Apple HomePod (2nd Gen) (2023)

[Axo1989]

I don’t know. Apple talks about Pandora and Deezer, which makes me think they have few premier music partners.

The commands for Apple Music seems like they generally apply to 3rd parties.

Control audio with Siri on HomePod

Use Siri on HomePod to play audio, control multiple speakers, get news, and more.

support.apple.com

The lack of Spotify, Tidal, and Amazon Music makes me suspect Apple may be requiring more than technical partnership and requires certain App Store terms and rev sharing. But that’s just speculation

I think your earlier post—that both Apple and Spotify are acting in their own interests primarily—was a good assumption. I now know what Spotify would need to do to implement direct operation from HomePod using Apple APIs &etc. I haven't read Spotify's developer reources regarding integration with Connect, maybe someone is familiar with them?

Commercial arrangements aren't detailed in those SiriKit Media Intents resources (of course) but engaging in that process is described. Anyone with an existing Apple iOS App Store app is part-way there. You can see it's the bigger players that keep things to themselves, which is what usually happens. They are less inclined to trade profit margin to benefit from Apple's reach, they have their own market weight in play.

 

[Darwin]

These have a unique feature when used with apple TV: Wireless audio over airplay 2 without delay. Hence they can be used for video without lipsync problems.

I'm not sure how it's implemented, presumably by delaying video on the apple TV.

It’s not just AirPlay. Home Theater mode uses a combination of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to create an ad hoc network. This allows for louder volume, cd quality, atmos, 5.1 and 7.1.

 

[Darwin]

Yes, and when the "Reduce bass" option was enabled I thought they sounded pretty good, not too bassy. Given that they have lots of DSP internally is a pity that Apple haven't provided more control that this one option.

Unfortunately, I’m finding the current one to be too bassy also and the reduce bass option is too little bass. Both modes sound unbalanced because of this.

 

[gags]

You don’t need an AirPlay button because Apple handles streaming at OS level. See below. You can send the audio of any app to an AirPlay device, hence Spotify doesn’t have such a button as it is not required.

Simply a technical point from me here, as the good people of this site are fond of this sort of thing.

Audio from apps that register the audio session with the OS can be shared via AirPlay.

Not all do. You can’t Airplay audio from MS Teams, for instance.

 

[symphara]

Simply a technical point from me here, as the good people of this site are fond of this sort of thing.

Audio from apps that register the audio session with the OS can be shared via AirPlay.

Not all do. You can’t Airplay audio from MS Teams, for instance.

Can't you AirPlay everything from the OS, instead of an individual app? Just curious, I haven't tried and I'm lazy. I think you can do this on Android, albeit with poor quality.

In the meantime, we're enjoying our Muso Qb. It's overpriced and lacks the computational muscle of the Apple product but on the bright side it works with everything and the app is rather good.

 

[NHL99]

Auditioned in-store today.
Artificial treble, missing mids, KA-BOOM bass.
Surprised about the audio performance, might as well get a JBL or Sony boom-box.

 

[Moonhead]

If there is anything to this, I might get a Hyperboom og Boombox3 instead.

Apple HomePod (2nd generation) Review

The Apple HomePod (2nd generation) is a stylish home speaker with built-in Siri for hands-free control. It has a similar design to the original Apple HomePod (1s...

www.rtings.com

 

[truckers_atlas]

I bought a pair of HomePod 2s to use as TV speakers, and I ended up returning them. I thought the HomePod 2s would make a compelling alternative to soundbars, which I've never loved for music playback, and the new crop of powered bookshelf speakers, which in this price range are just all various flavors of ugly. I brought in the HomePods for a trial once I learned that you can use HomePods with non-Apple TV sources when you connect a gen 2 or newer Apple TV 4K to the ARC/eARC port on your TV.

Subjective impressions: The HomePods produce an impressive amount of bass for such a small speaker. The bass is boosted, but it didn't bleed into the mids. I tried the bass cut option in the Home app, and I didn't like it. The HomePod with the bass cut option sounded like an open-back headphone that has roll-off in the bass frequencies. For my preferences, I'd rather have a bit too much bass than too little bass given that the bass didn't bleed. I had no issues with the treble response.

The big issue with the HomePod was the mids. In my room, there was a mid-range recession that caused very hollow voices. This was suboptimal for watching TV. The imaging performance wasn't great during music playback, though I might be spoiled in that department by my old Infinity towers, and the Kalis at my desk. The HomePod doesn't do automatic room correction like I thought it would, which I found disappointing.

There were no issues with the ARC functionality with my 3-4 year old TCL Roku TV. ARC + AirPlay latency on my TV was imperceptible, though I didn't have the chance to hook a game console up for the stress test.

What I ended up buying as the replacement for the HomePods was the Polk Audio MagniFi Mini AX, as Brent Butterworth picked it for The Wirecutter. Voices sound far more natural on the Polk than they did on the HomePod. There are additional DSP options provided to increase vocal clarity, or to change the sound signature depending on the content being played. The bass is more natural on the Polk since you have a subwoofer. The subwoofer is very compact; I have mine tucked in between the wall and the TV console. Soundbars have come a long way for me to prefer one over a pair of separate speakers.

 

[Zensō]

My wife finally tired of having a hifi system in our front room that was difficult to use and only sounded good in one seating position. She also became tired of fussing with various apps and just wanted to stream from Apple Music. I replaced the system with a pair of HomePod 2s and domestic bliss has now been restored.

I have to say, to my ear they sound much better than expected. Do they compete with a “real” 2-channel hifi system? Not really, but they do provide surprisingly satisfying sound quality for what they are.

 

[srsxmi]

Here's what I discovered after some research and experimenting with using the 2023 HomePods, Apple Music and Roon (all of which I own and will keep). And thoughts on using them as a soundbar.

HomePods: After owning the original HomePods and really not getting much use out of them, I decided to try a pair of the 2023 version. After messing around with using them as a stereo pair for Roon, Apple Music and for Dolby Atoms speakers for my office TV, I was quite satisfied with the purchase and versatility. However, one the software stabilized, it turns out you can use them as a stereo pair as speakers for your TV or a as an audio stereo pair, but not both. If they are being used for TV speakers you cannot send audio to them over AirPlay without getting a warning message. This is a good thing from my POV as the HomePods would not stay synchronized with each other and often one would drop out. IOS 17 changed that by locking the configuration to configured exploits and not allowing any others such as using them for TV stereo speakers and audio.

Reconfiguring them is quick and easy, so you can switch back and for relatively easy.

Apple Next Steps: Apple is extending its interoperability outside of its ecosystem to Windows by adding a Windows app for Apple Music (currently as a preview) from the Microsoft Store that is actually quite useful and does have rudimentary features that provide a 10-band Equalizer with standard presets you would find on all Apple devices, e.g., Acoustic, Bass Booster/Reducer, Classical, Rock, Jazz, Deep, Electronic, Latin, Lounge and about 15-20 others; not your typical EQ, however I use Peace and APO on Win11 for equalization, rather than the presets in the Apple Music App. Hopefully, they will add the ability to develop your own EQ for their app.

The Windows Store offers different options for improving sound quality via Dolby Atmos for Headphones, DTS Headphone:X, DTS:X Ultra, as does Apple Music with Dolby Atmos. The Windows Store Apps "Dolby Access", provides Dolby Atmos for Headphones and as a separate product, Dolby Atmos for home theater. The DTS "Sound Unbound" app offers the two DTS products.

RE Soundbars: A much better Atmos soundbar is the Sennheiser AMBEO Soundbar (they only have one), on sale now for $1700, $800 off. You need to hear it to believe it. It's quite open, you can send multichannel sound to it, e.g., I use ripped SACD Multi-channel files and Jriver to stream to it, or more simply, I use the Apple Music App on Apple TV over HDMI to stream Dolby Atmos music to it. You can use the Sennheiser App to see what codec it's using, and when Apple's Spatial Music plays it indicates Dolby Atmos True HD and indicates the number of channels. BTW: Sennheiser's support is very good, they've answered interesting questions from me and are very helpful with detailed information about what the equipment can do. And yes, it does have its own room calibration and accepts audio in almost any format.