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Stereo-Like Sound With HomePods Coming Before Multi-Room Audio Feature [Updated]
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Not interested untill multiroom.
I wish they would have buildt in mesh wifi in these aswell.
I wish they would have buildt in mesh wifi in these aswell.
So it's not stereo, it's stereo like?
We've been repeatedly told on MR that a single unit was actually stereo.
This is crap though. Try again Apple. Let me know when Apple makes speakers that work seamlessly with apple tv.
Not at all. I’m just pointing out that Apple’s track record at keeping promises is somewhat mixed.
Let’s be honest, are there a ton of people running out and buying these things for every room at that sticker price? I’m not sure I will buy 1. Apple Stores almost need to somehow set up a listening room because I’d have a hard time spending over $300 for a fairly tiny speaker without hearing how much it actually fills a decent sized room. At that price I could probably set up a bunch of other Bluetooth speakers, like them all to my iPhone and use Siri that way.
Why don't they just buy sonos so they can get the tech they need to make a good speaker.. no spotify on it?? not going to buy at all, Maybe when they have spotify... MAYBE
I don't think the mounted wall option would work well.
I think it was the Verge that said you want the device sitting on a flat surface or it doesn't sound very good. Apparently it wants to bounce the downward angled tweeters off whatever it's sitting on. They also said the speaker is surprisingly heavy.
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Edit: the Verge said this:
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
We've been repeatedly told on MR that a single unit was actually stereo.
Patience fellas. The audio engineer crowd will soon show up and make "full room" and "stereo-like" out to be far superior to actual stereo. They won't call Apple wrong but imply Apple is not quite wording their own marketing copy right (but still not actually write down that Apple is wrong about the copy either). And just ignore that Apple themselves went to the trouble of showing 2 HPs as an image (the editors didn't notice that either when they missed the "it takes 2" messaging). Basically, Apple will be right in everything they are saying but still holding back on revealing that this is far superior in every way to pretty much any other speaker sets.
And to that: I've spent a few hours reading all of these pre-release reviews and am yet to see any one of them reference how the beam-forming is creating better-than-stereo reproduction from a single HP along the lines of anything that was being spun in the last 10 days. One review even said that audio sounded better in some seating positions but worse in others and, at one point, sounded better behind the speaker than out front. Where's that magical left & right beaming off walls, including the speaker knowing where the listener happens to be sitting to adjust left & right AND somehow dynamically doing the same for 2 listeners, 3 listeners, etc?
Disclaimer: not really trying to get that debate going again (dead horse no?)... just taking a poke at the incredible armchair puffery slung around that went way beyond even what Apple themselves claimed about their own product. Now we have real(er), pre-release reviews all seeming to mostly ignore some of that amazing functionality implied so heavily. Maybe the reviewers as a group are just stupid for not noticing?
Especially with the stereo setup I really wonder about this. Will you have to calibrate your homepod with your phone to the stereo sweet spot? And if there is no sweet spot - wouldn't the homepods have to have knowledge about listener positions for true stereo experience? Or is there no stereo and that's why they called it "full room"?
From my understanding this device is really good at evenly filling a room with audio, with the 360degree arrangement of speakers and all the magic it does to the sounds.
Does make sense for background music, but for watching movies or audiophile listening it makes zero sense if the listener position is not known.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
If they did that, Sonos would go from formerly being talked about so positively to recently be bashed so heavily to returning to being talked about so positively again. The virtual whiplash might take out about 10 guys around here.
So excited with four of them coming this Friday for living room, bed room, office room and tv room. Many thanks to Apple.
Apple has given a name to its technology that will enable a pair of HomePods to automatically detect and balance each other to create stereo-like sound following an upcoming software update: FullRoom.
Emphasis should be placed on stereo-like sound, as HomePod reviews published today confirm that users won't be able to set one speaker as the right channel and another as the left channel. Instead, as Apple notes, HomePods will use advanced beamforming capabilities to create a more immersive soundstage.
Apple also confirmed that FullRoom is coming first, according to Matthew Panzarino, while the HomePod's multi-room audio support via AirPlay 2 will be available at a later date. Both features are currently listed as "coming later this year" on Apple's website, so it was assumed they would be released in tandem.
HomePod launches this Friday in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, and availability of the speaker is beginning to tighten ahead of time.
Article Link: HomePod's Stereo-Like Sound is Called 'FullRoom' and Coming Soon, Multi-Room Audio Available Later
I think people have mixed up the dynamic beam forming microphones used for Siri input, with the fairly static (once a room has been analyzed) beam forming used for audio output.
For music output, it's not checking to figure out where the listeners are. (Imagine a dozen people walking around a room! It wouldn't know.)
It's simply sending foreground sound out to where it has determined is the center of the room, and background sound out to what it thinks are the sides.
Same reason the first iPhone and OS didn't have a variety of features, including copy and paste. Yeah, SJ should have been fired.
A ton of people? And that starts an honest question?
I think the only ton of people that are running out and buying these for every room of there house exist only in your imagination.
Forgot to put "audio engineer" in quotes.Patience fellas. The audio engineer crowd will soon show up and make "full room" and "stereo-like" out to be far superior to actual stereo. They won't call Apple wrong but imply Apple is not quite wording their own marketing copy right (but still not actually write down that Apple is wrong about the copy either). And just ignore that Apple themselves went to the trouble of showing 2 HPs as an image (the editors didn't notice that either when they missed the "it takes 2" messaging). Basically, Apple will be right in everything they are saying but still holding back on revealing that this is far superior in every way to pretty much any other speaker sets.
And to that: I've spent a few hours reading all of these pre-release reviews and am yet to see any one of them reference how the beam-forming is creating better-than-stereo reproduction from a single HP along the lines of anything that was being spun in the last 10 days. One review even said that audio sounded better in some seating positions but worse in others and, at one point, sounded better behind the speaker than out front. Where's that magical left & right beaming off walls, including the speaker knowing where the listener happens to be sitting to adjust left & right AND somehow dynamically doing the same for 2 listeners, 3 listeners, etc?
Disclaimer: not really trying to get that debate going again (dead horse no?)... just taking a poke at the incredible armchair puffery slung around that went way beyond even what Apple themselves claimed about their own product. Now we have real(er), pre-release reviews all seeming to mostly ignore some of that amazing functionality implied so heavily. Maybe the reviewers as a group are just stupid for not noticing?
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It won't calibrate anything with your iPhone because it doesn't want to know where you are. It only wants to know where the walls are. They said you can't designate them as left and right, so it's not going to be discrete stereo.
It's going to do exactly what they've said it is going to do since the beginning, beam the center vocals away from the walls and the background instruments and vocals towards the walls - even when setup as a pair (which in theory it's pretty stupid that two can't do L/R stereo, but I'll wait to see what Apple says on the issue in the future when it gets closer to launching).
I get the impression these really aren't for watching Movies or TV shows, they are specifically designed for music where this L/R separation doesn't matter.
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But where is the point in that? It would mean there is a sweet spot in the center of the room while sound would vary and be suboptimal outside of that center.
Also it wouldn't have to make lots of assumptions about what should be in background and what ia foreground. An impossible task with lots of music genres I listen to.
They have made no indication that you'll be able to pair more than two of them together, ever. It's very unlikely that they will have surround sound since this article says they won't even have left/right separation, let alone front/back.
It's really not designed to replace your home theater, it's designed to play music (a feat it does extremely well, apparently).
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Most audio calibration systems (like Audyssey for example) - take a sample from the far left and right of the listening area, and from the center, and calibrate the speakers so that they sound as good as they can across the whole listening area.
Not that the HomePod is going to do this, just other traditional systems do.
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From the review linked in the article:
Hmm. So a single HomePod has a better soundstage than a pair of Sonos Ones. Weren't people claiming a pair of Sonos would be better, because two speakers are required for stereo and for a proper soundstage?
Anyone want to take a crack at explaining how this is possible?
Hmm. So a single HomePod has a better soundstage than a pair of Sonos Ones. Weren't people claiming a pair of Sonos would be better, because two speakers are required for stereo and for a proper soundstage?
Anyone want to take a crack at explaining how this is possible?
The hardware and technology are there for both listening and broadcasting. And while features/aspects may not be available now, signal processing algorithms could be implemented running on the Ax processor to address that in the future.
A dozen people walking around in a living room while listening to music would be an edge case for most. That could be recognized and handled by a default output mode that could still sound mostly OK for such infrequent situations.
However, that does not preclude Apple in the future from implementing algorithms to geolocate one or a couple of listeners who are mostly statically situated in a characterized room, and then direct beam-formed audio appropriately. Would that function perfectly/flawlessly? No, for the short term. But may be good enough for many, most of the time.
I'm intrigued by the possibilities using microphone and speaker arrays, driven by signal processing and beamforming algorithms running on Ax-based processors.
I see loads of potential going forward, including additional new products.
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