HomePod - First Impressions

[jcd11235 0]

The Apple HomePod is the first device I've ever pre-ordered. It promises to address an audio problem of which I've been painfully aware for 22.5 years: Properties of the listening room play a huge role in sound quality, and quickly become the limiting factor of any sound quality improvement efforts.

Many years ago, in my younger days as a soldier, I assembled what was, at least in my small rectangular barracks room, a fantastic sounding home audio system costing several thousand dollars. That system had early implementations of digital signal processing and room acoustics correction, but both were very limited, and they didn't work in conjunction with each other. (That was before I realized my money would be better spent on altitude.) After leaving the military, my new listening area was larger and much less symmetric, both in shape and treatment. There, the sound was more meh than wow. High quality equipment couldn't overcome poor room acoustics.

Piece by piece, I sold off that audio system. Over the intervening years, I found my audiophile urges to be better satisfied with earphones and headphones than with loudspeakers. Still, I've always kept a pair of decent loudspeakers around to fill the room with sound when I don't want to wear headphones. But I've never found a pair of speakers that sounded as good or as satisfying as what I had in my small barracks room.

Fast forward 22 years, when Apple announced a spatially aware smart speaker optimized for sound quality, I knew I had to try one. In retrospect, addressing the room acoustics problem with machine learning seems painfully obvious.

I was out of town when my pre-ordered HomePod was delivered. Five days after delivery, I placed it on a countertop between my kitchen and family room, near the outer corner of a wall, a placement I would not typically consider for a speaker intended to provide good sound quality.

The setup was as easy as claimed. I held my iPhone SE next to the HomePod and followed the setup instructions on my phone. I declined the Apple Music trial subscription and restricted the HomePod's ability to send and receive messages. My interest in the HomePod is exclusive to playing music from my own library.

I pace a lot. The sound from the HomePod is, as advertised, relatively stable as the listener moves through the room into which the speaker is playing.

Overall, the sound quality is excellent, at least at the price point. Clarity is quite good, and separation is fantastic. Frequency response is also much better than expected. At volumes at which I'm not likely to be evicted, I don't miss my powered subwoofer. The bass sounds quite natural, as do the mids and highs. I haven't noticed any sibilance or bass distortion.

Imaging leaves a lot to be desired, which was disappointing, given the 7.1 discrete channels available. I expect a second HomePod, when AirPlay2 is released, will improve imaging substantially. The superb separation, combined with the comparatively poor (current) imaging reminds me very much of planar magnetic driver headphones.

The sound from the HomePod is not left vs. right stereo most are accustomed to, but also it has little resemblance to monaural sound. What the soundstage lacks in width it more than makes up for in depth. Actual monaural recordings, such as Miles Davis' Kind of Blue or Ray Charles' The Genius After Hours have never sounded as good to my ears through a traditional set of stereo speakers, including great headphones (e.g., Sennheiser HD650) as through the HomePod.

Songs that rely heavily on discrete stereo channels, such as Pink Floyd's On the Run or any of the binaural recordings on Amber Rubarth's Sessions From the 17th Ward do not sound flat or one-dimensional, but they also don't sound as good through the HomePod as they do through a pair of really great headphones. Likewise, the same songs played through traditional loudspeakers (of good quality) would still sound better, provided the listener sits in or near the sweet spot.

Live music also sounds particularly good through the HomePod. I've long considered the December 31, 1984 live performance of Night Life by B.B. King and Willie Nelson to be a phenomenal performance by both artists, captured with a phenomenally bad recording. That same recording sounds eerily realistic through the HomePod, reaping the benefits of some serious machine learning voodoo. (I've not found any other albums showing such a dramatic benefit, so it's probably outlier behavior, or a result of the performance being originally recorded from live television.) Other live performances by artists including Diana Krall, Bob Marley, The Eagles, and Wynton Marsalis also sound excellent, with the listening experience losing nothing compared to playback over more traditional audio systems (outside of the sweet spot).

The HomePod is my first AirPlay device. In general, I'm finding AirPlay to be more reliable than Bluetooth for music playback, with fewer dropouts and more straightforward switching between source devices. But I've been using AirPlay for only a few days, while I've used Bluetooth for audio for a few years.

Quiet speech has been accurately detected by Siri in all but one instance. "Hey Siri, stop news." was interpreted as "Hey Siri [restart] news." Playback controls and weather forecast inquiries have worked flawlessly, without shouting or repeating, no matter the music volume. However, I mostly control volume and playback with the player app, iTunes or Music, depending on whether I'm using my laptop or phone, as I find it more convenient than voice control.

The HomePod isn't the end all, be all of home audio. But it does offer excellent audio without reliance on a sweet spot, in a small plug and play package, working well even in rooms with substandard acoustic properties. It's not going to replace a high end audio system in an acoustically optimized listen space, but it might just provide the highest quality audio most people have experienced in their kitchen. For me, it's a noticeable improvement in my headphone-free sound quality and convenience at a slightly lower price than the speakers it's replacing.

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[akarunway 1]

"HomePod's ability to send and receive messages." And I have a bridge for sale

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[jcd11235 0]

akarunway

"HomePod's ability to send and receive messages." And I have a bridge for sale

Yes, that ability can be turned off. Why would you believe otherwise?

The functionality that allows (or not, in my case) messaging is distinct from Siri listening for and responding to "Hey Siri, …" voice commands. Turning of the ability to send and receive messages means no text message is sent if I say, "Hey Siri, text Bob 'It's you're turn to buy beer.'"

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[piisfish 140]

It seems that the first impressions were done on wood furniture

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM