lorin schultz
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Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
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.
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Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
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.
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Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
When selecting speakers for production work, one of the things the buyer has to be careful about is not being seduced by speakers that sound "pleasing" even though they're not very accurate. An accurate speaker should reveal flaws in the source that a pleasing speaker may mask.
The flip side of the equation is that, with certain source material, an accurate speaker may be less enjoyable to listen to than a pleasing one. So for home entertainment the question becomes one of priorities: would you rather have a speaker that is as accurate as possible, revealing every detail in the source, including the warts, or do you prefer something less likely to ever offend the ears?
I was initially alarmed by the high-end roll-off of the HomePod. Then I remembered the guidelines for balancing monitoring in the studio call for some high-end roll-off: 2db per octave starting at about 2,000 Hz. That would put the output of the monitors down about 6dB-ish at around 15,000 Hz. The HomePod is in that general ballpark, so the response may actually seem quite natural and pleasing, rather than "lacking highs" as a quick glance at the graph might lead one to expect.
The bottom line is that even if the HomePod is not as accurate as a production monitor chain, it might be quite enjoyable and pleasing to the ear. If it sounds good in your setting (and the test results indicate that setting DOES matter, despite Apple's claims to the contrary), and if deadly accuracy is not important to you as long as the experience is pleasant and enjoyable, then none of the pontificating by experts and debate over testing methods matters.
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Another test finds HomePod frequency response flat, but results potentially meaningless
The reason for an anechoic chamber is that room reflections cause variations in frequency response measurements that have nothing to do with the speaker.
HOWEVER, Apple says the HomePod performs automatic room analysis and acoustic correction. That means the variations caused by reflections in the room should be nullified by the HomePod's automatic correction, eliminating the need for an anechoic chamber because the variable the anechoic chamber is intended to eliminate SHOULD be eliminated by the HomePod itself.
If variations in frequency response exist as a result of the HomePod being tested in a reflective environment (i.e. not an anechoic chamber) it means the HomePod's automatic room correction is not effective (or not effective enough).
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Exhaustive acoustical analysis demonstrates HomePod is '100 percent an audiophile-grade sp...
What the fastcompany article is talking about is a different function. It's discussing the radiation pattern. I'm talking about the linearity of the frequency response. What the fastcompany test demonstrated is that the response doesn't vary from place to place within the room. It does not say that the response anywhere in the room is accurate, just that it's consistent. So if there's a 10dB dip at 100Hz and a 10dB peak at 240Hz, the same peak and dip will be evident no matter where you stand or sit.tmay said:
https://www.fastcompany.com/40530175/acoustics-tests-show-apples-homepod-audio-claims-are-legitlorin schultz said:
It's certainly possible that whatever voodoo Apple do with the HomePod confused the analyzer and caused it to report incorrect data.tmay said:
I would note that even the detractors of that specific test haven't figured out how Apple is both analyzing the room and creating the speaker outputs beam forming and levels for that.
It's also possible that the room correction feature of the HomePod just doesn't work very well.
Based on what we know about the physics of sound and what we've been able to accomplish in reproduction systems over the last century I'm inclined to suspect it's the latter, but I'm keeping an open mind.
The almost omnidirectional radiation pattern of the HomePod is definitely a good thing -- I'm not dismissing it. I'm just saying it's only one of several considerations and isn't what i was talking about.
