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HomePods weren’t overpriced. The shoddiest bookshelf speakers, an wimpy amp, and a BT Receiver or an AirPort Express cost a lot more.

The problem was Apple’s marketing. Should have sold it in pairs as an AppleTV accessory, rather than as single speakers. Anyone who cares about sound wants stereo, and the ability to use two as stereo pair and in conjunction with an AppleTV was utterly under communicated.

Kind of pointless article. The question isn’t if these headphones can do the job, at their price, they better can.

The question is, how do they rank vs. top performing headphones, and, no, e.g. BOSE isn’t among them.

The question is: how much fidelity is lost to wireless convenience, active noise cancellation, etc. and how much realism is gained by head tracking.

What are the pros, cons, trade-offs, the unique features, the me-too features, etc.

Listening to a single set of headphones in isolation is pretty much meaningless. Maybe you should leave tests like these to the folks who have tested audio gear for years and know what they are doing…

People who mock the HomePod obviously never had a pair.

I was very skeptical at first, but needed something without lots of fuss for cabling to use with a projector and an AppleTV; then saw some test measurements and decided to take the plunge and buy a pair.
Never looked back or regretted it: no speaker that size I know has the frequency range, and in particular the kind of punchy, undistorted low end.
In terms of acoustic performance given their size, they are masterpieces.

The HomePod minis are OK for the toilet, bathroom or kitchen, a pair of the full-sized HomePods replace a much more expensive stereo system in a moderately large living or bed room.

I hope they’re going to make an updated version without skimping on the quality of the originals.

ionicle said:

Would have made more sense to open this in the UK

Certainly NOT. Not ever, and particularly not after Brexit.

There’s already lots of chip design expertise in and around Munich, which makes hiring/poaching a lot easier, too.

e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infineon_Technologies

And also: do we really need to mention Automotive know-how in southern Germany? AppleCar anyone?

Just damn obnoxious: it solves NO problem, but it PREVENTS some problem from being solved.
You can’t check for a range of serial numbers with premature battery failures, etc. anymore: it obscures patterns in hardware problems for anyone but Apple which will hardly voluntarily share them 😡🤬