Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

This is extremely exciting, given the audio quality of the HomePod 1. I had been buying new old stock of HomePod 1s off eBay to make sure I have 6 working ones (I use 3 different stereo pairs) for the foreseeable future.

The only real downside of HomePods is that they don't function as bluetooth audio receivers (Apple proprietary AirPlay2 only) and that you need an Apple ID (as well as iCloud enabled on that Apple ID) to set them up - the creation of which these days requires a working phone number, so it's a little expensive (burner SIM) if you want to buy and use them anonymously.

People commenting about how Siri sucks I think are missing the point of these. These (presuming the sound quality is similar to the HP1) are the best consumer self-powered speakers for under $2000, full stop. The fact that they do anything else (mics, voice assistant, wifi streaming, whatever) is mostly unimportant if you understand what these things are. I'd use them even if they didn't have Wi-Fi. As far as I can tell, they (and airpods) were the latest "insanely great" product Apple made until the M1 macs dropped.

The real value of the original HomePods IMHO was the quasi-omnidirectional radiation pattern. If you have an unusual room configuration, such as an open concept dining area and kitchen and need to locate the speakers medially, they outperform anything you can buy at a reasonable price, especially with the reduce bass setting turned on. It's really quite surprising to hear. But in a typical listening room configuration I wouldn't agree that they sound better than a pair of good studio monitors.

You can get a really, _really_ good pair of professional studio monitors for 2000$. I'll confess that I've never heard the HP1 but that is a bold claim!

It seems like high end speakers expect you to set up your room to best fit the speakers while the HomePod modifies its output to suit the room.

I did qualify it with the "consumer" adjective, but I also have several pairs of expensive studio monitors and the HP1 sounds way better (though it lacks the "transparency" you need for mastering, but this is irrelevant as it doesn't even have an audio input anyway - lossy and latent AirPlay2 via Wi-Fi is the only way to get audio into them). They're somewhat of an engineering marvel.

Better than a $2k genelec?

"An intelligent assistant" is the second bullet point on the product page.

If "people commenting about how Siri sucks are missing the point" then so are Apple's copywriters.

you're aware Apple _reduced_ the number of internal speakers, right? what makes you think it will be better, aside from flashy marketing materials?

They also reduced the price by $50. In the era of inflation, I respect it.

I haven't made the assumption that more speakers = better sound.

It's possible it's experiencing the same gradual and nearly imperceptible quality decline (from insanely great to merely extremely good) that most Apple products have been undergoing the last 5-7 years, but I will reserve judgement until I have one (two, actually) in hand. Apple's brain drain and productmanagerization is sadly very real.

Fingers crossed that someone in Apple is holding it to the same standards as AudioAccessory1,1 (HomePod1), but not holding my breath as I think the guy who I believe was the main force behind it (Christopher Stringer) left Apple to create a company called Syng and a product called the Cell Alpha.

A stereo pair of Cell Alphas is $4500. A stereo pair of HomePod2s is $600.

Also, I think one of the main reasons the HP1 flopped is because it was too expensive. If this thing is 95% as good as the HP1 but stays in production because people are buying it because Apple figured out how to sell it for 15% cheaper, then it's a win.

We'll see!

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