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Comment by fermienrico | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand music quality arguments with these small systems - Sonos/Homepod/etc.

Get proper speakers - 8.5" drivers ($600) and a decent amplifier (Yamaha $250). This stereo will out compete any of these intelligent speakers.

Whats missing (except Alexa) is an auxiliary audio out that can be hooked up to existing system like the one I mentioned above. Google Home doesn't have it but it works with Chromcast add on. I personally use apple TV as my Airplay hub. So, about all that's missing is a microphone.

I simply do not understand - perhaps I am a minority - the argument and discussion around sound quality. There is no replacement in my opinion to a standard large diameter floor standing speaker. If I want to listen to music, I don't want any compromise - I want to be able to play it on my main stereo. Some people just don't care and they'll put music on their phone or some random bluetooth doodad. Why?

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So, a $850 system will outperform a $350 system in terms of sound? I can't say I'm surprised.

If you need a $850 setup to get what you consider to be "good sound", you're not the audience for these kinds of speakers.

And yes, this is from someone who also has a Yamaha receiver and good speakers.

Who's spending $350 on an Apple speaker and has no other Apple products? How would you even get set up with Apple Music without at least an iPhone or an iPad, both of which get you into the territory of traditional entertainment center expenditures?

Errr, I already had the other Apple product(s), as do millions of people, and owning those was completely tangential to my "traditional entertainment center expenditure"?

So, you're the target market, and that market is "people who care about music enough to spend $350 on an Apple product to play it, but not enough to spend $850 on decent speakers, but still insist it's important enough that they want to spend more than $100 for the Amazon product that does the same thing only with the rest of the non-music features."

Sounds like a genre-defining winner to me.

A fairly good sounding room-based speaker with voice controls that fits nicely into your existing ecosystem. Honestly, I wish my Yamaha could do that.

I use an Echo. I don't care a great deal about music quality. Inevitably the music being played is selected by my young children, or is background music when people are over or I'm cooking/cleaning. Convenience (I can request music by voice mid-task) and size (Echo sits in the corner out of the way) trump quality for me. I have large speakers and an amp in each of two living rooms, but they have sat there unused for years.

These products are about ease of use and convenience, not absolute performance. My father bought my grandmother a bookshelf audio system, and the only thing she actually uses is the TV to play music because it’s easy and familiar, though the quality is crap.

I just wish they wouldn't call them audiophile. Words are important.

This crap is basically almost the complete opposite of audiophile, convenience and physical size obviously put so far above sound quality.

I suspect that at least some audiophiles are going to judge the HomePod in the context it’s presented, understand the constraints and limitations of any speaker system so small. I’m not going to compare what’s essentially a bookshelf speaker against a pair of floor-standing speakers or a 5.1 system (or in-ear monitors, for that matter): they’re going to compare it with something of a similar class. That’s part of what being an audiophile (or someone who dives into any domain) is: understanding something in the proper context. I don’t know how it compares with other similar speakers, so I’m not going to say it’s audiophile-quality or not, but that’s beside the point: judge it for what it is, not what it isn’t.

> judge it for what it is, not what it isn’t

It's 7 minuscule speakers crammed into a shiny box within a 6" space.

Comparing it in a blind test to a single bookshelf speaker with a small amp, I guarantee such a $50-$100 setup would sound better.

I probably wouldn't call myself an audiophile because I've seen how serious some people can be about audio, but I am an enthusiast who is interested in getting the best sound quality for my buck. I wouldn't put this product in any room of my house, and for $350 it's ridiculous.

I absolutely agree, and the fact that Apple TV works in such a configuration, but apparently is unable to pair permanently with the HomePod speaks to Apple's complete disorganization around this.

HomePod does persist Airplay connection with AppleTV as long as you don't Airplay directly to HomePod from a separate source. You can still Airplay to AppleTV that is Airplay'ing to HomePod but that will turn on your TV. It's not perfect but I have enjoyed using HomePod as my primary AppleTV speaker since launch and hope they introduce multiple Airplay streams with Airplay2 release.

That's good to hear. One of the reviews I saw said that it did not maintain that connection; maybe that was a bug or I misunderstood.

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