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Google Nest Audio Speaker Review

Rate this smart speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 3 1.4%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 16 7.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 110 52.4%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 81 38.6%

  • Total voters
    210

amirm

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This is a review, teardown, detailed measurements, listening tests and EQ of Google Audio Nest "smart" streaming speaker. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member. List price is US $99.99 but I see it as low as US $65.
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi review.jpg

While not very unique in its looks, the Nest Audio nicely fits in the category with the obligatory gray fabric cover. Four or five LEDs shine through the fabric when on. When idle, they are orange but otherwise white. It shows the current volume among other things. Back side shows the plug for the 24 volt/125ma power supply and a hard switch to turn the microphone off:

Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi microphone power supply rev...jpg


I read that Google went all out with designing their own simulation tools and even conducting double blind listening tests in the process of developing this speaker! It shows when pry off the front cover:
Google nest audio smart speaker teardown inside drivers waveguide.jpg

Some kind of cast metal (aluminum?) contains the drivers. The tweeter has a built-in wave-guide courtesy of that shell. The 6 rubber screws/mounts provide acoustic suspension.

It was non-intuitive to use "Google Home" to configure the speaker. Configure I did using my phone and it all went nicely although I was annoyed by myriad of questions including what my address is! Firmware was updated and the speaker came alive and warned me in a nice female voice that the microphone was turned off. It did that on the next power cycle. I guess they want to avoid support calls for people who like me, thought the switch was for power and not microphone!

Speaking of power cycle, after that, I could not get Google Home to reliably connect to the device and let me change its volume. Roon player however, recognized it through Chromecast protocol and nicely let me change volume control there.

Google Nest Audio Speaker Measurements
Let's start with our standard anechoic frequency response measurements:
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi frequency response measurem...png

I could not believe my eyes when I saw that super smooth bass, midrange and lower treble! It is almost ruler flat with excellent directivity. Some kind of complex interaction occurs between drivers above that causing those jaggies. Fortunately our hearing bandwidth resolution shrinks as frequencies go higher, making us much less sensitive to those variations. To wit, here is the same graph but with 1/10 octave smoothing (instead of standard 1/20th):
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi frequency smoothed response...png

There is still a deep trough post 10 kHz in on-axis response which may be due to some diffraction.

Note that I have read there is a bass limiter that reduces bass peak as you crank it up. I meant to test the speaker at my standard 86 dBSPL but somehow it switched down to 80. You can see the slight hump around 100 Hz which is fine in my book.

Good directivity results in good early window response:
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi frequency early window resp...png


Predicted in-room response is smooth as a result with some exaggeration of treble frequencies:
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi frequency predicted in-room...png

Beamwidth is rather wide which is good for a lifestyle speaker with just front firing drivers:
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi horizontal beam width respo...png

Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi horizontal directivity meas...png


Vertical directivity likewise allows a bit of elevation change without the response varying a lot:
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi Vertical directivity measur...png


It is a pain to test these streaming speakers so I only ran one distortion test:
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi distortion THD measurement.png

This is quite good for this tiny speaker!

Finally here is the step response:
Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast wireless wifi Step Response measurement.png


Google Nest Audio Speaker Listening Tests and EQ
My first standard reference track sounded surprisingly neutral! It was as if I was listening to a small studio monitor. Further listening and cranking up the volume a bit more, resulted in perceived brightness. A single filter cured that nicely:

Google Nest Audio Smart Speaker Streaming Chromecast Equalization.png


There is naturally no low, low frequencies. That made music that relied on that sound flat. Otherwise, even techno music sounded good to excellent. Speaker does an excellent job of keeping distortion at bay even at max volume. Then again, it doesn't get very loud by "normal" speaker standard.

Conclusions
Amazing what happens when you apply proper engineering and science to even a tough problem. Small, lifestyle speaker that sells for next to nothing which teaches many speakers what good design is like! Objective performance is excellent up to a few kHz after which it gets a bit wiggly. Subject performance, sans a bit of brightness, is better than anyone deserves in this category. And let's remember this is a streaming amplifier with all the features that come with that and not just a passive box!

I am going to recommend the Google Nest Audio speaker. Someone cared that we get good sound even in this category product.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
 

Attachments

  • Google Nest Audio.zip
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It would be great if it had a subwoofer or enabled one.
 
I suppose it is mono.

If you buy two, can you assign "left and right"?
 
Wow, I wasn't expecting that level of performance for as low as 75€.
I can't think of any speakers for 150€ that would beat a stereo pair of those and also have the same connectivity and as minimalistic looks;
Maybe it's time to replace my echo dots which always drive me crazy.
 
Here is my take on the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!


For the score rational your journey starts here
Explanation for the sub score

The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration.
If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ at LF for room integration, that is usually not optional… see hints there.

The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ raw / 1/9oct smoothed: 1.7 / 3.6
With Sub raw / 1/9oct smoothed: 4.0 / 5.9


Spinorama with no EQ:
Google Nest Audio No EQ Spinorama.png

1/9Oct Smoothed
Google Nest Audio No EQ 1:9oct Spinorama.png

Directivity:

Better stay at tweeter height
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/15deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range.
Google Nest Audio 2D surface Directivity Contour Only Data.png
EQ design:

I have generated one EQ. The APO config file is attached.

Score EQ Score raw / 1/9oct smoothed: 2.4 / 4.3
with sub raw / 1/9oct smoothed: 4.7 / 6.6

Code:
Google Nest Audio APO EQ LW 96000Hz
October312024-115635

Preamp: 0.00 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 106.6 Hz Gain -1.03 dB Q 2.26
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 5326.7 Hz Gain -2.83 dB Q 1.19
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 11915.9 Hz Gain -3.31 dB Q 3.79

Google Nest Audio EQ design.png

Spinorama EQ Score
Google Nest Audio EQ Spinorama.png

Spinorama EQ Score smoothed
Google Nest Audio EQ 1:9th Smoothed Spinorama.png


Zoom PIR-LW-ON
Google Nest Audio Zoom.png


Regression - Tonal
Google Nest Audio Regression.png


Radar no EQ vs EQ score
small improvements
Google Nest Audio Radar.png








The rest of the plots is attached.
 

Attachments

  • Google Nest Audio APO EQ LW 96000Hz.txt
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  • Google Nest Audio 2D surface Directivity Contour Data.png
    Google Nest Audio 2D surface Directivity Contour Data.png
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  • Google Nest Audio 3D surface Vertical Directivity Data.png
    Google Nest Audio 3D surface Vertical Directivity Data.png
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  • Google Nest Audio 3D surface Horizontal Directivity Data.png
    Google Nest Audio 3D surface Horizontal Directivity Data.png
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  • Google Nest Audio Normalized Directivity data.png
    Google Nest Audio Normalized Directivity data.png
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  • Google Nest Audio Raw Directivity data.png
    Google Nest Audio Raw Directivity data.png
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  • Google Nest Audio Reflexion data.png
    Google Nest Audio Reflexion data.png
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  • Google Nest Audio LW data.png
    Google Nest Audio LW data.png
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Last edited:
As I posted on @napilopez's great thread, I use these as cheap Genelec 8030C alternatives on my desktop. On stands (plate holders work well) and used with Roon/DSP they sound very good. Before anyone asks, I use my monitor's soundbar (also corrected with DSP) for non-music and video-related audio due to the latency. Bass is decent enough at the volume they are usually set to as it is not being limited as much. Certainly compares to the bookshelves I used most of my life.

PXL_20241111_165920158.jpg
GNA EQ.jpg


These should go on sale during black Friday. Hopefully 2 for $100 again, which is a killer deal.
 
Last edited:
Anyone seen a passive speaker that performed like this and was in this price bracket?
I think it would make an excellent height or surround speaker in a multi channel setup while being cheap as chips.
 
This is the power of economies of scale X engineering. No boutique audio company can compete with the Google (or Apple) Empire…

This is why the audiophile hobby is dying. You don’t need to know anything to enjoy high performance audio. No complex wiring or impedance matching. Literally plug and play!

If you think about the AirPods as external hearing aid, that will have economies of scale and processing horsepower than anything else a hearing aid company can offer.
 
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