nice with Sonos because then I don't have to replace my Sonos system but just get some Homepods to even out the experience in the house. From what I've been seeing, there is no 5.1 or 7.1 replacement for the Sonos system so I have to keep that setup since IMO 5.1 is the bare minimum for home theater. I use Apple Music so I'm sure that will be great but how will the HomePod work with Family Share? I'm also skeptical of integrating Apple TV to the system since from what I see, there is no Home Theater replacement and there are no adapters for Toslink to the Homepods. There are a lot of questions for how Apple plans to address these issues. Combining 2 HomePods might be a breeze but how about 20 of them or even splitting out the DSP for Home Theater? If Apple made these possible or played nice with Sonos, I would definitely buy more product from them but for now, it seems like they are starting the HomePod project with just stereo Apple Music as a maximum. I can see myself owning 2 at a maximum right now when what I really want is to buy 25 of them and have an integrated wireless speaker system for the house. Oh and add in an intercom feature to that while I'm at it.
Exactly, why would you pay 2 times for "Smart" functionality when only 1 speaker would require it... kinda Dumb!!!
Better sound, maybe. But better functionality? It has a built-in Siri, an A8 chip and direct connectivity to your iCloud. I don't believe you can beat that package. Echo is not as integrated, especially if you're into Apple ecosystem. Of course you can get an Apple TV, but you need a TV to navigate, and a decent sound system to boot. And with that, more wattage to operate.
Homepod is a smart device first, and speaker second. It may not as impressive for some, but for its purpose, it doesn't have to.
Yes, around the home, the Echo is better than Siri. It ties into things like Plex, Harmony remote, Simple Control remote, and multiple other "skills" including IFTT, security cameras, etc. As an example, I have an IFTT setup so that when my motion detectors go off, my office lights blink. This allows me to know when someone is at the door when I have my headphones on.
Siri is tied into my phone, which is one advantage, but I have that on my wrist when I need it anyway.
See, I'm not even sure it works like that. Phil said, 'buy two and you get more immersive sound' or something like. He did not say, "buy two to get true stereo sound". Now, he may have omitted that because it made it sound like buying just one would be a crappy or lesser experience (which maybe it is) and two would get you somewhere close to hooking a right and left channel up to your amp. But it seems to me these things aren't designed like regular speakers for a reason. I dunno if they CAN do stereo. If true, this is totally mindblowing given how much Apple pushes how important music is for them. That's about as basic as it gets. I keep hoping I'm missing something obvious.
Holy moly, you're right, Phil didn't say stereo at all. Is stereo even a thing now or are we listening to music differently? For multi-room systems, we just want music pumping through regardless of stereo sound most of the time. The problem isn't normally the bass or the treble, it's the mid-tones that get washed out. Maybe Apple is trying to get music to the masses instead of focusing on quality, stereo, or surround much.
Well it's certainly not a match for it's competitors. Industry analysts to a man readily testify to the fact that Siri is not in the same league as Echo or Google Home. That is why Apple are trying their best to spin it as a music hub/speaker.
If you're happy to shell out serious money for a glorified speaker then I'm sure Apple will be waiting to bite your hand off.
[doublepost=1496855561][/doublepost]
In order to do that with Siri than it will have to do a hell of a lot more than it's capable of at present.
I totally get that. Music to the masses, and most people really couldn't care less. The song's playing--they can sing along. Also, it would be in alignment with the way things are going. When digital music became popular with the rise of Napster, no one cared at all that MP3 files typically contained a fraction of the sound quality of the CD you'd otherwise buy--portability and convenience (and piracy--but we won't go there) was able to override the actual quality of the music being listened to. I suppose it makes sense, if you're enjoying the music as much as you ever did, why does it matter if it sounds a little less good?
The argument about whether a single speaker using whatever kind of beam-forming, environment-sensing magic sounds as good as two speakers doing stereo is down to the same argument: are you enjoying your music? If so, then Apple's got a win, I guess.
For me though, it's approaching a bridge too far because music has, for the lifetimes of most people, ALWAYS been in stereo. Makes sense--two ears, two speakers, the ability to route particular sounds to different sides. That's the thing that gives the sound stage, at least, it is for me, and it's the premise from which most music is still recorded. Seems like a HUGE elephant in the room Apple is ignoring here. Makes my head spin. The music will sound wrong through this appliance if you've been listening to it the same way for decades.
But then, I still like to sit and listen to music sometimes, which means I benefit from that sound stage. Maybe people today are busy moving around the house, dancing around the room, milling about at social gatherings, etc. etc. I never honestly considered myself an audiophile, but maybe the bar is lower these days and being pushed down by these devices. Maybe now all you need to be an audiophile is to actually make listening to music the point. I get the impression the wallpaperization of music is what's happening here. Considering no one seems to care, maybe it's time, I dunno.
Sorry I'm so verbose. It's just... wow. No stereo. Seriously blows my mind.
In fairness, he didn't say it wasn't going to be stereo. Constraints of time may have made them focus on its best features rather than common features.
With receivers with room calibration, it measures each speaker individually, but it still puts out stereo or multichannel sound, it just does so in a way that takes advantage of the room's acoustics.
You are right about music sounding strange if it does not take cues and play back in stereo when two speakers are in the same setup. Without stereo sound, there isn't much reason to have two of them in the same room.
I think there is a whole lot we still don't know about this speaker and Airplay 2, but I am sure we will have more information before they come to market.
As for your point about being audiophile, I agree that the bar is a lot lower these days. It used to mean that you want near perfection in playback and were willing to pay mega bucks to get closer to how the musicians and engineers meant for it to sound (that group is still out there). However, for everyone but those people, you are an audiophile if you just want it to sound something like the musicians and engineers meant for it to sound.
Yeah, it's just that for my purposes I don't really need multizone. I just have a couple of Alexas and the Echo Dot and it works well for me. The Echo Dot with the Polk replaced a much more elaborate and expensive set up and the voice control has simplified my life significantly.
I tried Google Home in my bedroom, but bizarrely, it still doesn't have a sleep timer, so I went back to Alexa. Google Home is better for random questions, though.
True. I hope you're right and that as the release date nears, we'll learn more. If these things can sense one another in the same room somehow and build a proper stereo sound stage, then I'd totally consider getting a pair for the living room. If they sound awesome and can play tunes without even having a receiver then that's a pretty clean, beautiful music setup.
There was a time where I wanted to be an audiophile, but the prices were just too stupid for sooooo little return. Can you get better sound? Sure you can, but you gotta put out exponentially more cash each time to get barely detectable sound improvement. I thought I hit my "good enough" level long before I hit the right to call myself an audiophile. Regardless, I'm pretty happy with where I am today, but I'm not ready to give up stereo.
// get offa my lawn.
Quite interesting that these and the homePod look almost identical
[doublepost=1496884204][/doublepost]
True. I hope you're right and that as the release date nears, we'll learn more. If these things can sense one another in the same room somehow and build a proper stereo sound stage, then I'd totally consider getting a pair for the living room. If they sound awesome and can play tunes without even having a receiver then that's a pretty clean, beautiful music setup.
There was a time where I wanted to be an audiophile, but the prices were just too stupid for sooooo little return. Can you get better sound? Sure you can, but you gotta put out exponentially more cash each time to get barely detectable sound improvement. I thought I hit my "good enough" level long before I hit the right to call myself an audiophile. Regardless, I'm pretty happy with where I am today, but I'm not ready to give up stereo.
// get offa my lawn.
Here is a screenshot from Apples homepage saying that two together will detect each other and work together for better sound.
Attachments
Great roundup but you forgot to put horrendous sound quality in the Echo cons.
Physics doesn't work like that. For one, beam forming requires (relatively) large arrays in order to have any sort of meaningful pattern control of the sort required to simulate a sound originating from a location other than the source. The size of the array required is directly related to the wavelength of the signal you desire pattern control over, and at audio frequencies in air you're talking anywhere from 4 inches to many feet. This requires manipulation in the time domain (phase, not just amplitude), and is only effective if you have a general understanding of where the listener will be located relative to the source. Additionally, phased arrays are not without their sonic drawbacks, as they will result in smearing of the source signal, reverberant standing waves, and other general acoustical irregularities. Not only is this device incapable of beam forming at a reasonably low frequency as you describe due to physical size, it is incapable of knowing the location of the listener, which is absolutely critical for such effects. No amount of DSP or marketing can overcome physics.
Last edited:
Not criticising your general statements, but the Echo is capable of beam forming and knowing where the person speaking is located and is much smaller?
The Echo performs AEC on the microphone array, which takes multiple audio sources and uses DSP algorithms to locate direction and approximate distance of a source. But that is different than trying to control the pattern of audio source, especially in reverberant room. Even with large arrays you don't get perfect beams of audio (despite the term beam forming) you get lobe with slightly better gain in a specific vector at certain frequencies. The idea that this stupid speaker is in any way capable of "bouncing sound" off nearby objects to reproduce the effect of two separate stereo sources is frankly absurd. At best Apple is using a slight delay to try and control reverberant effects that would be caused if the speaker was placed near a wall or other highly reflective object, and is simply splitting the tweeters down the middle for left/right separation.
While I obviously don't know the details of what they're doing, I'd imagine they're not relying on direct sound at all to model stereo—after all, there will only likely be one tweeter that's actually pointing directly at any given listener... if that... Rather, I'd assume that's what the room analysis is doing; getting an image of the room that can be used to build the stereo image using reflections. In most rooms (the walls of which are highly reflective of high frequency waves) I'd imagine it could work quite well. Not a simple problem, but possible, I'd think.
That's the point I tried to make earlier. The Echo Dot can be had for $40-50 and can be paired to ANY set of high quality speakers that will certainly be cheaper than Apple's $700 a pair for the Homepod.
Example:
Echo Dot + Vanatoo T1 = $550
A benefit for this type of config is you can place the Echo Dot wherever is best for picking up your voice, and place the speakers where the best sound is produced. And the Vanatoo's will play down low with aplomb without distortion.
Mind you that's a higher end speaker. Hell, the Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 is only $170 and change includes a "bass unit" (subwoofer kinda) which will certainly play lower and louder and be a fraction of the cost with an Echo Dot.
All in all, I don't see the the appeal.