It would be an alternative to people who don't have a separate AV receiver and a 5.1 setup for one thing...
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HomePod Teardown Reveals Hidden 14-Pin Connector, 16GB Storage, and Very Low Repairability
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Inductors in Class D amps are used to reduce electromagnetic interference, not for sound quality. Using no inductor gives better sound since you have less resistance from amplifier to speaker driver.
Stand alone amplifiers need to support long wires to the speakers and therefore need inductors to pass EMC requirements for FCC and CE certification (the long wires act as antennas for the class D signal).
The speaker driver itself is an inductor, and will be high impedance for the class D switching frequency.
The use of electrolytic capacitors is a concern for me however. They will limit the life of the product.
Regards
An electrical engineer who has made a few class D amp consumer products.
I'm going to be completely honest here. The HomePod is just not a necessary nor revolutionary product. Really the only must have Apple products are a MacBook Pro, iMac or both and an iPhone. To a much lesser extent an iPad and an ATV. The watch is something that mainly attracts people who know nothing about watches and probably had no interest in one before Apple launched one. I bought one for the hell of it and I don't think I've used it more than 4-5 times. It just feels so cheap on my wrist compared to my daily GMT-Master II. If you have an A/V receiver, especially any recent one with Bluetooth and/or Airplay with quality speakers at home, you really don't need a HomePod. Hell even an older receiver with an ATV plugged in will provide Airplay over quality speakers.
I see it more like a modern version of the popular Bose wave radio. Great for kitchens and for people (primarily home owners) who want something wireless in a room away from the home theater. The people who must have every Apple product will be all over it and praise it to no end. Like the AirPods this is such an easy pass for me.
I see it more like a modern version of the popular Bose wave radio. Great for kitchens and for people (primarily home owners) who want something wireless in a room away from the home theater. The people who must have every Apple product will be all over it and praise it to no end. Like the AirPods this is such an easy pass for me.
There are literally tens of millions of iPhone owners who want something exactly like you're describing.
So let me guess. Even though it sounds amazing,that doesn't really matter if amps are all in class D? Do people really give a flying monkey about that? Or what they really care is sound quality?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
In your situation, it's one tangible advantage is hands-free Siri voice control (if none of your devices happen to be on you to cover the same base). Between your
TV remote and your iDevices + Mac, you can basically do everything this can do BETTER than this can do it.The main consideration for a HP for you would likely be to bring comparable capabilities to another room(s) beyond the reach of your existing setup.
Some of Apples products with the construction and build are so intricate with the components and hardware, The repairability is rather difficult. Especially the Apple Watch for example, the only thing you really can repair with the Apple Watch is a display or the battery, everything else is soldered components that really cannot be repaired. It’s just the nature of technology and how it’s manufactured.
Like all the people convinced that they'd be able to make use of the diagnostic port on the Apple Watch. How many devices have done so? Oh yeah, none in 3 years.Another step towards the true appliance design — attached power cord. Were they concerned that the connector would introduce electrical noise?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I'd still like to be able to plug a hard drive(s) into the USB port on an
TV, sync store the media collection like we could on the first generation and then turn off the parent computer. Probably never coming either.Their disassembly robot will likely learn how to dissemble and recover as much material as possible. But I agree that a more modular design would be more environmentally friendly.
I'd still like to be able to plug a hard drive(s) into the USB port on an
Truth. Didn't they even get rid of the USB port all together on the latest Apple TV?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes! As "we" well know: Apple knows best in all things. Fools wishing a feature that Apple used to offer in a product should be thrilled that Apple knows better about what they should want than they know themselves, thus right to initially offer it, then right to deprecate it and then further right to eliminate any hope of maybe it being able to come back.
I welcome those iFixIt's breakdowns. Why?:
No sense getting your Apple-colored panties all in a bunch.
- show how things are built.
- using high-quality renders.
- annotated with light-hearted comments, which show that they do not take themselves too seriously
- avoid the use of meaningless superlatives to tell it like it is. (Looking at you TC and Crew.)
No sense getting your Apple-colored panties all in a bunch.
hmm, ultrasonic cutter - anyone else being reminded of a "sonic screwdriver"?
Need to check out iFixIt's Tools Store for one of those ....
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It is not damaging the product, but they do fail within 1 year sometimes.
My brand new TV was broken within 1 year after it was purchased.
I suspect you’re not familiar with their very robust recycling initiative. I also wonder how often anyone either one of us has ever known has felt the need to personally repair a speaker.
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Responsible consumers don’t throw out things like this into a landfill. They recycle.
Ditto. Even then, Apple Care on this thing is so low cost that that should take care of any issues for needing repairs. Only concerns are still for those who do NOT live near an Apple store.
The only reason I did AppleCare on it is a simple reason: a 3 year old doesn’t care about nice things, lol. And after throwing my Echos to the floor a few times, I figure it was worthwhile.
The perfect consumer:
Understands little about a product, doesn't care to know more,
Believes all the marketing/social hype.
Apple has indeed "cracked" it.
take-back and recycling are two different things. Glueing everything together and then sealing in plastic sleeve makes recycling less attractive because it costs more to separate the parts. I just wish Apple would try to take a lead on this. Their environmental report is full of fluff stating taht they basically com
and the harder it is to recycle means that it becomes not commercially viable, and instead is "taken back" by apple rather than re-cycled. I agree on not often recycling a speaker, but then this is more than a speaker and much more likely to become obsolete.
I am not after the specsheer BS nonsense. I know what is good for me when I see it and neither you or the marketing team can convince me otherwise.My philosophy of buying a product is to get what looks good,sounds good,works great. The rest is bunch of nonsense stuff I have no time for. I don't give a rates ass if some people are naive enough to go by specheet nerdy stuff and not the actual quality.