Headphones that can accurately play back 24 bit audio cost $600+. Who wants to buy that?
Actually the headphones are not the important part of playing back hi-def audio. It is your front end equipment that matters, then you can argue that any headphone will benefit from the improved signal. But if you're trying to say a headphone that is good enough to make a real difference in the quality of the sound, there's plenty under $600 that would do. In fact at least one is under $100. Take a look here: http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2017-buyers-guide-headphones/
It is interesting to me that Apple stays on the sidelines of hi-def audio. It seems very strange that Apple pushes the 4k Apple TV, and sells 4k and 5k iMacs yet when it comes to audio a lossy format is just fine? If Apple thinks there customers are discerning enough for ever higher screen resolutions then those are the customers who would be discerning enough for hi-def audio. Sony get's it. Pioneer gets it. Now ever Amazon gets it. Apple? I can only guess there spending all their time figuring out ways to get us to buy $1,000 phones.
It doesn’t surprise me that some of those AI pundits/readers of this site are missing the much bigger potential picture here: That Amazon is preparing and will be releasing a premium speaker(s) to coincide with the announcement of their high fidelity music service offering. Or they’re buying Sonos. Either way, expect anything.
It doesn’t surprise me that some of those AI pundits/readers of this site are missing the much bigger potential picture here: That Amazon is preparing and will be releasing a premium speaker(s) to coincide with the announcement of their high fidelity music service offering. Or they’re buying Sonos. Either way, expect anything.
I wouldn’t be shocked at all if they bought Sonos. I also wouldn’t be shocked if they released a speaker that sounds as good (or better) than HomePod for less money. For me the fact that Apple never talks about nor promotes HomePod signals it’s a bit of a dud. Mostly because it’s overpriced.
This will fail. It’s basically another tidal. The major services might gain some small bit of market share by increasing the fidelity of their streamed music, but very few people want to pay the premium for an all HiFi service.
Do you know anything about Tidal? HEAVILY RAP / HIP-HOP. You're saying the Amazon service will be the same? If not, then it's not "basically another Tidal".
Can you link to your research that supports your claim that "few people want to pay the premium"...for hi-res music? Maybe you aren't, but I'm guessing Amazon did their research before deciding to make this move.
Tidal is not “mostly rap / hip-hop”. That kind of music is often on the main landing pages mainly because Tidal’s majority owner (Jay-Z) is a hip hop star and producer. Frankly this should surprise no one. But Tidal has plenty of titles in most music genres including the jazz and classical recordings many older audiophiles like.
It doesn’t surprise me that some of those AI pundits/readers of this site are missing the much bigger potential picture here: That Amazon is preparing and will be releasing a premium speaker(s) to coincide with the announcement of their high fidelity music service offering. Or they’re buying Sonos. Either way, expect anything.
I wouldn’t be shocked at all if they bought Sonos. I also wouldn’t be shocked if they released a speaker that sounds as good (or better) than HomePod for less money. For me the fact that Apple never talks about nor promotes HomePod signals it’s a bit of a dud. Mostly because it’s overpriced.
You do realize that's what every critic has said about every single Apple product, right? "But but but it's overpriced!" Value is relative thus it's a silly comment.
$299 is a great deal -- less that Sonos similars, and sounds better. Refurbs and open boxes exist for 250, it's crazy not to get two or more.
Ok, since your post quite possibly suggests sheer laziness and/or stupidity that prevents your doing a basic search, let me spell it out for you. According to this (familiar) source: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/19/homepod-sales-up-in-fourth-quarter-amazon-and-google-extending-lead, Apple sold perhaps 3 million of those in an aggregate smartspeaker market of 86 million, in 2018. Others — I am not going to bother giving you the cites, you can look it up — put it half that number.
Anyhoo, even at 3 million, that’s about $1 billion in revenue. Not even a rounding error for Apple. Compare that to 35-40 million AirPods and 45-50 million iPhones sold (again, not going to bother with giving you cites since you could easily look it up if you’re REALLY interested).
A completly piddling product both for Apple and in the market for speakers.
It doesn’t surprise me that some of those AI pundits/readers of this site are missing the much bigger potential picture here: That Amazon is preparing and will be releasing a premium speaker(s) to coincide with the announcement of their high fidelity music service offering. Or they’re buying Sonos. Either way, expect anything.
I wouldn’t be shocked at all if they bought Sonos. I also wouldn’t be shocked if they released a speaker that sounds as good (or better) than HomePod for less money. For me the fact that Apple never talks about nor promotes HomePod signals it’s a bit of a dud. Mostly because it’s overpriced.
I wouldn't say it's overpriced after the "correction" to $299. The Bose Smart speaker is $399, SoundTouch 20 is $349 Google Home Max is $399. You're hard pressed to find a better VA/Speaker at current pricing.
Ok, since your post quite possibly suggests sheer laziness and/or stupidity that prevents your doing a basic search, let me spell it out for you. According to this (familiar) source: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/19/homepod-sales-up-in-fourth-quarter-amazon-and-google-extending-lead, Apple sold perhaps 3 million of those in an aggregate smartspeaker market of 86 million, in 2018. Others — I am not going to bother giving you the cites, you can look it up — put it half that number.
Anyhoo, even at 3 million, that’s about $1 billion in revenue. Not even a rounding error for Apple. Compare that to 35-40 million AirPods and 45-50 million iPhones sold (again, not going to bother with giving you cites since you could easily look it up if you’re REALLY interested).
A completly piddling product both for Apple and in the market for speakers.
Yes it’s true the HomePod is overpriced. Even with the recent price drop. Thing is though price could have been less of an issue if it wasn’t sort of released, and...no follow up. Why wasn’t SIRI upgraded before release? A hidef music service released at the same time? Where are the partner products that make Apple products greater than they appear on their own?
Why not a range of speakers? A lower end speaker for the masses. Portable. At at the higher end, an amazing sound bar and wireless sub woofer that would be worth serious coin, to go with the AppleTV+ service.
it’s like the the gun has missfired before it got aimed, or more crassly, the boy shot his load as soon as the girl kissed him. It’s just unsatisfying. Like something else, maybe even better should have happened.
Music services are already providing a very good level of audio quality. However the point is moot if amazon continue to market speakers with lousy audio reproduction.
Unlike HomePod, the Amazon version is not targeted at audio -- but at accepting and responding to voice commands.
Frankly, I question Apple's wisdom in putting out a high-fidelity single speaker: It can't match an audiophile or home theater system, but it's too expensive to compete with the Amazon and Google devices. It's kinda out there in no-man's land. I equate it to going back into the 60's when cars came with a single speaker in the middle of the dash -- you could replace it with really expensive great speaker, but why bother?
Has anybody ever thought of the possibility that Amazon wants to get its hands on the original masters more than actually wanting to deliver lossless music to clients? The lossless music business is a niche market. How often does Amazon go for niche to the detriment of market share?
I think this may be a ploy for Amazon to control the music business.
Ok, since your post quite possibly suggests sheer laziness and/or stupidity that prevents your doing a basic search, let me spell it out for you. ...
Yes, of course. Because it’s always up to the reader to make the writer’s point for them and go find sources and evidence when someone writes a post based on something that they “recall reading somewhere.” If the reader doesn’t go do the writer’s research for them, then it’s the reader and not the writer who is ‘lazy and/or stupid.’ Got it. Thanks for your help clearing that up.
It is interesting to me that Apple stays on the sidelines of hi-def audio. It seems very strange that Apple pushes the 4k Apple TV, and sells 4k and 5k iMacs yet when it comes to audio a lossy format is just fine? If Apple thinks there customers are discerning enough for ever higher screen resolutions then those are the customers who would be discerning enough for hi-def audio. Sony get's it. Pioneer gets it. Now ever Amazon gets it. Apple? I can only guess there spending all their time figuring out ways to get us to buy $1,000 phones.
For display resolutions, people can tell the difference from say 150 ppi to 300 ppi. That quite obvious, right? A real, huge benefit to consumers. For higher and higher DPI, Apple has been pretty reluctant to go higher, and that is likely because too few people can tell the difference, and it’s not enough of a difference to change the experience and sell phones.
Apple really hasn’t chased higher ppi resolutions. The Plus iPhones have a 401 ppi 1080p LCD, but Apple renders the screen images at something like 1125p and scales down to 1080p and pushes it to the display. That takes extra GPU power to do, and there will be a little loss in quality. That’s been a weird decision for the longest time now. They didn’t put in the effort to develop a 1125p display for the Plus models, and went with a typical 1080p res display and scaling the screen images down. Somewhere in the decision process here, they are thinking that people won’t notice any screen degradation from the scaling, and that turned out to be largely true.
Same thing with the MBP. The default display setting isn’t the native ppi doubling anymore. In the 3rd gen MBP (1st retina gen), it ran 1440x900 points at a perfect integer doubled 2880x1800 pixels. Now, the default is a scaled 1650x1030, whatever the actual points are. Everything is scaled, and some quality is lost. People don’t really notice.
Even the OLED phones aren’t that high ppi. They advertise 458 ppi, but the OLED is RGBG, and its subpixel density turns out to be no better that the subpixel density of a 320 ppi RGB display, basically the same as iPhones and Watches. 500 ppi LCDs have been available and Apple hasn’t chased it. It looks like they have settled on 200 ppi to 330 ppi displays depending on size.
For audio, this type of thing has been true for 2 decades if not more. Not enough people can tell the difference between whatever bitrate compressed audio has had for decades and lossless to really make it a feature.
$299 is a great deal -- less that Sonos similars, and sounds better. Refurbs and open boxes exist for 250, it's crazy not to get two or more.
I would gladly pay that -- even more -- if it played well with other equipment, e.g., a typical TV set.
I recall reading somewhere that it may not be selling all that well. Its market share seems pretty low.
It's for the ecosystem. In the Apple walled garden it plays well with my TV set because I only use an Apple TV. This is what it's designed for: music and ATV, not general home theater.
The church of market share is not where Apple worships. While we don't know how it's selling (or the Watch for that matter), I've read that above a certain price threshold it is the dominant option.
$299 is a great deal -- less that Sonos similars, and sounds better. Refurbs and open boxes exist for 250, it's crazy not to get two or more.
I would gladly pay that -- even more -- if it played well with other equipment, e.g., a typical TV set.
I recall reading somewhere that it may not be selling all that well. Its market share seems pretty low.
It's for the ecosystem. In the Apple walled garden it plays well with my TV set because I only use an Apple TV. This is what it's designed for: music and ATV, not general home theater.
The church of market share is not where Apple worships. While we don't know how it's selling (or the Watch for that matter), I've read that above a certain price threshold it is the dominant option.
The AppleTV piece of the ecosystem is fine but falling behind. Not having the Xfinity beta streaming app — unlike Roku — is a huge negative for my regular use of AppleTV. I use it now for not much more than playing my iTunes Match music and photos.
As to not worshipping atthe church of market share, I agree, but at $299, it’s not all that more expensive than competitor offerings.
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$299 is a great deal -- less that Sonos similars, and sounds better. Refurbs and open boxes exist for 250, it's crazy not to get two or more.
I recall reading somewhere that it may not be selling all that well. Its market share seems pretty low.
Anyhoo, even at 3 million, that’s about $1 billion in revenue. Not even a rounding error for Apple. Compare that to 35-40 million AirPods and 45-50 million iPhones sold (again, not going to bother with giving you cites since you could easily look it up if you’re REALLY interested).
A completly piddling product both for Apple and in the market for speakers.
Why not a range of speakers? A lower end speaker for the masses. Portable. At at the higher end, an amazing sound bar and wireless sub woofer that would be worth serious coin, to go with the AppleTV+ service.
it’s like the the gun has missfired before it got aimed, or more crassly, the boy shot his load as soon as the girl kissed him. It’s just unsatisfying. Like something else, maybe even better should have happened.
Frankly, I question Apple's wisdom in putting out a high-fidelity single speaker: It can't match an audiophile or home theater system, but it's too expensive to compete with the Amazon and Google devices. It's kinda out there in no-man's land. I equate it to going back into the 60's when cars came with a single speaker in the middle of the dash -- you could replace it with really expensive great speaker, but why bother?
I think this may be a ploy for Amazon to control the music business.
Apple really hasn’t chased higher ppi resolutions. The Plus iPhones have a 401 ppi 1080p LCD, but Apple renders the screen images at something like 1125p and scales down to 1080p and pushes it to the display. That takes extra GPU power to do, and there will be a little loss in quality. That’s been a weird decision for the longest time now. They didn’t put in the effort to develop a 1125p display for the Plus models, and went with a typical 1080p res display and scaling the screen images down. Somewhere in the decision process here, they are thinking that people won’t notice any screen degradation from the scaling, and that turned out to be largely true.
Same thing with the MBP. The default display setting isn’t the native ppi doubling anymore. In the 3rd gen MBP (1st retina gen), it ran 1440x900 points at a perfect integer doubled 2880x1800 pixels. Now, the default is a scaled 1650x1030, whatever the actual points are. Everything is scaled, and some quality is lost. People don’t really notice.
Even the OLED phones aren’t that high ppi. They advertise 458 ppi, but the OLED is RGBG, and its subpixel density turns out to be no better that the subpixel density of a 320 ppi RGB display, basically the same as iPhones and Watches. 500 ppi LCDs have been available and Apple hasn’t chased it. It looks like they have settled on 200 ppi to 330 ppi displays depending on size.
For audio, this type of thing has been true for 2 decades if not more. Not enough people can tell the difference between whatever bitrate compressed audio has had for decades and lossless to really make it a feature.
The church of market share is not where Apple worships. While we don't know how it's selling (or the Watch for that matter), I've read that above a certain price threshold it is the dominant option.
As to not worshipping atthe church of market share, I agree, but at $299, it’s not all that more expensive than competitor offerings.