Longtime Apple Designer Christopher Stringer's Latest Project Is a High-Fidelity Speaker With AirPlay 2

[ios-dan]

So... the original HomePod, but at 5 times the price?

 

[LeadingHeat]

What the Death Star kind of contraption is that?

 

[now i see it]

Listening to 128kbps MP3s on an iPod probably traumatized him so much, he made it his life's ambition to bring Hi-Fi back. Good for him. I bet these speakers sound great

 

[Riozilla]

If their product works as well as their website...View attachment 1774609

Syngspace.com site is working fine for me and within our testing. I work at Syng and would like to know what browser/OS/device if you can share that you are having access problems. Sorry to hear about the difficulty but will certainly remedy. Let me know if you are still having trouble accessing.

 

[Flight Plan]

Well, I like it; it takes me back to the old speakers they used to have with the clear enclosures only...what was it, 10 years ago? I always liked those.

But I don't listen to music with my eyes. So waiting for reports and reviews sounds like a good plan, followed by a listening session. But yeah, we're thinking about new stuff here, and that's a good thing.

 

[LeeTom]

Interesting sales concept: they promote three speakers as providing the best experience, not just two.

Meanwhile all recorded music is still recorded in two channel stereo. I'll stick to stereo.

 

[ouimetnick]

Interesting sales concept: they promote three speakers as providing the best experience, not just two.

So for the BEST experience, it will cost between $5397 and $5907😱😳 and I’m skeptical it would out perform a properly set up stereo. Sure you’d deal with the hassle of setting up a stereo with wires everywhere (or hiding them) but you’d be surprised what kind of audio system you can build with premium used components for under $1000.

My most expensive speakers (Boston Acoustics VR-M90 sold for $2700/pair in the early 2000s-2004) I bought them used 3 years ago for $600/pair. Made in the USA in the next city over from me, Peabody, MA. Boston Acoustics even produced their own drivers in house and built them on an automated assembly line in the same building. RIP to another American company.

 

[odHbo]

If people thought the $350 HomePod sold poorly, hold my beer!

At $1700+ I would imagine any audiophile would put that towards real speakers, or an exotic interconnect cable😂

The fast company article or whatever is a joke. This guy isn’t making speakers to compete with HomePod. The HomePod was a $299 consumer speaker, this is an exotic piece or art that rich people buy because they don’t know any better (about cheaper dedicated stereos that would sound better and give a real stereo image)

I happen to think it’s ugly and is definitely not something Apple would ever ship. The days of clear plastic left when the iMac G4 (lamp iMac) replaced the OG translucent design. Had this been announced in 2000-2002, I’d say it fits Apple’s design language and styling, but that was 20 years ago.

Why is there always an assumption that rich people “don’t know any better” or that “cheaper” is better?

How can we ever support creators when people always resort to the, “YOU CAN SPEND LESS AND NOT GET THE THING YOU WANT AND INSTEAD GET THE THING I WANT AND THINK IS MORE REASONABLY PRICED BASED ON MY WALLET” argument.

 

[DogHouseDub]

Odd combination of a junk turntable with a $1700 speaker. Your sound is only as good as your weakest link.

Right? I was going to say that they could have a phenomenal cartridge on there, but then saw the connection is over bluetooth. Why play vinyl if you're going to rasterize the signal anyway?

 

[DekuBleep]

I'm a bit skeptical of how good the sound quality would be on something looking like that... I mean after a while there is only so many tricks you can play and you run up against physics and math when trying to improve the sound quality on such a small and compact speaker design.

If you want to improve the sound quality more you need bigger speakers and more space.

It is very nice looking though.

 

[LV426]

I ordered one. I'm really interested to see what this sound quality is actually like plugged into a decent sound source. I'm running mostly McIntosh for my office HiFi, really excited to see how this works together with all of that

I'd want to listen to one to do a sound test, before splashing that amount of cash speculatively. Not so easy in a pandemic...

 

[tomtad]

This is the HomePod we want!

 

[M.PaulCezanne]

Fills the niche between cheaper algorithmic systems like Home Pod and full, unprocessed multichannel setups. Looking forward to the reviews. The experience probably won't match a dedicated setup but if it comes close it could be worth the price for many.

As for looks - whatever your taste, I think it probably beats black boxes hovering all around the room.

 

[Btaylor_prod]

Their website markets 2 and 3 cell options; at $1,800 for 1 cell, I can’t imagine people buying more than one.

 

[Rigby]

Their website is sparse with real details and specs. Wish companies would list complete specs and info on their sites instead of marketing and feel good catch phrases.

Here are some specs:

Syng

Syng is an audio company transforming the human relationship with sound. Shop Cell Alpha, the world's first Triphonic speaker.

syngspace.com

Could potentially make a good home theater speaker if it supports object-based surround formats (Atmos, DTS:X). But only being able to connect via HDMI eARC will be a problem for many (e.g. projector users).

 

[Wolframite]

Looks lovely!
I may have to start saving me pennies.

 

[mikeyteh]

why is this very funny looking?

You don't spend $1969 on a speaker to have it blend in with the furniture.

 

[TheLastJedi]

Gotta love the hipster turntable. My buddies use to give me a hard time for buying LP’s over cassettes before the CD. Now they’re all spending $20 and up for vinyls. 😂a

Gotta love the hipster turntable. My buddies use to give me a hard time for buying LP’s over cassettes before the CD. Now they’re all spending $20 and up for vinyls. 😂

We are not hipsters, we are a part of the record culture. By the way, it's vinyl or records, not "vinyls".

 

[ptero1]

Putting a download facing woofer 6 inches directly above the top of the turntable? Seems like a recipe for vibration / interference...

 

[maxfromdenmark]

Indeed it looks like something from Star Wars Universe but most important is how it sounds.

 

[gene731]

Exactly, I love my HomePods (I have quite a few of them) they sound good by themselves and even better as a stereo pair. In fact for most every day people, a stereo pair is a good tradeoff. Just need to plug in 2 devices into the wall. No running speaker wire through the walls or anything. I use my HomePods for dedicated listening sometimes. But I can tell you my dedicated stereo with it’s music source, preamplifier, several power amps I rotate through sounds is much better. I have 10 different pairs of speakers to rotate though every once in a while. Some speakers are as old as 1950s the newest pair being early 2000s. Vintage audio gear is an excellent value, even more so if you can do basic electronic soldering to restore them, it’s also not dependent on a cloud server somewhere than can be taken offline 10 years from now.

Judging by the poor sales of the HomePod,
I’d argue than most people don’t care about good sound quality, stereo imaging or even sit and listen to music while relaxing. Everyone just wants music regardless of quality in every room. The HomePod mini is impressive for its size, but still sounds terrible. I have a Mini that I’ve disabled almost everything on, so it can just be used as a cheap $99 thread device

I think that the minis do exactly what Apple wanted them to do and that is sell well. You are correct, some songs sound as though they are coming through my Sennheiser HD-600’s headphones. Other songs are a disappointment. They sound flat muffled and no base response. No I’m not expecting subwoofer base here but I listen to a lot of The Who and enjoy John Entwistle’s base licks especially on Quadrophenia or Geddy Lee from RUSH. For whatever reason some songs like I said sound absolutely crystal clear like coming out of a pair of Klipsch speakers I still have. Though I am nitpicking about the mini’s they are perfectly fine to listen to falling asleep or just in the bedroom killing time. I start iTunes lay the iPhone down let the mini’s takeover. That is the best part of the mini’s. Sound wise - okay but they do just work. No complaints about that.

 

[skitidetdu]

If people thought the $350 HomePod sold poorly, hold my beer!

At $1700+ I would imagine any audiophile would put that towards real speakers, or an exotic interconnect cable😂

The fast company article or whatever is a joke. This guy isn’t making speakers to compete with HomePod. The HomePod was a $299 consumer speaker, this is an exotic piece or art that rich people buy because they don’t know any better (about cheaper dedicated stereos that would sound better and give a real stereo image)

I happen to think it’s ugly and is definitely not something Apple would ever ship. The days of clear plastic left when the iMac G4 (lamp iMac) replaced the OG translucent design. Had this been announced in 2000-2002, I’d say it fits Apple’s design language and styling, but that was 20 years ago.

I don't know...if the speaker is making use of spacial audio it might worth the price as a high end designed speaker. People that buy expensive brands because they don't know better are the ones buying Bang Olufsen TV's or Bose sound systems.

 

[kkclstuff]

Here are some specs:

Syng

Syng is an audio company transforming the human relationship with sound. Shop Cell Alpha, the world's first Triphonic speaker.

syngspace.com

Could potentially make a good home theater speaker if it supports object-based surround formats (Atmos, DTS:X). But only being able to connect via HDMI eARC will be a problem for many (e.g. projector users).

Thanks for link (don't know why that page originally wasn't loading for me?)

but again to my point (and maybe its just me) no physical specs: dimensions, weight, freq response, power rating, efficiency, etc etc. TELL ME ABOUT THE PRODUCT, don't just give me glossy 'look at this' marketing. Its not news that your modern product in the 21st century has bluetooth or wifi or AirPlay2. In fact its basically the standard—especially at that price point.

This is an ongoing problem with all sales. My god, just post a spec sheet or link.

 

[Victor Mortimer]

Bet HomePod is looking far more reasonably priced now, huh?

No. This thing is just even more obscenely priced.

 

[_z_]

The design aesthetic isn't quite what I'd do, but it's something I could live with if the sound quality is good. But I wonder how good that will look once the fish bowl fills up with dust.

This is the bigger design fail to me, though:

Why not design it to run the cabling through the tube and exit at the base?