You only need two tweeters for stereo sound, and with this device you're typically going to be facing 3-4 tweeters at any position in the room. Combine that with audio beamforming controlled by the SoC and producing a stereo sound is not difficult.
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HomePod First Listen Impressions: 'Incredible' Audio With Bass-Heavy Sound That Easily Beats Echo
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You only need two tweeters for stereo sound, and with this device you're typically going to be facing 3-4 tweeters at any position in the room. Combine that with audio beamforming controlled by the SoC and producing a stereo sound is not difficult.
According to The Verge they were Trueplay-ed
The thing is you can buy an Echo Dot for $50 and a better sounding speaker for $300 and have more functionality and better sound than this HomePod.
Google's version is $130, but yes it is only 2X the Amazon version instead of the 3X of Google.
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You're missing the point entirely. It's all about the sound first and the Siri, etc. second. And for that reason, it'll be a winner.
I can remember reading a review of a pair of speakers costing $45K. They had "very good audio"...whatever that means. But I do know a 4" "woofer" is pathetic.
If you want good audio go to a good hi-fi shop.
If you want good computers go to hell as far as Apple is concerned.
If you want good audio go to a good hi-fi shop.
If you want good computers go to hell as far as Apple is concerned.
Exactly, It seems to be aiming at a different market than Google and Amazon they are all about the interaction as opposed to HI-Fidelity Music. Personally I have little interest since I have a 7.1 Speaker system connected to a high end AMP that I play my music on. I am interested in Google home but through the Nvidia Shield when its made available. This should be able to control my Honeywell Evohome heating system and a security system i am planning.
I'm both interested and skeptical. I have a few Sonos Play 1's in my house that I love. If these speakers sound better and can implement other functionality that Sonos doesn't, I might be interested in selling my Sonos for some of these. However...
What happens when you say "Hey Siri" when both the speaker and your iPhone are near each other? Which one replies? If you have more than one and you invoke Siri, do all speakers respond (I don't want a speaker in a bedroom waking my wife up if I ask Siri a question late at night in the kitchen)? Also for me it might be a potential deal breaker if you can only use Apple Music with them. Sure, that's a way for Apple to push their platform, but I'm more of a Spotify guy. I like their implementation better than Apple Music.
What happens when you say "Hey Siri" when both the speaker and your iPhone are near each other? Which one replies? If you have more than one and you invoke Siri, do all speakers respond (I don't want a speaker in a bedroom waking my wife up if I ask Siri a question late at night in the kitchen)? Also for me it might be a potential deal breaker if you can only use Apple Music with them. Sure, that's a way for Apple to push their platform, but I'm more of a Spotify guy. I like their implementation better than Apple Music.
I prefer the Sonos grill and style much better than a cloth surrounded lump. Especially in my household with kids, pets and dust. But I'll have to wait and see and hear it for myself before judging.
Since they are pitching it as a speaker comparison I'd really like to see it compared against something similar like a B&O M5. I appreciate that both of the products are different in that one is a AI assistant and one is a streaming speaker but I'm fully aware almost all AI speakers out now are meh on the audio quality because that's not their primary function. I'm good with buying a great speaker that also comes with Siri but I want to see that in the context of my favorite other options.
It's like when people compare an iPhone camera to a $5000 DSLR. What is the point?
The best part was when they said "a very large 4 inch subwoofer." I was expecting them to say 10 or 12 inches. Seriously, a 4 inch subwoofer? yeah, right.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
While I'm glad Apple rolled out one of these (mostly on hope that it somewhat presses them to make significant investments in "catching up" Siri), I suspect we're only about 2 days MAX away from the usual crowd rallying hard around how quality of sound is paramount as part of being able to now spin all smart speaker competition as junk.
Of course, some of these same people were likely arguing how quality of sound is much less important than convenience when the iPhone 7 launch was being spun as pressing "the future" of bluetooth audio... which does require one to sacrifice quality of sound to go that way.
So here, quality of sound will be almost all important. There, quality of sound was not very important.
It reminds me of when having a front-facing camera on iPad 1 was spun as making no sense whatsoever... until iPad 2 was rolled out with FaceTime and then everyone HAD to upgrade for that terrific feature.
Or how big-screen phones were abominations, fragmentation, "one handed use" & "pants with bigger pockets" until Apple rolled out bigger-screen phones to record sales and "best iPhone ever."
Or how nobody needed a 1080p
TV while Apple still clung to 720p MAX until Apple rolled one out and then all the anti-1080p arguments just evaporated... only to be recycled and used against the idea of a 4K TV in more modern TV threads... until Apple rolls out a 4K version upon which I expect a complete evaporation of the anti-4K arguments (again). And on and on.
Does quality of sound matter most? And if so, why don't we care as much about it elsewhere in the ecosystem? IMO, for a product that is most notably a speaker, quality of sound should matter most, so that's a solid win for Apple if this speaker does turn out to produce better sound than the competition. So of course, quality of sound should matter elsewhere too, meaning "the future" is not a very good future until is can at least get toe-to-toe on quality of sound that it's trying to replace (by necessary force per some). Too bad "the future" couldn't have this same focus on quality of sound BEFORE "being forced" upon us. IMO, that pill would have been much easier to swallow if the quality of sound would have at least been as good as the "antiquated" it is trying to replace.
Nevertheless, rah-rah... quality of sound matters again (for this product).
Loving my Echo, but the sound is average. This looks promising, BUT -- it needs to be able to manipulate music from something OTHER than Apple Music, and it needs to have functionality similarly useful to Echo. Those last two are unknowns, but I think it's a nice looking unit, and it seems the sound is right there.
So buy two separate devices with a cable between them instead of one?
That's sounds super smart, not.
I think everyone pretty much agrees that the idea and technology is great but the sound quality is lacking for $160 headphones.
Something that (I think) is missing from this thread is https://developer.apple.com/musickit/
Apple Music on Sonos is somewhat frustrating, but I took a very positive response to the news that they were positively opening up their API to allow third party software to work with it. Perhaps now, Sonos can interact properly with Apple Music - like/dislike, playcount etc.... and interact with searching and adding to your library etc...
Seems like Apple has both opened up as a competitor, and also opened up as a more collaborative platform for Sonos.
I guess we will see more when the WWDC session on Apple Music or MusicKit happens.
Apple Music on Sonos is somewhat frustrating, but I took a very positive response to the news that they were positively opening up their API to allow third party software to work with it. Perhaps now, Sonos can interact properly with Apple Music - like/dislike, playcount etc.... and interact with searching and adding to your library etc...
Seems like Apple has both opened up as a competitor, and also opened up as a more collaborative platform for Sonos.
I guess we will see more when the WWDC session on Apple Music or MusicKit happens.
Bluetooth. Plus that allows you to put the Echo Dot anywhere in the house, not in the exact location of the speaker which isn't always ideal.
Five HomePods costs less than one Martin Logan electrostatic speaker. Those who feign shock that the HomePod won't match the quality of an ML speaker (or pretend they serve the same purpose) sound as ignorant as those that act surprised the HomePod is more expensive than an Echo Dot. With an added dosage of douchebaggery.