AnotherBrick

mistergsf said:

AnotherBrick said:

There is one sentence that will prevent me from buying a HomePod: “Apple's HomePod is a fantastic home speaker. It connects solely over Wi-Fi and streams Apple Music natively, but nothing else.”

A device which claims to be an audiophile grade speaker that only plays mp3 quality music and cannot accept other sources unless that source has AirPlay, which probably eliminates turntables for people who are vinyl purists, absolutely killed my interest in the device. I wanted something that could play the highest quality bit rate for digital and could play my high end vinyl collection as well.

The word "audiophile" gets thrown around a lot. So does the word "high end". That said, I wouldn't want to play my high end anything on a WiFi speaker. Don't get me wrong. I like my HomePods; I have two. They're just not my main speakers of choice for listening to my vinyl or even DSD audio files. Do you really want a HomePod that can accept a turntable? And what is a "high end vinyl collection"? Pressings from remastered tapes? 120G vinyl? I've never heard anyone describe their records as high end vinyl.

I have 1/2 speed mastered vinyl records dating back to 1980. I bought my first CD player in 1981. Between the 2 the vinyl sounded better, although it was difficult to compare at first because the selection of CD’s in Nebraska in1981 wasn’t very large. 

I still call premium vinyl records 1/2 speed mastered although Audiophile Vinyl is the common term. And just because someone slapped that label on a record doesn’t mean that it actually was properly engineered /balanced or that the master discs were still in good shape when the record you buy was stamped. 

Most of of the time the music I listen to is in a digital lossless formats. I can store them on my phone or iPad. But I do listen to my preferred system for a few hours each week and more on the weekend, and that is not streaming from either my digital  library or from a online service. It’s a personal preference. The sound that comes out of a speaker can never be better than the source used to generate the sound. And that includes every component: the amplifier, the CD player or turntable, and most certainly the speakers. But if your record or file was poorly engineered or physically made then having an expensive system just means you can accurately hear the bad sound that wasn’t part of the performance. 

I don't expect most people to care. Music is pleasing background sound or something to dance to but not something that is that important to 999 out of 1000 people. But Apple pitched this product NOT as a smart speaker competitor to Alexa but as a premium sound experience. And most of the deficiencies with it are not hardware related, but a management decision to restrict formats and access. 

Apple isn't alone in doing this. Sony tried coming up with a proprietary digital format for their mp3 Walkman in the early 2000’s. Sonos will play various music formats from an iMac or MacBook computer but won’t play the computers sound, including movies or internet browsing or gaming sound. 

When Apple first announced the HomePod their description of a premium speaker system made it sound like a Sonos competitor. I hoped it would allow a wireless way of playing music and doing surround sound and accessing all of my music and sounds, both digital and physical. . 

seanismorris said:

AnotherBrick said:

There is one sentence that will prevent me from buying a HomePod: “Apple's HomePod is a fantastic home speaker. It connects solely over Wi-Fi and streams Apple Music natively, but nothing else.”

A device which claims to be an audiophile grade speaker that only plays mp3 quality music and cannot accept other sources unless that source has AirPlay, which probably eliminates turntables for people who are vinyl purists, absolutely killed my interest in the device. I wanted something that could play the highest quality bit rate for digital and could play my high end vinyl collection as well.

Below is Apple’s response to these complaints (via cultofmac).  I wouldn’t know not being an audiophile, but it sounds like you’re fighting Father Time in a digital world.  Nothing wrong with that, but it sounds like you won’t be interested in most new products...

“Mastered for iTunes is all about the quality of the source,” Apple says. “24-bit audio has a remarkably wide dynamic range which is preserved during encoding to AAC and these files are virtually indistinguishable from the original. Some of the best audio engineers in the business have a hard time telling them apart even on high-end audio equipment. Experts may be able to tell you that they are different in some subtle ways, but they can’t necessarily tell you which one they like better. This isn’t about AAC vs. CD or vinyl. It’s about creating the best possible master for the unique characteristics of each medium.”

Apple talks up its “powerful and practical software tools” designed for pro musicians.

“We want the music to sound as close as possible to the way it did in the studio or in the concert hall, preserving your vision and intention,” Apple says. “We want artists and sound engineers to be thoroughly satisfied and proud of the results they can now achieve in our format. So we have worked very hard to provide both the monitoring and quality assessment tools, plus an end-to-end mastering and encoding process that delivers the best possible audio for today’s digital world.”

AAC is a lossy format. Despite what the article says, it is NOT a 24 bit format either. Lossy means you are losing some of the audio quality when compared to the same music in a lossless file format, even if both formats are digital.  Apple shouldn't charge high end prices for mid level performance equipment, especially ones that require you to jump through hoops to use your existing but high quality music. The connection to a HomePod is wireless ethernet, in all but the poorest of wireless systems you should be able to stream ALAC or FLAC files versions which would mean at least CD quality bitrate (16 bit) lossless versions of songs and could have a frequency  and data rate up to 24 bit with a higher frequency response. ALAC IS an Apple format, and it has been around for years, so Apple already has a format they could use. The physical means of getting the music TO the  HomePod, wifi, isn't the problem. It's the restrictions of what you can (easily) stream and the loss of fidelity inherent in an AAC format. Bluetooth would struggle and probably drop out trying to stream ALAC at least for now, but wifi has no problem unless you are an extremely very heavy wifi streaming user. 300 mb is many times more than enough bandwidth for the highest digital music format and most routers are at least that, and 1 gb routers are pretty common now as well.

You will hear people talk fondly of tube based systems sounding better (usually described as 'warmer') than a discrete based amplifier system. I won't argue with them, but I know I cannot hear the difference. I can hear the difference in AAC and either ALAC or FLAC. If you can't then don't buy a super high end system, you won't notice the improvement. But that doesn't mean that the improvement isn't there. But to me, even if it's all in my mind (another thing people will say when you bring up quality) and not reality, a high quality vinyl disc sounds better than the same album on a CD, and much much better than any streaming service, whether its Pandora, Spotify or Apple Music. I have heard of, but never personally listened to, Tidal music which is supposed to be (if you pay for the upper tier of their service) CD quality streaming music. I don't know if you can get Tidal on an iPhone or iPad but I know I can get it on my iMac, so I could stream it to an HomePod, but with the other physical and software limitations, which I think were artificial and not inherent in what Apple said they were trying to do, I'm not interested in going to the trouble.

Short version, it's not the price that is stopping me. Its the lack of versatility and limits that the device itself imposes on what it can accept. Sounding better than Alexa or Google Home is not hard. Even still, there are lots of people who say that either those speakers are good enough, or that they can't hear the difference between them and the HomePod. HomePod could have been a real, honest to goodness audiophile speaker. The hardware is 90% or more there. Offer a HomePod2 that will accept music from any wifi source, and charge $500 for each speaker. As I said, there isn't a lot you would need to change, hardware wise or system delivery wise with the current HomePod. Audiophiles would buy it. Non Audiophiles can't get beyond the current price anyway, or honestly don't hear the difference and shouldn't waste their money.

Over the last few Mac OS updates I have gotten a message about my Canon printer and the fact that it has a 32 bit driver. No link, no name about what you should download, just that the driver will soon cease to work. 

Go to Canon website, find the update drivers, then put in the printer model. It’s a printer/scanner, about 4 years old.  The model is a MG 7520, so select Mac drivers and look for a newer one. Then look at the one already installed. Other than a few digit difference after the decimal point, it’s the same number. Download and install anyway. Next point upgrade for the iMac get the same notification that the driver soon won’t work. 

Do do an online search to see if it’s KNOWN that this printer will not be supported on the new OS. The 7520 series is supposed to be Mojave compatible, per Canons website. 

Top of the line iPhones are expensive, do not come with physical programs or features that you can't get on an Android, and have spent 3 or 4 years pushing AR without a lot of success. They were first with Touch and Face ID, but that's a security feature (both good ones) that don't really get buyers excited. I don't know what the feature is, but they need to come out with something that other phones don't already have, and probably at a sub $1000 price.