zroger73

Wow. Was Sony's design inspiration the $20 As-Seen-On-TV MSX 30X available at the local pharmacy?

beowulfschmidt said:

So I can sign up for DTVNow for three months, pay $105, get a 4K Apple TV, never watch anything (or even turn the receiver on), and then cancel at 2 months and 29 days?  Sounds like a no brainer.

You don't have to wait until the last day to cancel your subscription. You can cancel immediately. Your service will remain active until the end of the period for which you paid (3 months), but will not automatically renew.

I signed up on a Friday. The ATV 4K shipped Monday and arrived Wednesday at which time I also canceled my subscription.

Although I had no intention of using the service given my experience with them a year ago, I tried it long enough to see if anything changed. There's still no DVR. There's still no 5.1 audio for live TV. VOD gets interrupted with poorly-"spliced" ads of wildly varying volume through which you cannot fast forward. To me, it was and still is a junk service. The only thing good I have to say about it is they sell Apple TVs at a good price.

I've also been without cable TV for almost two years. Watching live TV again was an exercise in frustration - it seems like there are more commercials than actual content. No, thanks!

mac_128 said:

gatorguy said:

SpamSandwich said:

This might be a ridiculous question, but will a HomePod work in a location with no WiFi network and only a Bluetooth streaming source?

The HomePod does not do bluetooth streaming. 

Yup. That ensures you only have the highest quality bandwidth for streaming, and won't use it with a cheap Android phone, which could affect, and negatively impact the sound reviews. Once it's achieved its desired reputation, they might open it up to inferior Bluetooth? iFixit thinks there is a BT radio in it, but if there's no antenna it's not likely it could be added via Firmware, so probably HP 2.0.

There's no reason for iFixit or anyone else to speculate on the inclusion of Bluetooth hardware (even though it is not presently used for streaming audio) when it's clearly displayed on Apple's website.

https://www.apple.com/homepod/specs/

Well, the honeymoon is over...or at least it was interrupted. After a weekend of aural romance with my beloved HomePod, I came home from work yesterday evening and asked Siri to play a song. She played something different with an artist and title that sounded phonetically similar - well, somewhat similar. Once it became apparent that she selected the wrong tune, I requested the song again with slower, more distinct pronunciation. Instead of choosing the same or the desired song, she changed the volume from 30% to 100%!I then asked her to stop. She ignored me. I raised my voice and tried a few more times. Each time, she ignored me. Finally, I lowered the volume and stopped playback using my iPhone. Now that everything was silent, I tried asking for another song at a normal speaking volume from 8 feet away. She continued to ignore me without so much as even a status light. I finally got the status light to appear by speaking loudly only few feet away, but Siri wouldn't obey my commands. I unplugged and replugged the HomePod and operation returned to normal. Aside from this "glitch", I remained impressed that Siri can hear me when I can't even hear myself.

My first impressions after opening the box an hour ago...

1. Wow, this thing is heavy for its size.
2. Everything needs a fabric-covered power cord like this.
3. Siri's voice sounds good.
4. Whoa. The bass. It's unexpectedly DEEP for a 4" driver.
5. The highs are crisp and clear and sound good throughout the room.
6. I was hoping for a bit "warmer" sound akin to the Bose products I have. The HP seems to be lacking a bit in the mid-range department. It's heavy on bass and treble - much like people adjust equalizers in the shape of a "V" or "U" (I'm telling my age here).
7. Siri hears me even better than my Echo devices, which is impressive.