re: Sonos Trolling Apple Home Pod Release

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fully integrated with wink

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Does it FULLY integrate ? Or is it limited and clunky like people claim ?

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l.o.l.

wake me up when an actual audiophile reviews these.

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Now you're deflecting. The point is it sounds better than the Sonos One, stereo or not.

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what is your definition of 'fully'?

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No need to open the Sonos app for anything. You can fully control the system from wink. I know with some systems you can't create new stations, select stations that aren't in your favorites, get 2 way feedback etc. you need to open the Sonos app to do these things.

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Now you're deflecting. The point is it sounds better than the Sonos One, stereo or not.

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Do you really believe that a single speaker is going to sound better than two speakers spaced out and stereo paired? I could see that if were talking about a pair of JBL flips or something but the sonos is a fantastic speaker on its own....stereo pair two of them and tune them for that space and I can’t imagine the home pod competing. And let’s not forget that Apple is releasing a $350 “smart” speaker that you can’t even use for multi room audio

Full disclosure I typed this from my iPhone.

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wake me up when an actual audiophile reviews these.

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From /r/audiophile

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Sound

Having heard it side by side with The Sonos Play One and Google Home Max, A single HomePod is already much better than both in terms of sound quality. I would say the Play One was 80% of the way there, but it just lacked the clarity of bass and wide soundstage. The Home Max was consistent with the Sonos Play One.
The HomePod. First of all I have a 256 GB iPhone 8 and carry around a decent library of lossless stuff. I used AirPlay (which beams 16 bit 48Khz lossless) to connect to the HomePod. Quick side note: there are NO wired connections to this speaker.

I started out with “Hotel California” by The Eagles. The first impression was the neutrality of the speaker. The HomePods are tuned for an as-true-to-recording sound. When the song calls for it, there is bass. When the song turns to crystal clear highs, they are reproduced faithfully. What really was interesting is the instrument separation in the room. At about 45% volume, the HomePod FILLED the room I was in with some great sound. When you walked away from it, the sound gets quieter, but not as quickly as you’d expect. All the details were still there, just softer. there was no feeling of walking out of the sweet spot that you get with a normal speaker. And that’s when it hit me... Apple really has done it.

My next song was “Way Down We Go” by Kaleo. The bass... oh my god the bass. It’s so beautifully reproduced. Apple’s high excursion woofer is something special. It’s so weird how crisp and well controlled the bass coming out of something comparable in size to a milk jug is. And when the vocals hit a high note, it felt immersed in it. It gave me chills.

Song 3 was “Lie To Me” by Depeche Mode. What was interesting was how the spatial “play” in the intro of the song was maintained. The HomePods seem to separate sound into areas of the room. The side to side in the original stereo track seemed to take place within the room. It wasn’t a stereo reproduction with one HomePod, but the sounds all get projected to different parts of the room spatially. It’s really weird to describe, but spatially it was different than stereo, but it wasn’t squashed like mono. No matter where I walked, I never once moved out of the sweet spot. Echoes and other effects in the track were surprisingly nicely presented. I was wondering if this track would push the HomePods to the limit. Nope. They handled it with ease.

Another song I played was “Fitzpleasure” by Alt-J and the highs, vocals, and bass were fiathfully represented, without a hitch. Once again, it was really strange that the Entire room felt like a sweet spot.

“Black Mambo” by Glass Animals - I tried to find the breaking point for bass, and couildn’t. At 85% volume the HomePod was handling this track just fine. A single HomePod was putting out similar bass to what my pair of X300A’s can handle.

I threw on “Delilah” by Florence and the Machine, just to see how the vocals were handled. Reproduction of Vocals is faithful. A single HoemPod is not quite as crisp as 2 X300A’s when it comes to the highs - I expect it’s because the tweeters are attempting to project the sound, but now I’m really excited to hear how HomePods in Stereo will stack up. On the low end I know they’ll do amazingly, and by halving the tweeter load for beamforming, I expect that they’ll become crystal clear.

“Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley - guilty pleasure. It was beautifully reproduced. If a speaker cannot make me feel something listening to this song, I write it off. The HomePod did it justice. I’m still in disbelief that the HomePod is this small.

Conclusions:

Significantly better audio than Sonos Play One or Google Home Max.
Walk around in the room you never feel like you’re leaving the sweet spot. An impressive feat.
Volume is more than adequate. The speakers sound accurate, never introducing extra bass when the song didn’t call for it. 40% was fine for me. Pushing them to 80% was really fun.
Highs are great, but I expect that they’ll become crystal clear with a second HomePod.
For a speaker so TINY, these are fricking AMAZING.
The bass is really clean, and well controlled. Build is solid.

Speaker companies who have not figure out beamforming it even room correction should start worrying. A single HomePod, for the size and price, slaughters most speakers under $1000. I had a hunch that HomePods in Stereo would give my KEF X300A’s a run for their money... now it’s confirmed. Apple briefly demoed stereo for me, and I was quite floored. When Stereo is enabled via software update, a pair of HomePods may be the best under $1000 setup you can get.
If Apple ever releases a larger version of the HomePod I am buying it. As it stands, while it’s uncanny how small the HomePod is, the sound they put out is well above their size and weight class. I really want to see what a larger HomePod (plus?) would do with a stacked 14 tweeter array and a larger woofer.

Measurements will be posted Feb 10 or 11, as I’ll have my own HomePods to play with, and test against the the X300A in my apartment.

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LMFAO

because an anon redditor on r/audiophile proves your point

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submitted 2 hours ago by WinterCharm

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lets 'ask WINTER aka appleBot anything shall we?

LINK

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What are you?


[–]WinterCharm:D[S] 3 points 5 months ago

I'm a half Asian half British dude. :)

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I'd believe most peoples words on reddit over bullshite article writers. CAD just isnt hearing what he wants to hear

I am waiting for a non-apple sponsored review to come out. Apple has invested a ton into the music space, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was a stellar product. Personally, two Sonos 1s is more appealing than one HomePod

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I am waiting for a non-apple sponsored review to come out. Apple has invested a ton into the music space, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was a stellar product. Personally, two Sonos 1s is more appealing than one HomePod

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did you read his AMA??

he's a complete apple homer. shocking he gushes over a new apple widget. why else would they invite him for a sneak peak?

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A single HomePod is better than multiple Sonos One speakers in all but the largest and tallest of rooms.

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bullshite

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Its sound separation is incredible from a speaker of that size, and reminds me more of the power found in the Sonos Play:5 than any of Sonos's other offerings.

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Probably a more fair comparison. After I’m able to hear one of these speakers I will admit if I’m wrong but I refuse to believe a small single speaker will sound better than a comparable pair set up in stereo mode. Regardless of how many tweeters it has.

Ordered the Sonos One two-pack earlier. I'm glad I don't have them ole special ears. Sonos sounds just fine.