Lossless Audio and Dolby Atmos Support Come to HomePod With 15.1 Software Update

[B/D]

Totally agree, just an incredible update. Also have stereo pair of old HomePods and am now avidly gulping down listens of my jazz and classical favourites that are in Dolby and/or lossless: astounding.

Can you do a test for me? (if not too much inconvenient). Can you play a lossless track -not Atmos, because the difference is evident- then disable lossless in the home app settings, play the same track and then re-enable lossless when you´re done?.

Just to know if you can tell the difference between lossy and lossless on your Homepods. Thanks in advance.

PS: I also have an stereo pair of OG Homepods, and a Mini in the kitchen. I have updated them all to 15.1 but wouldn´t be able to test the sound until tomorrow.

 

[B/D]

how lossless tracks sound (not Atmos), on a stereo pair of OG Homepods?

 

[Benjamin Nabulsi]

bass is much lower frequency after the update which is impressively good.
I still have a legacy issue with stereo setup, vocals are louder on the right homepod no matter what I do (shuffle, reset pair and unpair)

 

[B/D]

bass is much lower frequency after the update which is impressively good.
I still have a legacy issue with stereo setup, vocals are louder on the right homepod no matter what I do (shuffle, reset pair and unpair)

Since when?. If its always been like that, maybe its a defective unit. Try to completely factory reset them.

 

[nycjdc]

Hey...I updated my HomePods to 15.1. One of them isn't performing as expected. When I tap the top a male voice comes on and says, "Pause" when music is playing. When no music is playing the same male voice comes on and says, "Play." Never experienced this behavior before. What's more, it doesn't play or pause. And in the setup of this particular HomePod it's configured to use a female voice.

And when I say "Hey Siri," and ask it a question the light goes on but a different HomePod answers me.

I've restarted it, but the same deal.

Suggestions?

 

[rikscha]

,&;&:

 

[rikscha]

What I want know is if Did they fix the random popping sound issue with the OG‘s? Last week I heard with the first one and today my second OG also produced that sound.

It’s a hardware fault. Had to fight Apple to get a out of warranty replacement

 

[rikscha]

Hey...I updated my HomePods to 15.1. One of them isn't performing as expected. When I tap the top a male voice comes on and says, "Pause" when music is playing. When no music is playing the same male voice comes on and says, "Play." Never experienced this behavior before. What's more, it doesn't play or pause. And in the setup of this particular HomePod it's configured to use a female voice.

And when I say "Hey Siri," and ask it a question the light goes on but a different HomePod answers me.

I've restarted it, but the same deal.

Suggestions?

It is not called a male voice any more to totally confuse the user now having to see what the f voice 1 and voice 2 is. This is so ridiculously stupid

 

[nycjdc]

Another quirk...I couldn't get Lossless audio to play unless I did a factory reset. Once I did so, then the Lossless indicator appeared beneath the time bar.

Anyone else experience this?

 

[Mike MA]

For them to appear, both the Homepods and the IOS device have to be in the final version of IOS 15.1

Thanks for that hint. I had the same issue and apparently haven’t paid attention that indeed also your phone or iPad has to be upgraded simultaneously.

 

[B/D]

Another quirk...I couldn't get Lossless audio to play unless I did a factory reset. Once I did so, then the Lossless indicator appeared beneath the time bar.

Anyone else experience this?

Interesting. Factory reset... of the Homepod?

 

[Benjamin Nabulsi]

Since when?. If its always been like that, maybe its a defective unit. Try to completely factory reset them.

I think since ios 14.5
not defective I've shuffled the homepods after resetting, right hompod vocals are higher than left. again, I've reset celebrated multiple times.

There should be an option to tune the volume like in mac music app

 

[jimmysalg]

It’s a hardware fault. Had to fight Apple to get a out of warranty replacement

No way??? one of my OG HomePods started doing it last month. I thought it was a software issue!!!??? All my OG HomePods are out of warranty. I can't believe is such short time they would crap out.

 

[Zeke92]

Lossless audio streamed via lossy method. Makes sense.

HomePods have been out for how long and you all still haven't figured out how they work. You could always stream music from your phone to the HomePods via Airplay. Airplay supports lossless. But you also could always use your iPhone as a controller for the HomePods which streams music via wifi directly from Apple Music. This update is allows the direct stream to use the lossless format. HomePods never used bluetooth.

 

[yogeewan]

This update killed one of my OG HomePods. Now it just makes a pop when it comes on and then nothing, fully dead. This is insane that it happened right after the update. I was actually watching a show on the stereo pair, the update came on, it restarted after the update and pop and now done.

 

[sos47]

in the article there are a few things missing:
- the homepod must have the firmware upgrade 15.1 (wich was 467MB on mine)
After fw installed, Dolby Atmos was on by default and Losless was off, lol. i flipped both settings.

- all downloads in your music library must be deleted and reloaded if the „losless“ „dolby“ tags do not appear in the Music App.

 

[ErikGrim]

What!? Peeps here were claiming that lossless audio upgrade would be literally impossible. Lol

You must confuse HomePods for AirPods

 

[ErikGrim]

If you have a mix of OG HomePods, minis and perhaps other AirPlay devices, things can get a bit messy. The good news first: If you start an Atmos song on OG HomePods and then add minis, the Atmos version will continue to play on all devices (sounding still good on the Minis even without support). This also works if you already have all your mixed HomePods selected as AirPlay devices, the Atmos track will play.

Now the bad news, if you add in a non HP AirPlay device – say your Monterey Mac as an AirPlay target, it will pause for a bit and switch to the non-atmos version of the track. And now the ugly: You can't go back to playing the Atmos version of that song – even if you only play it on a supported device (phone or OG HomePod).

 

[Zoddino]

Does anyone know if it really streams lossless from MacOS music app as well through AirPlay?

 

[B/D]

HomePods have been out for how long and you all still haven't figured out how they work. You could always stream music from your phone to the HomePods via Airplay. Airplay supports lossless. But you also could always use your iPhone as a controller for the HomePods which streams music via wifi directly from Apple Music. This update is allows the direct stream to use the lossless format. HomePods never used bluetooth.

Airplay (the protocol), support lossless playback, but for some reason Airplaying specifically Apple Music DRM´d content from the Music app is currently limited to AAC 256 kbps. Airplaying your own lossless rips without any quality loss, however, is perfectly possible. See here.

Hence why this update, and this:


But you also could always use your iPhone as a controller for the HomePods which streams music via wifi directly from Apple Music.


Is important. Currently the only way to play lossless content from Apple Music on the Homepods is natively. Airplay is not supported.

 

[B/D]

Does anyone know if it really streams lossless from MacOS music app as well through AirPlay?

No (see my prior post in this thread).

 

[Zoddino]

I got it thanks, when selecting controlling speaker even from Mac I get lossless but have to control it because airplay does not work as lossless from there, instead from iPhone and iPad enables with 15.1 to automatic let HomePod switch to native format. Let's hope they'll also give this ability to macOS in the future so that it's a little bit easier. Thank you!

 

[ErikGrim]

OK, this is new. It seems a side effect of this is that you can now use Home Theatre mode AND multi-room on the Apple TV at the same time. The Apple TV can output Atmos, whilst also playing audio to the rest of the HomePods. I had to check if the settings on the Apple TV hadn't reverted to regular AirPlay audio, but no atmos was still available whilst all the other HomePods were playing. I believe my second stereo pair of HomePods are ALSO outputting Atmos at the same time, which is just madness

 

[B/D]

OK, this is new. It seems a side effect of this is that you can now use Home Theatre mode AND multi-room on the Apple TV at the same time. The Apple TV can output Atmos, whilst also playing audio to the rest of the HomePods. I had to check if the settings on the Apple TV hadn't reverted to regular AirPlay audio, but no atmos was still available whilst all the other HomePods were playing. I believe my second stereo pair of HomePods are ALSO outputting Atmos at the same time, which is just madness

For this to work, do you have enable Atmos on the Home app settings or that´s just for Apple Music content and not neccesary with the apple tv?

 

[ErikGrim]

For this to work, do you have enable Atmos on the Home app settings or that´s just for Apple Music content and not neccesary with the apple tv?

I didn't enable anything. Atmos was already enabled by default in the Home app settings (unlike Lossless). It was only after I tested the whole gamut of different ways Atmos will play from your phone to a network of mixed devices (OG homepods, minis, regular airplay devices like a Monterey Mac) that I noticed that the Apple TV was playing sound on all devices after - something that was an either/or when you've connected OG Homepods as default (aka Home Theater Mode) prior to 15.1.