Having had the update installed two days now, i do think the bass is turned down, it feels like it is less deep. Whilst it is very difficult to say for sure, without comparing the two, I hope AppleInsider runs the tests to see. I suggest playing Enter the Sandman to do the comparison on base. Let’s see if Apple Insider can run the comparison to put this argument to bed.
Of course people are going to complain when a characteristic is significantly changed, as they should. Frequency response is not subjective. Alter it and the resulting audio is altered. Whether it's argued to be good or bad is subjective. Whether it's there or not isn't. Some of you a) don't own a HomePod so don't care or b) are tone deaf and audio fidelity is lost on you.
Those of you complaining about users being upset would whine like little bitches if Apple put out a firmware update that gave a purple tint to your display. Or if it changed your monitor's resolution from 2560x1440 to 1920x1080. But not to worry as 'it's subjective'.
I haven't heard either version of the HP yet. But while most people lauded the audio quality, a few people who took the time to critique the sound said that it lacked presence and the mid-bass crept up into the mid-range. This is common problem for a lot of modern small speakers— tailoring the sound to be bass-heavy at the expense of balanced frequency response.
Regardless of which version is preferred, anybody should be ticked if a change to their purchase, after the fact, negatively affected them.
Uh... small, even medium range speakers cannot offer a balance frequency response. They lack the physical ability to reproduce bass frequencies. All of these little jive speaker systems use psycho-acoustical filters (tricks) to make non-deiscerning ears think everything is ‘bumpin’. It’s not. This goes for all headphones as well, you need something 8” or larger to even play effectively in the bass range. Hint: feeling bass is not the same as hearing it.
There’s a separate issue of almost universally hyped speech critical frequencies around 1.5-4khz. Basically after years of collective heavy headphone usage and resulting escalation of conversation volume/environmental noise, most of you have hearing damage in those areas. Manufactures designing their systems to boost these frequencies is the same phenomena as Costco cranking the color saturation and brightness of their TVs at the door to compensate for extreme outside glare and catch the attention of even the most blind customers passing. This has been happening since the 90’s for all major brand consumer audio systems. Trusting people to parse this stuff is impossible thanks to decades of marketing hype, including anything from the ‘audiophile’ community.
As for consumers splitting hairs over perceived bass response on these plastic ‘convenience’ speakers, based entirely on artificially boosted harmonics in the 180 to 300Hz range... that’s just Dungeons & Dragons level acoustic roleplaying fantasy.
Of course people are going to complain when a characteristic is significantly changed, as they should. Frequency response is not subjective. Alter it and the resulting audio is altered. Whether it's argued to be good or bad is subjective. Whether it's there or not isn't. Some of you a) don't own a HomePod so don't care or b) are tone deaf and audio fidelity is lost on you.
Those of you complaining about users being upset would whine like little bitches if Apple put out a firmware update that gave a purple tint to your display. Or if it changed your monitor's resolution from 2560x1440 to 1920x1080. But not to worry as 'it's subjective'.
I haven't heard either version of the HP yet. But while most people lauded the audio quality, a few people who took the time to critique the sound said that it lacked presence and the mid-bass crept up into the mid-range. This is common problem for a lot of modern small speakers— tailoring the sound to be bass-heavy at the expense of balanced frequency response.
Regardless of which version is preferred, anybody should be ticked if a change to their purchase, after the fact, negatively affected them.
Uh... small, even medium range speakers cannot offer a balance frequency response. They lack the physical ability to reproduce bass frequencies. All of these little jive speaker systems use psycho-acoustical filters (tricks) to make non-deiscerning ears think everything is ‘bumpin’. It’s not. This goes for all headphones as well, you need something 8” or larger to even play effectively in the bass range. Hint: feeling bass is not the same as hearing it.
There’s a separate issue of almost universally hyped speech critical frequencies around 1.5-4khz. Basically after years of collective heavy headphone usage and resulting escalation of conversation volume/environmental noise, most of you have hearing damage in those areas. Manufactures designing their systems to boost these frequencies is the same phenomena as Costco cranking the color saturation and brightness of their TVs at the door to compensate for extreme outside glare and catch the attention of even the most blind customers passing. This has been happening since the 90’s for all major brand consumer audio systems. Trusting people to parse this stuff is impossible thanks to decades of marketing hype, including anything from the ‘audiophile’ community.
As for consumers splitting hairs over perceived bass response on these plastic ‘convenience’ speakers, based entirely on artificially boosted harmonics in the 180 to 300Hz range... that’s just Dungeons & Dragons level acoustic roleplaying fantasy.
The tech in there says different buddy, look it up and stop babbling that they're "all shit"; most are, but not this one.
Users have no right to complain . You spent 350 on a device you have no way of configuring. That's your fault.
You should have learned by now Apple wants you to use their devices 0the way THEY want you to use it. Not how you want to.
If you're not holding your phone how I say hold it then YOU'RE holding it wrong. WTF wake up people
Wake up? My wife does not want to **** about with controls or settings, or look at an eyesore. HomePod is perfect for our needs. Perfect. There are hundreds of alternatives for people who do want that (like I did in my late teens and early twenties). I’ve moved on, HomePod is for me. My choice. Right for now. Get over yourself.
Great. HomePod works for you and your house. What about the many other owners that would like some type of personal touch on how they like their music to sound. Maybe I want more base and apple says "that's not how the song should sound"
Who is apple to tell me how I like to hear my music. Hey I'm a fan of apple like the next guy, but their hubris and arrogance is getting to be a little much.
You can present an experience but let ME determine how I want to enjoy it
Man come on... it’s a $349.00 speaker not $3499.00 what speaker in this price range let’s you EQ the sound to your liking on device ? If you load music to your iOS device and you can easily use and EQ app and airplay from there, or from your Mac with your personal EQ settings in iTunes for that matter. You are taking the “me” part of this waaaay too far. To call not having individual User changeable EQ settings on this speaker, hubris and arrogance on Apple’s part is just inappropriate. I have had it ( HomePod ) from day one and it sounded really good . I gave my personal opinion of the differences after update as well in this thread. It sounds even better now in my opinion. It’s not an abrupt jarring sound change after update that makes you think Apple knows better and you are clueless, it’s a subtle fine tune that makes an excellent speaker sound even better.
redefiler said: [...] This goes for all headphones as well, you need something 8” or larger to even play effectively in the bass range. Hint: feeling bass is not the same as hearing it.
I realize that this has nothing to do with your main point about hyping harmonics to simulate bass, but since you brought it up...
Headphones don't follow the same rules as speakers. Since they essentially couple with your ear canal to form a pretty small and isolated acoustic chamber, it's possible to reproduce low frequencies with a small driver.
The tech in there says different buddy, look it up and stop babbling that they're "all shit"; most are, but not this one.
Can you direct me to the tech to which you referred? I'm interested in knowing how Apple could extend the low frequency response of a small driver in a small enclosure.
jcs2305 said: [...] To call not having individual User changeable EQ settings on this speaker, hubris and arrogance on Apple’s part is just inappropriate.
Does ANY speaker in this general category provide user-adjustable EQ?
jcs2305 said: [...] To call not having individual User changeable EQ settings on this speaker, hubris and arrogance on Apple’s part is just inappropriate.
Does ANY speaker in this general category provide user-adjustable EQ?
Users have no right to complain . You spent 350 on a device you have no way of configuring. That's your fault.
You should have learned by now Apple wants you to use their devices 0the way THEY want you to use it. Not how you want to.
If you're not holding your phone how I say hold it then YOU'RE holding it wrong. WTF wake up people
Wake up? My wife does not want to **** about with controls or settings, or look at an eyesore. HomePod is perfect for our needs. Perfect. There are hundreds of alternatives for people who do want that (like I did in my late teens and early twenties). I’ve moved on, HomePod is for me. My choice. Right for now. Get over yourself.
Great. HomePod works for you and your house. What about the many other owners that would like some type of personal touch on how they like their music to sound. Maybe I want more base and apple says "that's not how the song should sound"
Who is apple to tell me how I like to hear my music. Hey I'm a fan of apple like the next guy, but their hubris and arrogance is getting to be a little much.
You can present an experience but let ME determine how I want to enjoy it
Man come on... it’s a $349.00 speaker not $3499.00 what speaker in this price range let’s you EQ the sound to your liking on device ? If you load music to your iOS device and you can easily use and EQ app and airplay from there, or from your Mac with your personal EQ settings in iTunes for that matter. You are taking the “me” part of this waaaay too far. To call not having individual User changeable EQ settings on this speaker, hubris and arrogance on Apple’s part is just inappropriate. I have had it ( HomePod ) from day one and it sounded really good . I gave my personal opinion of the differences after update as well in this thread. It sounds even better now in my opinion. It’s not an abrupt jarring sound change after update that makes you think Apple knows better and you are clueless, it’s a subtle fine tune that makes an excellent speaker sound even better.
A good sounding sub 200 speaker and look, you have an EQ! Here we have a speaker that sounds good, has aux, Bluetooth and I can stream from multiple sources.
The problem is not the speaker, it's Apple thinking the user experience should be they experience Apple provides. BTW this same thinking is what got them in hot water with their phone throttling-gate
As great as the hardware in the HomePod is, the software seems like 25% of where it should have been. AirPlay 2 missing, No support for stereo output to 2 HomePods, no support for whole house audio, no support for recognizing multiple voices and connecting to different accounts, and a subpar Siri to top it off. Hopefully the first two will be working by WWDC.
Gives me a new found appreciation for what Sonos has done.
It is a bit strange to me that Apple would do something to adjust the sound profile of the thing so early on. I feel like they should do what a lot of speaker makers do and offer some EQ settings. They could put the old profile as one option and the new one as another.
jcs2305 said: [...] To call not having individual User changeable EQ settings on this speaker, hubris and arrogance on Apple’s part is just inappropriate.
Does ANY speaker in this general category provide user-adjustable EQ?
Google Home speakers have a very simple one, restricted to bass and treble with no presets or such.
I didn't mean to suggest that something other than the HomePod was causing your reaction. I meant that since the HomePod is incapable of producing any meaningful output at frequencies that low, whatever it was about the HomePod that was causing you discomfort was very likely something other than infrasonics.
Based on your follow-up comment it seems like maybe something about the way the HomePod reproduced low frequencies bothered you, but your reaction would have been to frequencies in the audible range, not infrasonic.
Example: If the program material contains a single, high amplitude impulse, the HomePod with its high excursion woofer is going to do a great job of quickly shoving air in response. One such impulse alone can be disturbing/annoying. Now separate such impulses by many milliseconds (not necessarily regularly spaced, as with wind buffeting), such that there are less than 20 impulses per second. We're now talking about events that occur below the commonly accepted lower bound on human hearing, but that lower bound only concerns what the human brain recognizes as a tone. The ears can still sense the impulses as pressure waves. And for my ears and the ears of my wife, those pressure waves were highly annoying and sometimes painful.
After purchasing another HomePod today and updating to 11.3, I am happy to report the infrasound problem seems to be gone. The HomePod still produces more bass than I would like, but I will probably keep this unit. As one example, when listening to the opening track of the recently released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Deluxe Edition), the bass is over-accentuated. Bass also seems to be boosted at lower volume levels (like the classic Loudness setting of audio amplifiers) -- it would be nice to be able to disable this. For that matter, an equalizer would be appreciated!
The HomePod still can't/won't play KCBS, the major CBS radio affiliate in San Francisco, Apple's backyard. It will play KQED, the local NPR affiliate in San Francisco, as well as every other NPR affiliate I've tested, which is probably because of a deal between Apple and NPR. But the HomePod ought to be able to play any free Internet radio stream listed in iTunes on the Mac. And Internet radio stations added to iTunes playlists ought to be synced with the iOS Music app. No excuse for these deficiencies!
The update unmistakably altered the sound on mine, most notably by reducing bass and raising mid levels. However...after half an hour, the profile altered and became more similar to the previous profile. The update seems to have triggered a recalibration of the location tuning. I can’t honestly say if it’s different now, a few days later, though I think the bass is still not as powerful as it was relative to mid levels. More annoying, it now cannot play any new playlists I created since updating. (They will play streaming from my phone, but not initiated from the HomePod. Older playlists work fine.)
If ever you needed proof hearing is subjective this is it.
"However, for every disgruntled user who decries HomePod's software update, there seems to be another dissenting voice extolling the new version's boost to bass fidelity and loudness. Still more say there is no discernible difference between the two firmware releases."
If those people had received this version first and then it had gone to the previous one, they would undoubtedly would have complained about that too.
Hearing is definitely subjective. Some speakers are clearly just bad, but there are many good speakers that some people prefer over others and threre’s clearly an element of personal taste involved.
That said, I find it interesting how many people will instantly dismiss any complaint about an Apple product as ‘troll bait,’ etc. The HomePod was introduced as a high end speaker targeted and audiophiles. As such, it’s not suprising that people would notice and be dissatisfied when a firmware update changes the sound characteristics. If I paid $350 for a speaker and a firmware update made the sound worse, I’d be upset, too.
One thing reviewers have noted is the lack of equalizer settings on the HomePod. I think Apple could ease the complaints and make the HomePod more functional by adding an app that lets you adjust some of these.
The tech in there says different buddy, look it up and stop babbling that they're "all shit"; most are, but not this one.
Can you direct me to the tech to which you referred? I'm interested in knowing how Apple could extend the low frequency response of a small driver in a small enclosure.
search this site, it's in one of the many launch articles (and in the responses), but you knew that and just making a "conversation" I'm sure...
Users have no right to complain . You spent 350 on a device you have no way of configuring. That's your fault.
You should have learned by now Apple wants you to use their devices 0the way THEY want you to use it. Not how you want to.
If you're not holding your phone how I say hold it then YOU'RE holding it wrong. WTF wake up people
Wake up? My wife does not want to **** about with controls or settings, or look at an eyesore. HomePod is perfect for our needs. Perfect. There are hundreds of alternatives for people who do want that (like I did in my late teens and early twenties). I’ve moved on, HomePod is for me. My choice. Right for now. Get over yourself.
Great. HomePod works for you and your house. What about the many other owners that would like some type of personal touch on how they like their music to sound. Maybe I want more base and apple says "that's not how the song should sound"
Who is apple to tell me how I like to hear my music. Hey I'm a fan of apple like the next guy, but their hubris and arrogance is getting to be a little much.
You can present an experience but let ME determine how I want to enjoy it
Man come on... it’s a $349.00 speaker not $3499.00 what speaker in this price range let’s you EQ the sound to your liking on device ? If you load music to your iOS device and you can easily use and EQ app and airplay from there, or from your Mac with your personal EQ settings in iTunes for that matter. You are taking the “me” part of this waaaay too far. To call not having individual User changeable EQ settings on this speaker, hubris and arrogance on Apple’s part is just inappropriate. I have had it ( HomePod ) from day one and it sounded really good . I gave my personal opinion of the differences after update as well in this thread. It sounds even better now in my opinion. It’s not an abrupt jarring sound change after update that makes you think Apple knows better and you are clueless, it’s a subtle fine tune that makes an excellent speaker sound even better.
A good sounding sub 200 speaker and look, you have an EQ! Here we have a speaker that sounds good, has aux, Bluetooth and I can stream from multiple sources.
The problem is not the speaker, it's Apple thinking the user experience should be they experience Apple provides. BTW this same thinking is what got them in hot water with their phone throttling-gate
Considering that THIS speaker needs to bounce different frequencies off the wall to create a standing wave, and EQ is not as simple as you state or with a normal speaker.
It has nothing to do with Apple deciding this, Apple deciding that. If you run the EQ, there is a good chance it will complicate it's task of reproducing the proper sound. Most probably because such a setup would not have receive as much QA as just trying to get a neutral sound.
For example, if you emphasize bass, it's no directional and bounces very differently than if you EQ to get a high treble.
How on earth would they insure at launch that all those different settings get a proper sound.
They want to make sure the base setting is reproduced properly FIRST and then look at the variants.
The tech in there says different buddy, look it up and stop babbling that they're "all shit"; most are, but not this one.
Can you direct me to the tech to which you referred? I'm interested in knowing how Apple could extend the low frequency response of a small driver in a small enclosure.
search this site, it's in one of the many launch articles (and in the responses), but you knew that and just making a "conversation" I'm sure...
I've followed every thread about the HomePod here and read everything I can find on Apple's site about it. The only reference I can find to any kind of "tech" affecting low end response is mention of a long-excursion woofer. It's not a unique or even particularly novel feature, nor does it necessarily result in any extension of low-frequency response or lower distortion than any other well-applied design.
With due respect and without any malice, your invitation to examine the tech on the HomePod doesn't provide any useful defence of your argument that the HomePod is better than other speakers in its category. It may well be, but I haven't yet read anything that would support claims of low frequency response being inherently better because of some specific technical aspect. That's why I was asking if you had found something I haven't.
Comments
There’s a separate issue of almost universally hyped speech critical frequencies around 1.5-4khz. Basically after years of collective heavy headphone usage and resulting escalation of conversation volume/environmental noise, most of you have hearing damage in those areas. Manufactures designing their systems to boost these frequencies is the same phenomena as Costco cranking the color saturation and brightness of their TVs at the door to compensate for extreme outside glare and catch the attention of even the most blind customers passing. This has been happening since the 90’s for all major brand consumer audio systems. Trusting people to parse this stuff is impossible thanks to decades of marketing hype, including anything from the ‘audiophile’ community.
As for consumers splitting hairs over perceived bass response on these plastic ‘convenience’ speakers, based entirely on artificially boosted harmonics in the 180 to 300Hz range... that’s just Dungeons & Dragons level acoustic roleplaying fantasy.
Headphones don't follow the same rules as speakers. Since they essentially couple with your ear canal to form a pretty small and isolated acoustic chamber, it's possible to reproduce low frequencies with a small driver.
Can you direct me to the tech to which you referred? I'm interested in knowing how Apple could extend the low frequency response of a small driver in a small enclosure.
Does ANY speaker in this general category provide user-adjustable EQ?
Gives me a new found appreciation for what Sonos has done.
After purchasing another HomePod today and updating to 11.3, I am happy to report the infrasound problem seems to be gone. The HomePod still produces more bass than I would like, but I will probably keep this unit. As one example, when listening to the opening track of the recently released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Deluxe Edition), the bass is over-accentuated. Bass also seems to be boosted at lower volume levels (like the classic Loudness setting of audio amplifiers) -- it would be nice to be able to disable this. For that matter, an equalizer would be appreciated!
The HomePod still can't/won't play KCBS, the major CBS radio affiliate in San Francisco, Apple's backyard. It will play KQED, the local NPR affiliate in San Francisco, as well as every other NPR affiliate I've tested, which is probably because of a deal between Apple and NPR. But the HomePod ought to be able to play any free Internet radio stream listed in iTunes on the Mac. And Internet radio stations added to iTunes playlists ought to be synced with the iOS Music app. No excuse for these deficiencies!
Hearing is definitely subjective. Some speakers are clearly just bad, but there are many good speakers that some people prefer over others and threre’s clearly an element of personal taste involved.
That said, I find it interesting how many people will instantly dismiss any complaint about an Apple product as ‘troll bait,’ etc. The HomePod was introduced as a high end speaker targeted and audiophiles. As such, it’s not suprising that people would notice and be dissatisfied when a firmware update changes the sound characteristics. If I paid $350 for a speaker and a firmware update made the sound worse, I’d be upset, too.
One thing reviewers have noted is the lack of equalizer settings on the HomePod. I think Apple could ease the complaints and make the HomePod more functional by adding an app that lets you adjust some of these.
I've followed every thread about the HomePod here and read everything I can find on Apple's site about it. The only reference I can find to any kind of "tech" affecting low end response is mention of a long-excursion woofer. It's not a unique or even particularly novel feature, nor does it necessarily result in any extension of low-frequency response or lower distortion than any other well-applied design.
With due respect and without any malice, your invitation to examine the tech on the HomePod doesn't provide any useful defence of your argument that the HomePod is better than other speakers in its category. It may well be, but I haven't yet read anything that would support claims of low frequency response being inherently better because of some specific technical aspect. That's why I was asking if you had found something I haven't.