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Technically speaking, Apple Music direct from HP does EQ to the songs preferred setting held on Apple Music, so it does have a slight better acoustic tuning. But, iv not experienced it as worse per say; its just more set to generic EQ, still sounds amazing. Could be slight placebo effect

I don‘t understand. All I‘ve read in the reviews and reports from the visits to Apple‘s audio lab indicated that the A8 processor analyzes and equalizes the music constantly on the fly. Are you saying this is only true for music directly from Apple Music servers to the HomePod? If so, what makes you believe that?
 
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I don‘t understand. All I‘ve read in the reviews and reports from the visits to Apple‘s audio lab indicated that the A8 processor analyzes and equalizes the music constantly on the fly. Are you saying this is only true for music directly from Apple Music servers to the HomePod? If so, what makes you believe that?

No. I definitely notice it. AirPlay isn’t a lot worse but there is a difference to my ears.

Yeah its very complex tech to understand i had to read a lot. HomePod Will analyse and conduct assessment using A8 to your room where HP is. it will then balance the SENSITIVITY of its components to that room using spatial awareness. However A8 will then use EQ data from AM along with what it knows from the spatial awareness to make that song sound perfect. Using airplay skips that last part , but that last part isn't detrimental and didn't notice much difference but it is there
 
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Or maybe you‘re experiencing some sort of anti-placebo effect, thinking it sounds worse because one (quite confusing) review claimed so? I have a very hard time imaging a reason why this would be the case, after all HomePod gets the same data to work with.
No. I definitely notice it. AirPlay isn’t a lot worse but there is a difference to my ears.
 
Alexa , Don't even try

Alexa is the king of smart speaker assistants with the most skills by far. Look at developer openings, Alexa is HUGE these days if you want to work in that area.
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It's sounding even better after a bottle of wine and in the dark. But I can still tell the music is coming from one speaker, as good as it is.

Doh, it can never compete with a Dolby Atmos system.
 
Worth $700? If have to have 2 then seems excessive. Paying that much does open up audiophile realm

Except that is how much a Sonos Playbar costs. Not sure if it’s comparable, but as someone looking into an audio solution for my living room it could make sense.

It does seem expensive to me as well, but I haven’t heard it yet.
 
Alexa is the king of smart speaker assistants with the most skills by far. Look at developer openings, Alexa is HUGE these days if you want to work in that area.yo
[doublepost=1518222998][/doublepost]

Doh, it can never compete with a Dolby Atmos system.

Do we need to go to jelly school? HP has this awareness effect, you cant tell where the hell its placed it just fills the room, i understand the pleasantry

AHAHAHAHAAHA 20 amazon echos couldn't outperform hompods audio so get over yourself
 
I’m really looking for a speaker for television audio as well. Do you have to AirPlay it from the Apple TV 4? If so, does it continue to recognize the ATV whenever the ATV is on or do you have to manually AirPlay it each time.

If I’m not making any sense let me know and I’ll try to clarify.

I’m basically trying to find out how seamless/automatic it would be to have the AirPod always play my ATV audio, but still play music outside of that when desired.

Thank you!
I made a bunch of notes on exactly how the Apple TV works with it here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...diately-evident.2105162/page-16#post-25798694
 
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I wish they could have come up with a creative solution for the slack of the cord to be tucked internally somehow. I have mine in a circle at the base of the unit and it seems to work.
 
Is there a way to connect HomePod to a MacBook Pro (mid 2015)?
Not just iTunes. I want all of the sound from my MacBook go through the HomePod.
You absolutely can do this, click the speaker icon on your mac and you can AirPlay to any device.
 
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The other factor could be, you may have your phone set to 'Sound check ON' which will 'normalize' some tracks and make them more lifeless (IMHO). I have no idea if it 'sound checks' them to the airplay device, I assume it does. Whereas, Homepod default is sound check off.
 
The bigger annoyance to me is that you have to say “Hey, Siri” then wait for it to wake up, THEN issue a command. With my echo, I can just say “Alexa, play music” with no pause. Far better solution.
You absolutely do not have to pause after saying "hey siri". Same goes for "OK Google" and "Alexa"
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Anyone else notice that the sound is better when you ask Siri to play something vs using AirPlay? A lot of the reviews said it should be the same but I’m noticing that AirPlay doesn’t sound quite as good. Maybe AirPlay 2 will resolve this?
Yes, songs outside of Apple Music don't have any equalizer settings - they sound completely flat. This probably has to do with the "individual song equalizer based on Apple analytics" that Eddy Cue was talking about.

If you play an Apple Music song via Airplay it works fine, just not other services.
 
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I hadn’t read anywhere yet that you CAN play music multi-room by selecting the speakers you want in iTunes. I get that this isn’t ideal, but definitely a welcome surprise until we get AirPlay 2.
 
It sounds great, but Siri is not picking up my voice when I play music. I have to shout like I do Alexa, sometimes even louder. I don't listen to loud music. Sometimes it doesn't hear me even if there is no music playing and I say "Hey, Siri" clearly and a few feet away. Other times, it seems to be fine. For 10 minutes earlier this afternoon she wouldn't respond at all. Besides the sounds quality, I was really expecting better mic pick-up. Maybe I just got a lemon?
 
The bigger annoyance to me is that you have to say “Hey, Siri” then wait for it to wake up, THEN issue a command. With my echo, I can just say “Alexa, play music” with no pause. Far better solution.

Incorrect, you don’t have to do that with the HomePod.
 
Picked mine up at the Apple store on my way home from work. The sound is everything I expected, and well, Siri is Siri. My thinking is that Siri can always be improved over time with updates, but hardware can't. I have it in the kitchen, plugged in < a foot from the outlet, so I wish there was a way to hide the excess cord.
I have mine in the kitchen as well and found that wrapping the cord around the base of the unit seems to look best and doesn’t seem to have any effect on the sound.
 
I’m really looking for a speaker for television audio as well. Do you have to AirPlay it from the Apple TV 4? If so, does it continue to recognize the ATV whenever the ATV is on or do you have to manually AirPlay it each time.

If I’m not making any sense let me know and I’ll try to clarify.

I’m basically trying to find out how seamless/automatic it would be to have the AirPod always play my ATV audio, but still play music outside of that when desired.

Thank you!
So I did a test. I was streaming audio from AppleTV 3rd gen to Home Pod which sounds great. Watching GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY vol 2. Said in a normal voice “Hey Siri, play music”, the movie paused and music began playing. To get atv audio back I had to swipe down on atv remote and change audio back to HomePod and press play on remote. I tried “Hey Siri, play sound from ATV.” But that didn’t work. So not perfect but not hard either.
 
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I have a collection of completely ridiculous (and frankly inexcusable) things Siri has done. Sure, HomePod sounds great, and sure, software updates will come, but Apple has had years to make Siri even the slightest bit dependable and now has released a $350 speaker that runs only via Siri.
https://twitter.com/singersteve/status/956157955736522752
https://twitter.com/singersteve/status/958921256606281728
What’s interesting is whenever someone actually puts these devices up against one another it’s clear they have different purposes but tend to be equally useful. But in the right hands and context they can be made to look foolish.
 
Absolutely not. I read a review where the reviewer did indeed remove the cable. And no, that didn‘t break the HomePod:

The cable is six feet long and, firmly attached. You can detach it, in fact, but it takes all your courage and a heck of a tug. I did it and nervously put it back and it works perfectly. I think it’s detachable so you can feed the cable through tight spaces if the plug at the other end won’t go, but my advice would to be to leave it attached, for your peace of mind.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidp...-that-enough-price-release-date/#20d238669be5
If this is true, it's good news for people who might want a battery base like they make for the Echo.
 
I don't think you're alone on this one, this is one of my pet peeves as well. I don't know how Apple keeps pushing Siri to be a magical, smart assistant when others are blowing it out of the water with theirs. Clearly, they haven't really improved their "assistant" since it was first introduced. And, don't get me started on Siri being an AI learning what you like and what you ask of it more often. It has failed to even give me the most basic information when I used to use it.

It's only good for simple commands, other than that, it's pretty useless that's why I turned it off on all of my devices.
So if SomeOne is in the room with Alexa and Says all you have to do is say Alex play music. It will start playing randomly? Of any command that happens to match something it can do. How do you prevent people from ordering things from Amazon while you are in the bathroom? Or hailing a Uber to Get home on your dime?
 
Is there a way to connect HomePod to a MacBook Pro (mid 2015)?
Not just iTunes. I want all of the sound from my MacBook go through the HomePod.[/QUOTE

Wouldn’t you just go into sound preferences and select the homepod as your output source?
 
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