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Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

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Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#281

Post by lampshades »

Hippocrates wrote: post #137

I F'in LOVE the OG HomePods. The sound quality absolutely slaps for the money/size/convenience. I've got one for music in the kitchen and it fills the room like a setup 3x as large. The bass response even at low volumes is remarkable, and clarity through the whole volume range is near perfection. Many of my guests have sourced their own OGs after hearing it. I've got another hooked up to my Apple TV (mono) that repla…

My main complaint with Siri is that I can’t chain commands. If I could issue multiple commands I’d be a happy camper.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#282

Post by dkonofalski »

abirch wrote: post #266
dkonofalski wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know we're just exchanging anecdotes but I never have this issue. On top of that, I have scenes and automations dialed in so "Good Night" (and similar scenes) do full-house automations for night, morning, and all kinds of different things. I even have some set up so that, when my car pulls into the garage after work, it kicks off a few automations.

We're a google household but I'm interested in switching. Do you know if it's possible to use YouTube Music or do I need to do a line change and replace all of my Google Hubs?

I'm not sure, unfortunately. If Google offered a way to test that without paying, I'd happily do it but Apple Music serves our needs really well.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#283

Post by ubermonkey »

adamparsons wrote: post #261
ubermonkey wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an original large-size HomePod in the kitchen. Its MAIN job is music-in-the-kitchen, and it excels at that. It's secondary job is "Siri portal" for random information or timers or whatever (btw, did you know you can set multiple timers and give then names, like "set a pasta timer for 10 minutes" and then also "set a simmer timer for 30 minutes" and ask it for status on those by name?). I have an ongoing sort-…

> I think my history with software make me subconsciously better able to formulate a question for Siri in a way that produces an answer other than "I found some web results...". Hah, very much the same. My partner will always end up asking me to ask siri to ask something because my slightly differently worded requests tend to succeed more often

It's topic drift, but this is a great example of a scenario that I think is interesting: the apparent existence of a skill that you cannot articulate.

Usually, if you're better than someone else at something, there are things you KNOW you are doing differently, and you can give pointers/instruction, right? In my bar-going youth I was a better than average pool player, but I could also help YOU with YOUR pool game by showing you what I was doing, right?

But sometimes these things exist at an unconscious level. The main example of this in my life is animal interaction, which I am pretty sure is due to countless inarticulateness lessons I learned from my dad, and by working with him at his veterinary clinic in high school.

I have joked for decades that I simply inherited the Kindly Veterinarian Vibe, because while I definitely CAN tell you simple things to do if you have trouble connecting with a dog or cat, but I can't transfer everything because I don't even know everything that I'm doing. A huge chunk of it is understanding the animal body language, and it seems like lots of people just suck at that, e.g.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#284

Post by novok »

abirch wrote: post #266
dkonofalski wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know we're just exchanging anecdotes but I never have this issue. On top of that, I have scenes and automations dialed in so "Good Night" (and similar scenes) do full-house automations for night, morning, and all kinds of different things. I even have some set up so that, when my car pulls into the garage after work, it kicks off a few automations.

We're a google household but I'm interested in switching. Do you know if it's possible to use YouTube Music or do I need to do a line change and replace all of my Google Hubs?

If it's not apple music, it's a pain in the ass.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#285

Post by novok »

sneak wrote: post #235
brunoc wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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?

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#286

Post by gnicholas »

Terretta wrote: post #276
gnicholas wrote: post #142

Is this supposed to sound better than the original version? I bought two of them on sale one time (for like $250 each?) and planned to use them as a stereo pair. But when I tested them against the (very old) Bose Wave Radio that we were previously using, it wasn't clear that they were any better. They certainly weren't $500 better, so I returned them.

I know that device, I'd argue something was flawed in your test. The Bose sound isn't real, it's psychoacoustic. The difference is (ahem) audible. (Perhaps palpable, even, as HomePod OG physically moved more air.)

I actually did blind testing with my wife. Neither one of us had a strong preference, so we returned them. At the time, we couldn't use the paired HomePods as the sound output for our computer (which is plugged to our TV), which meant that we would have also had to use an iPad or iPhone instead of our computer. That inconvenience (no remote control for an iOS device!) was a strike against the HomePods.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#287

Post by savoytruffle »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #183
yowzadave wrote: post #130

HomePod is the most annoying piece of technology that I still frequently use. I was an early buyer of the first version, but this update doesn't address any of the complaints that I have about it: 1. No audio line-in! It's a $300 speaker, it sounds great...sometimes I'd like to be able to just plug something into it. If you have a record player, you have to have a separate set of speakers for it, because this thing w…

There's also no way to use Ethernet. It could be on the power brick like the iMac or Chromecast Ultra.

There's an interesting idea. But I think there's no power-brick. The Power Supply is internal.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#288

Post by [deleted] »

yowzadave wrote: post #130

HomePod is the most annoying piece of technology that I still frequently use. I was an early buyer of the first version, but this update doesn't address any of the complaints that I have about it: 1. No audio line-in! It's a $300 speaker, it sounds great...sometimes I'd like to be able to just plug something into it. If you have a record player, you have to have a separate set of speakers for it, because this thing w…

[deleted]

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#289

Post by hnkfrh »

yowzadave wrote: post #130

HomePod is the most annoying piece of technology that I still frequently use. I was an early buyer of the first version, but this update doesn't address any of the complaints that I have about it: 1. No audio line-in! It's a $300 speaker, it sounds great...sometimes I'd like to be able to just plug something into it. If you have a record player, you have to have a separate set of speakers for it, because this thing w…

The input situation is dreadful and I couldn't stand the delay with AirPlay2 either.

However, combined with an AppleTV 4K (2nd gen upwards), HomePods can be used as HDMI eARC devices. This enables playing sound without delay from any HDMI output.

In my setup I use an eARC capable HDMI splitter and a $10 Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter to create an audio device for my mac that has virtually no delay. The video output of the HDMI adapter is set to just mirror my first screen, which avoids additional video processing load.

Re: Apple HomePod 2nd Generation

#290

Post by jsjohnst »

dkonofalski wrote: post #202
jsjohnst wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buy $299 or something that has artificial stupidity like Siri? Well, in fairness, it’s designed first as a music device, the Siri seems like almost an afterthought. That said, Spend $299 on a wireless speaker where the stereo pairing often fails, has random Wi-Fi connection issues (that no other Apple device has), and is otherwise hindered by issues? Nah, fooled me on the first gen, fooled me again on the HomePod m…

I used to have Wi-Fi connection issues that magically went away when I swapped my Linksys Velop network for an eero Pro system. HomeKit works every time now, there are never any unresponsive devices, and all my HomePods work great. I'm not sure this is a HomePod issue based on how immediately the router switch helped.

It’s not an AP related issue in my case and AirPlay as well as all other Bonjour / mDNS based things work great. It’s something specifically broken with HomePod stereo pairs that’s a known issue to the team (details of which my source won’t share).
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