Early previewers praise new HomePod's 'just wow' audio

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 65
    XedXed Posts: 2,519member
    Just wish they’d enable more than stereo pairing them.
    It is more than just stereo. It's virtual 2.1, 5.1, 7.1 and Dolby Atmos if you have an Apple TV 4K and if the source content supports the encoded audio profiles. This has been the case for close to 2 years now.
    williamlondonMadbum
  • Reply 42 of 65
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    macxpress said:
    Skeptical said:
    Wait until it poops the bed and Apple says nothing is wrong with but can replace it for 80% the cost of a new device. 
    Someone is butt hurt....You've been posting this everywhere as if this was a major issue. 
    I don't know at what point a common failure mode becomes major, but there are enough original HomePod failures to see “how to fix the problem” videos getting posted on YouTube. 

    Call it what you want, but there are obviously enough owners of HomePods that no longer power up and are restored by replacing the same exact diode to make you think that there is a component in the product that is failing prematurely without Apple addressing the issue for owners who’ve gone beyond the warranty period. 

    It’s easy to say, “But but but … the product lasted beyond the warranty period, so what are you complaining about?” Well, if consumer electronic products in particular only lasted as long as the warranty period, the consumer electronics industry and buyers would be in a state of total disaster. 

    The failure rate for electronic products and components tend to follow what looks like a bathtub curve with higher failure rates very early in the product life, ie, infant mortality, and very late in the product life, ie, wear out, with a long span of very low failure rates in between. Product warranties are really intended to cover infant mortality and failures due to correctable manufacturing issues. At least in theory and based on historical data. But as a product or system, any component that does not conform to this pattern and introduces a single point failure mode upsets the whole Apple cart. 

    I’ve had two (2) original HomePods die, one during warranty and one outside of warranty. The failure mode was the same in both - device doesn’t power up. Despite my love of the HomePod it is clearly the least reliable Apple product the I’ve ever owned. Hopefully Apple addressed the component failure in the second version. 

    Frankly, after reading about the changes Apple brought to the second generation HomePod I’m a bit surprised that the audio performance would be noticeably improved. The changes look to me more like cost reduction motivated changes - plus a number of improvements intended to improve the device’s compatibility with Apple’s home automation initiatives. 

    The flip side is that the original HomePod was so far beyond all but a few competitors that Apple could trim a few things judiciously without sacrificing the overall quality to the point where they would lose ground to serious competitors. Apple dominating the likes of Amazon’s and Google’s budget priced loss leaders, eg, the Dot, are meaningless. 

    Finally, from a positioning standpoint I’d be a ton more thrilled with the biggy HomePod if it was $199, or 2X the price of the mini. Seeing a third product, a HomePod Video to take down Amazon’s wall mounted Echo, occupy the $299 (3X the mini) slot would be nice. The form factors in the HomePod product line don’t have to remain similar. I’d have no problem with a premium HomePod that fit into the sound bar form factor, ie, HomePod TV, that also pulled in some Apple TV functionality. 
    williamlondoncgWerksmuthuk_vanalingambeowulfschmidt
  • Reply 43 of 65
    davgregdavgreg Posts: 1,036member
    I will find out soon enough having ordered two that will be replacing a set of Focal XS 2.1s with a Subwoofer module as my desktop sound at the house. The Focals have a really nice clean and clear sound but are getting creaky old, take up a lot of real estate and are well past the point of ever getting repaired if they die.

    I do like the fact that they can do spatial audio, the room is a pretty standard sized bedroom - not a large family or living room.
  • Reply 44 of 65
    dewme said: Frankly, after reading about the changes Apple brought to the second generation HomePod I’m a bit surprised that the audio performance would be noticeably improved. The changes look to me more like cost reduction motivated changes - plus a number of improvements intended to improve the device’s compatibility with Apple’s home automation initiatives. 
    Someone in this thread posted about the Bluesound Pulse M as a possible alternative to the Gen 2 HomePod. That speaker lists at $449 and has 1 woofer, 2 tweeters and no microphones while being marketed as providing 360 degree sound. People need to get real when they complain about a supposed "downgrade" in the hardware for the new HomePod. 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 45 of 65

    kkqd1337 said:
    If they had a broader ecosystem of speakers I could be interested in these 

    but a TV setup is an essential for me. Needs to work with any tv / cable tv inputs as well as Apple TV 
    Er, if you can get the sound into your TV, HomePod can play it https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207117
    Works a treat for me.


    Oh! Right. So you can do this? I didn’t know. 

    I live in the UK. So I use a Sky Box and I have an Apple TV. So it is possible to play the sky audio through the home pods? Via the Apple TV?
    williamlondon
  • Reply 46 of 65


    Xed said:
    kkqd1337 said:
    If they had a broader ecosystem of speakers I could be interested in these 

    Oh but a TV setup is an essential for me. Needs to work with any tv / cable tv inputs as well as Apple TV 

    and also the form factor really needs to be soundbar. I just don’t have the space next to my tv for these 
    Out of curiosity (and no judgment), why are you still using the old style cable setup?

    While I'm more than fine with on-demand streaming options, I know several people who still want the classic allotment of local and "cable"-ish channels, but I have been able to get them to switch to on-line options accessed via the Apple TV. Everyone is happier about it due to the better UI, lower overall cost, and additional features (like server-side recordings of shows with YouTube TV). Of course, decent internet speeds are required, but typically if you can get cable TV to your home your ISP is also getting up triple-digit Mb speeds for a reasonable cost.



    I personally would consider going online only.

    But my family don’t want to.

    Plus with online only content you can’t skip advertising like you can with pre-recorded live content. Which to be fair it a big plus.  
  • Reply 47 of 65
    kkqd1337 said:

    kkqd1337 said:
    If they had a broader ecosystem of speakers I could be interested in these 

    but a TV setup is an essential for me. Needs to work with any tv / cable tv inputs as well as Apple TV 
    Er, if you can get the sound into your TV, HomePod can play it https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207117
    Works a treat for me.


    Oh! Right. So you can do this? I didn’t know. 

    I live in the UK. So I use a Sky Box and I have an Apple TV. So it is possible to play the sky audio through the home pods? Via the Apple TV?
    I’m also in the UK. I can watch inbuilt Freeview from my LG OLED and get eARC sound via the AppleTV to stereo original HomePods. Now Sky are awkward b@stoods and might block it; I think they prevent AirPlay of their content. Maybe have a Google to confirm, or perhaps others with experience of eARC and external devices will weigh in?
    williamlondonkkqd1337
  • Reply 48 of 65
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Madbum said:
    Audio in? Why? Best use of these is pair with Apple TV 4K wireless 
    Well, for example, I have a PS4 (maybe one day a PS5). Or, what if I want to play a Blu Ray? (I suppose I could rip it and such)

    For me, it is too expensive as just an Apple TV accessory. At that price, I want it to also double as my home stereo system (which we currently don’t have).

    appleinsideruser said:
    Er, if you can get the sound into your TV, HomePod can play it https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207117
    Works a treat for me.
    Thanks, I just heard about something like that on ATP podcast, I think. I didn’t know it was possible, but there are lag issues to deal with, especially for something like my above PS4 (gaming) example, or say I wanted to plug in a guitar/keyboard, or stuff like that. Audio in is really the only solution to deal with things like that.

    What is so odd to me, is that it is kind of a no-brainer and certainly not expensive to add.

    macxpress said:
    Someone is butt hurt....You've been posting this everywhere as if this was a major issue. 
    Maybe they got one or more of them with the failed capacitor issue or whatever. Maybe they should state it a different way, but I’d be pretty ticked as well if I spent that much money on a product that only lasted a couple of years. I’m pretty ticked that Apple won’t fix my clicking AirPod Pros as well. I guess $300-600 is just pocket-change to the Silicon Valley folks these days. They have a point I suppose, that’s a few car-fuel-ups.
    muthuk_vanalingamwilliamlondon
  • Reply 49 of 65
    There are bound to be some improvements, which is all positive. Let's face it though, there is only so much more quality you can generate from a speaker, so I suspect these improvements are limited with fair reason. 

    I plan on playing my original and the new HomePod in the same room, albeit, it won't be in stereo because Apple, for some reason, won't allow it, which is disappointing. I strongly believe it's not that they can't, it's just apple won't do it. Maybe because of the very slight subtle audit differences but when you are air playing to the speakers, it would have been nice to have them in stereo. 
    williamlondon
  • Reply 50 of 65
    XedXed Posts: 2,519member
    laytech said:
    I plan on playing my original and the new HomePod in the same room, albeit, it won't be in stereo because Apple, for some reason, won't allow it, which is disappointing. I strongly believe it's not that they can't, it's just apple won't do it. Maybe because of the very slight subtle audit differences but when you are air playing to the speakers, it would have been nice to have them in stereo. 
    I'm not sure if it's still valid today, but I bet you can still get quite a bit for your original HomePod if you want to use that profit to buy a second new HomePod.

    https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/19/23033038/apple-homepod-appreciate-price-ebay-used-box
  • Reply 51 of 65
    DTWDTW Posts: 1member

    Apple deemed a power surge (must’ve been very selective!) relinquished them of any responsibility with my original HomePod. What do you do when things go wrong – nothing, it seems! Shite product!

    williamlondon
  • Reply 52 of 65
    At the end of the day it’s just fugly (IMO) and I don’t want an always listening speaker or device, even though I trust Apple far more than the likes of Google or Amazon.  The concept itself I just find creepy and unnecessary, especially considering I’ve got a phone with me at nearly all times that can be used to control a connected speaker.  I’m not sure if it has an input jack either but somehow with Apple being Apple I highly doubt it.

    Audio products from Apple will never appeal to me.  I’d much rather have a B&O or B&W wireless speaker, like something from B&W’s Formation range.
    edited January 2023 williamlondon
  • Reply 53 of 65
    MadbumMadbum Posts: 536member
    s.metcalf said:
    At the end of the day it’s just fugly (IMO) and I don’t want an always listening speaker or device, even though I trust Apple far more than the likes of Google or Amazon.  The concept itself I just find creepy and unnecessary, especially considering I’ve got a phone with me at nearly all times that can be used to control a connected speaker.  I’m not sure if it has an input jack either but somehow with Apple being Apple I highly doubt it.

    Audio products from Apple will never appeal to me.  I’d much rather have a B&O or B&W wireless speaker, like something from B&W’s Formation range.
    s.metcalf said:
    At the end of the day it’s just fugly (IMO) and I don’t want an always listening speaker or device, even though I trust Apple far more than the likes of Google or Amazon.  The concept itself I just find creepy and unnecessary, especially considering I’ve got a phone with me at nearly all times that can be used to control a connected speaker.  I’m not sure if it has an input jack either but somehow with Apple being Apple I highly doubt it.

    Audio products from Apple will never appeal to me.  I’d much rather have a B&O or B&W wireless speaker, like something from B&W’s Formation range.
    Well the price difference between 2 Home Pods and any BW setup is not close…
  • Reply 54 of 65
    appleinsideruser said:
    Er, if you can get the sound into your TV, HomePod can play it https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207117
    Works a treat for me.
    Thanks, I just heard about something like that on ATP podcast, I think. I didn’t know it was possible, but there are lag issues to deal with, especially for something like my above PS4 (gaming) example, or say I wanted to plug in a guitar/keyboard, or stuff like that. Audio in is really the only solution to deal with things like that.
    yes, there’s audio lag of much less than 1 second. It hides it for pause/play situations by replaying a moment of previous pre-pause audio. Clever. Some apps, not using the standard Apple player, have momentary silence on play resume. There are no lip sync issues — you can easily tune delay via a setup with your iPhone.

    Yup, it’d be useless for real-time monitoring, or I assume, gaming. 
    cgWerkswilliamlondon
  • Reply 55 of 65
    Home theater speaker kits are way too far removed from their core business. 

    Umm... the core business that includes Apple TV and Apple TV+ ? And iTunes and Apple Music?

    That core business?
    Xed
  • Reply 56 of 65
    Madbum said:
    Well the price difference between 2 Home Pods and any BW setup is not close…
    Well you’re pretty wrong on that unless you’re talking about their Made-In-UK powered Hi-Fi speakers, which are obviously a totally different class…

    But for consumer made-in-china stuff I jut checked and 1 new HomePod costs $479 Dollarydoos while a B&W Formation Flex retails for 750 but is regularly discounted and can be found for $600-650.  I almost jumped on one or two at the discounted price, but I’m still in a process of moving interstate so I didn’t.

    I’m sure the Apple speaker sounds fine-good, but as a previous (technically still current) owner of the B&W M50s that were amazing, I am way more likely to trust this brand with 60+ years audio experience than I do Apple.

    A pair of Formation flex would cost $1200 AU on sale, so only about 20% more than Apple’s creepy speaker, plus if you want to you can add their sound bar or other formation products later.  The Formation range produces its own mesh system with very low latency.

    If Apple wants to push Audio quality, all power to them.  But we (I) waited WAY too long for lossless tracks in the iTunes Store, and I’ve now moved on to Hi-Res master.

    I get that I’m not the market for this device.  I’m an ageing audiophile wanker/snob.  I’ll buy $30 glasses of wine just cause I feel like it, so what’s a couple of hundred here or there?

    I love my iPhone 14 PM, but I look forward to the USB-C version so I don’t have to endure their annoying adapter  to make my portable DAC work.
    edited January 2023
  • Reply 57 of 65
    thedbathedba Posts: 762member
    s.metcalf said:
    At the end of the day it’s just fugly (IMO) and I don’t want an always listening speaker or device, even though I trust Apple far more than the likes of Google or Amazon.  The concept itself I just find creepy and unnecessary, especially considering I’ve got a phone with me at nearly all times that can be used to control a connected speaker.  I’m not sure if it has an input jack either but somehow with Apple being Apple I highly doubt it.

    Audio products from Apple will never appeal to me.  I’d much rather have a B&O or B&W wireless speaker, like something from B&W’s Formation range.
    B&W Formation = $1300
    HomePod x 4 = $1200

    Not the best example you could choose.
  • Reply 58 of 65
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    dewme said: Frankly, after reading about the changes Apple brought to the second generation HomePod I’m a bit surprised that the audio performance would be noticeably improved. The changes look to me more like cost reduction motivated changes - plus a number of improvements intended to improve the device’s compatibility with Apple’s home automation initiatives. 
    Someone in this thread posted about the Bluesound Pulse M as a possible alternative to the Gen 2 HomePod. That speaker lists at $449 and has 1 woofer, 2 tweeters and no microphones while being marketed as providing 360 degree sound. People need to get real when they complain about a supposed "downgrade" in the hardware for the new HomePod. 
    Engineering driven cost reduction strategies are very common for later revisions of successful products. This doesn’t imply a reduction or downgrade in quality or performance, but rather the product owner coming up with ways to reduce their cost to build a product, which equates to improved product margins. This new HomePod is slightly lighter, slightly smaller, has fewer microphones, has fewer tweeters, uses older WiFi technology, and sees no bump-up to newer Bluetooth compared to the original version. At the same time they added support for Matter, Thread, and additional sensors for ambient condition monitoring. These changes sure look like cost reduction moves coupled with functional improvements to the home automation capabilities, which is exactly what I said. 

    As long as the product continues to meet its key quality objectives, including audio playback and Siri performance, none of these cost reduction changes represent a downgrade. Any time a product owner can reduce, or hold the line on their costs while their component costs are increasing, and bring in a couple of new capabilities to address market shifts, all the while maintaining quality and performance, is a very big win and a pat on the back for a part of an engineering and production processes that a lot of people don’t think much about, namely those who come up with ways to improve the margins and profitability of products that are already in production and receiving periodic updates.

    Apple claims that they improved the acoustics of the second generation HomePod, which is very interesting. If this is the case, which I have no reason to doubt, the apparent cost reduction moves may indicate that the original HomePod was a bit over-engineered in some areas for its intended functionality. That was not necessarily a bad thing for customers but it may have reduced Apple’s margins on the first gen version. It likely cost Apple a little bit extra in areas that didn’t matter acoustically. Had those additional costs been redirected to improving acoustics they may have achieved the acoustic improvements they’re seeing in the 2nd gen version in the 1st gen version.

    Of course we have the unfair advantage of reflection to paint such a scenario today. But this does validate the value of retrospective strategies, like cost reduction, but only when it’s engineering driven and uncompromising on quality and performance. Of course we’ve all seen the dark side of this in the form of products that get gutted in both quality and performance to reduce or hold the line on costs. Has Apple ever done this on the hardware side? Not during the Jobs or Cook era that I can recall. The software side may be a different story, but I don’t want to muddy the discussion.

    My only real concern quality-wise on the new HomePod is whether Apple attempted to correct the component failure issues that were present, if even in small numbers, in the first gen HomePod. I have to assume they did, or at least hope they did because their support channel must have processed some of those failures and finding anecdotal evidence of these failures on social media and secondary repair channels is not terribly difficult.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 59 of 65
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    dewme said:
    My only real concern quality-wise on the new HomePod is whether Apple attempted to correct the component failure issues that were present, if even in small numbers, in the first gen HomePod. I have to assume they did, or at least hope they did because their support channel must have processed some of those failures and finding anecdotal evidence of these failures on social media and secondary repair channels is not terribly difficult.
    Aside from audio-input/lag, this is my primary concern. Apple seems to be treating sub-$1k stuff these days as nearly throw-away devices. The ‘old’ Apple I know would have eventually admitted to a problem and extended some kind of replacement program.  They are getting more and more picky about this kind of thing, and not replacing obvious manufacturing defects (ex: my AirPods Pro exhibit the ‘clicking’ problem, and didn’t pass the tests at an authorized service center, but they were manufactured a couple months after Apple’s cutoff).

    I love my AirPods Pro, and I’d like a better audio setup of some kind at home (either HomePods or AirPods Max, etc.) but Apple’s service and quality issues on these kind of items are making me wary. This isn’t the Apple anymore where my laptop would be exhibiting a hard-drive clicking ‘pre-failure’ symptom, and the Apple Store genius would walk me over to the shelf and pick out a new one, and do a swap. I don’t even expect that level of service anymore, but I do expect them to admit and honour problems resulting from some kind of known defect.
    muthuk_vanalingamwilliamlondondewme
  • Reply 60 of 65
    DAalseth said:
    So in a controlled, closed environment, a hand picked assortment of reviewers listened to a small selection music that Apple picked. 

    Not really an unbiased test. I’ll wait for a broader assortment of reviews. 

    Came here to say exactly this.

    I would absolutely expect Apple to showcase their product in the best possible light, under the best possible conditions and without any comparison to other products under the same conditions.  Unfortunately, those conditions won't apply to 99% of the conditions in which the product will actually be used.  I'm sure the product will sound amazing, it is an Apple product after all.  But a proper test?  No.
    appleinsideruser
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