HomePod HomePod Stereo Pair with Mac = IN LOVE

[turbineseaplane]

I just have to check in here and comment how amazing the OG Homepods are as computer speakers in a stereo pair.

The one hole in the game is any usefulness for editing work due to latency on start/stop/scrubbing...
But - for listening to music they are just superb at the Mac.

I actually moved my two units out of the living room and into the small room where my macOS setup is and I'm just in love with it.

The phantom center is sensational and the music is very "enveloping" of my seated position.

 

[LEOMODE]

I did notice though, that whenever I played World of Warcraft, the delay is so horrible. However, YouTube in Safari worked fine without any delays. I wish there is a delay function within the HomePod so we can control this?

 

[jck1634]

I absolutely agree! I’ve been trying to find a decent pair of speakers for my iMac setup and I’ve tried a bunch of them. The HomePods are easily the best sounding. Especially as I can use my iPad with them too to watch something whilst working on my desktop

 

[VertPin]

Absolutely don’t use HomePods on the Mac unless you want bad audio lag. I figured this would have been fixed by now, but it doesn’t seem to be something Apple is interested in working with.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Absolutely don’t use HomePods on the Mac unless you want bad audio lag. I figured this would have been fixed by now, but it doesn’t seem to be something Apple is interested in working with.

?
No lag or latency or out of sync on mine at all when something is playing

Do you mean the lag when starting/stopping something playing?

 

[Phil77354]

I just have to check in here and comment how amazing the OG Homepods are as computer speakers in a stereo pair.

The one hole in the game is any usefulness for editing work due to latency on start/stop/scrubbing...
But - for listening to music they are just superb at the Mac.

I actually moved my two units out of the living room and into the small room where my macOS setup is and I'm just in love with it.

The phantom center is sensational and the music is very "enveloping" of my seated position.

I agree completely. I've had my HomePods alongside my iMac since they were first released. Even before the software was updated to implement stereo pairing! The sound is just fantastic.

There is lag when watching video but only slightly bothersome when pausing/rewinding/etc and occasionally the audio and video will get out-of-synch. I don't mind and consider it a minor nuisance.

 

[LEOMODE]

Wow, I also just found out that while using this

?
No lag or latency or out of sync on mine at all when something is playing

Do you mean the lag when starting/stopping something playing?

When I play YouTube on Safari or Apple TV app, there is no lag (I think this is because this supports AirPlay 2).
However, when I play World of Warcraft which is not an Apple-made app, there are like 2-3 seconds lag.

Also, even when playing YouTube or Apple TV, there are intermittent disconnects as well. In other words, it's a bit finicky. Granted, this feature came out very recently.

What I find interesting, however, is when I actually use this on Windows 10 Boot Camp using a third-party app, it has an option for choosing latency (I can choose real-time, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, and etc.) which makes virtually no lag on any apps I use on Windows 10. I wish Mac OS had this sort of a feature also so I can control the lag more precisely (also hopefully by being able to adjust on each application) based on my environment. Since this is an Apple product (HomePod) in an Apple OS environment (Mac OS X), they shouldn't have any lag or intermittent disconnects like this (even when I send videos from my iPhone to an Apple TV via AirPlay I have no lags). You can also try to blame the 3rd party app developer for maybe not implementing AirPlay 2, but I don't think that's a good excuse either since there's virtually no lag in Windows 10 mode with a third-party app. This is more reliant on Apple to work harder on in my humble opinion.

All in all, I think HomePod OG is a wonderful sounding device, and I love them very much too. I just wish they upgrade it a bit further by implementing a bit more options for users to play around with.

 

[jck1634]

Absolutely don’t use HomePods on the Mac unless you want bad audio lag. I figured this would have been fixed by now, but it doesn’t seem to be something Apple is interested in working with.

What kinds of things are you doing on your stereo HomePods that makes them lag so bad? So far everything ive thrown at it on iMac and on iPad its worked almost perfectly. The only thing I haven't tried is gaming. Is that where you're finding lag?

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'm still confused what people mean when they say "lag"

Do folks mean lip-sync issues that make video unwatchable?
..or are we taking about the inherent delay when starting/stopping media playback?

The latter is there and just part of the deal, but I've had no issues at all with the former.

 

[LEOMODE]

I'm still confused what people mean when they say "lag"

Do folks mean lip-sync issues that make video unwatchable?
..or are we taking about the inherent delay when starting/stopping media playback?

The latter is there and just part of the deal, but I've had no issues at all with the former.

Like in World of Warcraft, if you cast a spell, you can hear that spell as soon as you cast it with a regular speaker, but with HomePod you hear the cast 3-4 seconds later.