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The HomePod is wired, not battery-powered. I don't think you've looked at it very closely. Having purchased the HomePod, it's noticeably better than the booksh

The HomePod is wired, not battery-powered. I don't think you've looked at it very closely. Having purchased the HomePod, it's noticeably better than the bookshelf speakers I own (AudioEngine A2+ and Odyssey LES). It also sounds as good as my Vizio soundbar/subwoofer combo, though I've not compared it at high volume or with movies. It is, not unexpectedly, vastly better than my battery-powered BeoPlay P2 Bluetooth speaker. I'm very impressed.

tomxor 9y ago
Battery powered or not it will be low powered... there is no class-A amp in that little thing unless it's being cooled by liquid nitrogen, it will be Class-D. I've no doubt many people will be impressed, it's all relative. But if you actually care about audio you could have bought a lot more for you $300 or whatever it is, but then people don't buy these types of things for audio, they buy them for integration. The fact that you are comparing it to a "soundbar" shows that you probably haven't heard much better. (i'm not trying to be nasty, it's just true of most consumers, we are not living in the HiFi age anymore).
- lobster_johnson 9y ago
  What $349 speaker will beat the HomePod and provide the same features? Omnidirectionality and built-in AirPlay have to be considered. The HomePod is a single speaker that can fill a room with no additional amp, receiver or subwoofer. Comparing the HomePod to a class A amplifier is nonsensical. Nobody is pretending it's competing with that segment.
  - tomxor 9y ago
    > What $349 speaker will beat the HomePod and provide the same features? None, I'm not considering those features, only audio quality. > Comparing the HomePod to a class A amplifier is nonsensical. Nobody is pretending it's competing with that segment. The author is implicitly: > The HomePod is 100% an Audiophile grade Speaker Your absolutely right, it is nonsensical, it's _physically_ in a different class all together. The author has gotten out his spectrum analyser or whatever and measured a relatively flat frequency response of a sine-wave and concludes... this is good audio: Except, "No" says every amplifier and speaker designer ever.
    - macintux 9y ago
      I’m sure you’ll offer a list of the thousands of amplifier and speaker designers who feel it’s not good audio?
      - tomxor 9y ago
        Why thank you mr rhetorical... If you are interested go have a look for yourself i'm not a walking audio system design book. In fact, I challenge you to find the inverse instead - empirical proof that the amp specs the author is measuring actually correlate to better sound quality.
        macintux 9y ago
        I’m satisfied that a significant number of audiophiles have said that they feel the HomePod produces good audio. The numbers seem to back that up.
        tomxor 9y ago
        We live in an age of lo-fi hi-bling, high consumer numbers from people who consider themselves experts in audio quality because they have a soundbar and a subwoofer don't really count for much. I don't expect you to be convinced by me, but maybe one day you will experience some nice audio on a good system and then have a personal baseline to understand why calling something this small "audiophile quality" seems silly.
        macintux 9y ago
        To me, the key is that Apple has created something with astounding sound quality for its size. And flexibility. And price point. If they scale it up it could very well be truly spectacular.
    - dkonofalski 9y ago
      It is an audiophile grade speaker. For the class of device it is, it's the highest quality, best sounding speaker for the price. If you want a wireless speaker (whatever your reasons for wanting it), the HomePod is the best one, hands down.

tomxor 9y ago

Battery powered or not it will be low powered... there is no class-A amp in that little thing unless it's being cooled by liquid nitrogen, it will be Class-D. I've no doubt many people will be impressed, it's all relative. But if you actually care about audio you could have bought a lot more for you $300 or whatever it is, but then people don't buy these types of things for audio, they buy them for integration. The fact that you are comparing it to a "soundbar" shows that you probably haven't heard much better. (i'm not trying to be nasty, it's just true of most consumers, we are not living in the HiFi age anymore).

lobster_johnson 9y ago
What $349 speaker will beat the HomePod and provide the same features? Omnidirectionality and built-in AirPlay have to be considered. The HomePod is a single speaker that can fill a room with no additional amp, receiver or subwoofer. Comparing the HomePod to a class A amplifier is nonsensical. Nobody is pretending it's competing with that segment.
- tomxor 9y ago
  > What $349 speaker will beat the HomePod and provide the same features? None, I'm not considering those features, only audio quality. > Comparing the HomePod to a class A amplifier is nonsensical. Nobody is pretending it's competing with that segment. The author is implicitly: > The HomePod is 100% an Audiophile grade Speaker Your absolutely right, it is nonsensical, it's _physically_ in a different class all together. The author has gotten out his spectrum analyser or whatever and measured a relatively flat frequency response of a sine-wave and concludes... this is good audio: Except, "No" says every amplifier and speaker designer ever.
  - macintux 9y ago
    I’m sure you’ll offer a list of the thousands of amplifier and speaker designers who feel it’s not good audio?
    - tomxor 9y ago
      Why thank you mr rhetorical... If you are interested go have a look for yourself i'm not a walking audio system design book. In fact, I challenge you to find the inverse instead - empirical proof that the amp specs the author is measuring actually correlate to better sound quality.
      - macintux 9y ago
        I’m satisfied that a significant number of audiophiles have said that they feel the HomePod produces good audio. The numbers seem to back that up.
        tomxor 9y ago
        We live in an age of lo-fi hi-bling, high consumer numbers from people who consider themselves experts in audio quality because they have a soundbar and a subwoofer don't really count for much. I don't expect you to be convinced by me, but maybe one day you will experience some nice audio on a good system and then have a personal baseline to understand why calling something this small "audiophile quality" seems silly.
        macintux 9y ago
        To me, the key is that Apple has created something with astounding sound quality for its size. And flexibility. And price point. If they scale it up it could very well be truly spectacular.
  - dkonofalski 9y ago
    It is an audiophile grade speaker. For the class of device it is, it's the highest quality, best sounding speaker for the price. If you want a wireless speaker (whatever your reasons for wanting it), the HomePod is the best one, hands down.