lorin schultz
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Disgruntled HomePod owners say firmware update alters sound quality
foggyhill said:
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...lorin schultz said:
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.foggyhill said:The tech in there says different buddy, look it up and stop babbling that they're "all shit"; most are, but not this one.
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.
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Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
You didn't read the comment thread before writing that, did you? If you had, you'd know that there's already been extensive discussion of why testing in an anechoic chamber is useful, why publishing tests made in any particular non-anechoic environment are completely useless to anyone but the person in that room, and why the only test that matters in a meaningful way is listening yourself wherever YOU'RE going to use it.lowededwookie said:I find the tests performed sans-anechoic chambers to be the best test because I don't know about you but I don't listen to my music in a sterile environment. I want to know what my music is going to sound like in the environment I listen to my music in so the way I see it these tests are more important than "clean" tests.
It's like saying a car drives so amazingly on a test track. The real world is where it's at. How many test tracks are designed like New Zealand roads? You want to test a car test it on NZ roads and then get back to us how awesome your car is.
It's the same with music. I had a friend who had a massive $40,000 stereo system and frankly I don't see where the money went. I couldn't tell any noticeable difference to the Aiwa separate component system I was using at the time.
You can find the details elsewhere in the thread if you're interested, but the Cliffsnotes version is that every single room will have a unique affect on the frequency response of a speaker, and even moving the speaker within the same room will yield a different response. A test conducted in my house would tell you nothing about how it will sound in your house.
Anechoic testing eliminates the room as an influencing factor so you can see what the speaker is capable of doing, and compare the results to other speakers using a level playing field. It's not supposed to be an indication of what your room will do to the sound because there's no way to test for that.
The ONLY way to evaluate how a speaker will sound in your environment is to set it up and try it.
Also, consider the possibility that your not being able to tell the difference between your Aiwa system and your friend's $40K rig may have more to do with your hearing and/or ear training than relative sound quality!
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Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
You're absolutely right about everything except the part of the anechoic chamber somehow "hurting" the measurements of the HomePod.dinoone said:One of the ways to rate a speaker is the relevance of its "positioning".
Some active speakers will give their best only in a limited number of positionings, only in particular rooms, and only with some kinds of music.
Some other active speakers would perform well in these variable situations more often than others.
Now one of the distinctive selling points of the Apple HomePod is its capacity to "hear" the surrounding space and adapt the sound so that the final result for the listener is flat (good).
That means that if you test HomePods in such an artificial setup as an anechoic chamber, when the HomePod tries to deploy its "listening" function to adapt its sound it will result as if it was positioned in the open air without any reflective surface, near or far, of any kind. But that would not reveal or test its distinctive feature. That doesn't mean that the HomePod is at fault: actually the test is at fault!
An anechoic chamber would prevent the full operation of such key feature of the HomePod: the mitigation of the "positioning" issue that taints so many traditional speakers.To test such key feature, one should test HomePods against competitors, incl. those much more expensive, in, say, 10 or 20 different rooms (sizes and furniture setups) and 10 or 20 different positioning in each room.I.m.o. the other speakers would perform well only in some rooms/setup and especially in few positionings in these rooms, while fail in most of the others. The very expensive ones might perform well more often than the relatively inexpensive ones.Instead, still i.m.o., the HomePod is expected to perform well in most of the rooms, in most of the furniture setups, and in a large variety of positioning in all of the rooms. In this way the HomePod is going to challenge those very expensive speakers that perform well in many situations.This is the kind of comparative test that we need in order to give justice to such unique HomePod feature. HomePods are going to sound very good in any circumstance, including any end user's unique room/positioning, more likely than other speakers.Therefore the real-life end-user performance of the HomePod is going to be statistically much better than that of the direct competition.
The reason the HomePod "listens" is to correct room anomalies. The anechoic chamber doesn't HAVE any anomalies so there's nothing for the HomePod to "fix." It is, like you say, the equivalent of testing the HomePod 100 feet in the air over an open field.
I suppose it's possible the HomePod NEEDS room reflections to sound good, but it would be disappointing if it does. The concept of superimposing the sound of a random room over the sound of the recording is philosophically icky. It's not a problem if listeners like that effect, but it's definitely contrary to any notion of "audiophile" performance.
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Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
I've gone over it again and again in my head (which I acknowledge is seriously flawed!) and I keep coming back to the same conclusion...ericthehalfbee said:lorin schultz said:
I'm pretty sure you meant that as a funny, but just in case you didn't, my response would be "Yeah, kinda, except not."nht said:
In the same way that a violin is essentially a mono device...lorin schultz said:
This is one of several claims Apple makes about the HomePod that make me scratch my head a little...foggyhill said:It's not mono either
Apple says the HomePod beams "direct" sound to the middle of the room and "ambient" sound to the left and right. But then Apple ALSO claims that the HomePod sounds the same no matter where you are in the room. Those are conflicting statements.
Since people are saying the sound of the HomePod does remain very consistent as one moves around the room, the logical conclusion is that there can't be much in the way of directional cues coming out of it. If there were, listeners would perceive a change in the sound as they moved around.
If that assessment is correct, it means that despite what Apple's marketing claims, it's really essentially a mono device.
The sense of "ambience" we hear from the violin is the result of reflections off the surfaces in the room. Those reflections are the sound of the room though, not the instrument per se. In the case of music reproduction, the goal is to hear the reflections from the room in which the recording was made, not the listening space.
Apple's claim of beam forming is actually a reasonable alternative to a spaced pair of speakers. What I'm having trouble with is reconciling that with Apple's other claim that the HomePod sounds the same no matter where you are in the room. Both cannot be true. Either the HomePod creates directional signals to separate difference and sum components, which would result in it sounding different in the middle of the room than it does to one side, *OR* the sound doesn't change as you move around, meaning it's essentially omnidirectional and thus does NOT provide any kind of meaningful directional cues. It can't be both.
Since those who have shared their experience with the HomePod have told us that the sound remains very consistent as they move around the listening space, the conclusion is that there isn't much of a directional component to its output, meaning it's essentially mono. One may still experience a sense of space and ambience, but it's the ambience of the room in which the HomePod is placed, not the one captured in the recording. That's contrary to the primary objective of a reproduction system, which is to as accurately as possible reproduce the sound of the recording without adding or removing anything.
That doesn't mean it can't be fun to listen to -- just look at how successful Bose was with its Direct/Reflecting designs -- it just isn't consistent with an "audiophile" approach or experience, that's all.
Consider a HomePod placed against a wall (the most likely positioning).
What if the front 3 tweeters are used to create the direct sound that covers the majority of the listening area in front of the speaker (hence why moving around the room doesn't change the sound much) and 2 tweeters on each side at the rear are using beamforming to bounce the ambient sound off the walls to the left & right for a wider soundstage?
I don't think it has to be one or the other.
Put aside *how* the sound is directed. What do you HEAR? If the answer is "It sounds the same everywhere," it must mean directional cues aren't very pronounced. If there was any appreciable distinction between left and right, it would not be possible to hear the same thing on one side of the room as the other. It doesn't matter how the HomePod is delivering the signal if the result is not apparent to the listener.
Maybe bouncing the difference signals off the walls the way you describe results in a wash of non-directional room reflections. This could create a sense of "space" but it's the sound of the listening room, not the recording. In addition to being an affront to the concept of accurate reproduction (
), it means the listener still isn't getting any directional cues, just some scattered mush. It might sound more interesting than just a direct-radiating single speaker, but it's not creating any kind of soundstage. It isn't even pseudo-stereo -- it's mono with reverb.
Another possibility is that the people who are reporting "it sounds the same everywhere in the room" are not particularly careful or critical listeners. Maybe when they say "it sounds the same" what they really mean is "I don't hear any glaringly obvious changes when I move around."
If it seems like I'm criticizing the HomePod for not being a studio-grade device, I'm not. It's a really positive step in the market segment it occupies. I just think it's important to be accurate in our descriptions and realistic in our expectations. Inaccurate and/or exaggerated claims cause subsequent buyers to be disappointed, and diminish the perceived value of products that really DO deliver high-end results. -
Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
One might argue that any speaker that depends on reflections for part of its performance is violating the most basic tenets of high-fidelity anyway, so measurements don't really matter.nht said:
[...] Any speaker design that depends on reflection for part of its performance will get crippled in a chamber.
When I've laboured to capture (or create) a carefully crafted sense of sonic "space," the idea that the playback system would deliberately impose the sound of any arbitrary listening space rather than trying to mitigate it is disappointing to say the least. That's one of the reasons Bose was so hated in the audio production community. Amar convinced an entire generation of consumers that adding the sound of their living room to the recording was somehow a good thing.
The purist will abhor devices that try to artificially "create" (as opposed to simply reproduce) any part of the sound. The pragmatist will recognize that perfect playback is impossible and choose whatever sounds closest or most enjoyable.
