I just laughed so hard at your brilliant description of me on a Sunday afternoon, when my wife has actually asked me to play some vinyl and after I ask her, "what are you in the mood for" and she says "whatever you pick will be fine" and then I start looking through about 5,000 albums, trying to choose a few that will work (read that: "laborious almost religious procedure") and I come back 20 minutes later and she is asleep in her chair!
take a look at the insides of these things - there is a long throw "woofer" and several good tweeters it will sound better than you think, partly due to some psychoacoustic tricks (but it they will not replace your $50,000 stereo system)
Have you heard it? Of course you haven’t. I have. It sounds incredible. For me, I’m eyeing for a possible unit in my bedroom and it would play Apple Music from my collection. Siri isn’t the best, that’s no secret but this thing has unbelievable sound for what it is. Instead of taking talking trash about something you know ZERO about have even less experience with, you should actually hear it when you have a chance.
I've been able to throw my apple music around through Airport Express devices for almost 15 years now, and with supreme sound though actual HiFi speakers. Where the F have you been? The promise of AI-enhanced delivery devices is in the AI delivery, not the sound quality. You simply don't understand, but everyone in the Valley understands that Apple is hopelessly behind on AI, has missed its window on this device and is falling behind in general. We'll see if they can do something useful with their hoard of billions, beyond blowing it on that massive and ridiculous new building they now have to take care of.
Clearly I’ve been tuning out your mindless posts, that’s where I’ve been. Nothing in your post indicates the target of your rage so maybe you should read your own posts before spouting off. In addition to that, had you actually ready my post you’d have seen my opinion of Siri. Trust me when I tell you I FULLY understand. It’s clear by your post YOU dont understand. And as I posted (you know in that post you ignored in an effort to talk trash) I have both seen and heard the device. The one you’re already writing off. And it’s pretty amazing. I can attest to the sound quality and it’s astoynding given the size of the device. Apple is positioning it as a music speaker first with voice commands. Your move....
I’ve been waiting for this to come out. I’ll probably get one for the living room...where the wife wants access to the digital music library, and voice interaction, but doesn’t want another system taking up room. It would be interesting to compare it to the Riva systems that Fremer reviewed back in December as far as sound.
Note that one of the people on Apple's design team is legendary Oscar-winning audio expert Tomlinson Holman, who knows a thing or two about sound.
It wasn’t the best written remark. Sometimes, I post from work and don’t have time to read what I wrote before hitting the post button and this forum has strict editing rules. Anyway, what I meant was that if you listen to relatively unknown artists that have names that aren’t pronounced easily in the English language, you may have issues getting Siri to understand. Siri does recognize popular artists like Pavoratti, though. My understanding is that you can change the default language for Siri, but that isn’t ideal for music.
From what I have read, Siri has been trained to pronounce artist names in Apple Music. YMMV on obscure artists in your iTunes library.
I'm not sure what valley the guy in Boston lives in (last I checked, Jamaica Plain was a... uh plain), but the immediate promise of AI-enhanced delivery devices is in the AI delivery, not the sound quality. AI can certainly be used to improve SQ.
I must seem really dense asking all these questions, but I'm genuinely interested. How can AI improve SQ?
you could certainly use an AI system to listen to various EQ or wall interactions, and tune a DSP setup
If people care about privacy, Apple is the only "smart speaker" that will work for them. I have Dots, but I would prefer that Amazon followed Apple's policies in this area. Companies like Google and Amazon say they need the information to give you a better experience. How much better is open to debate, but Google's assistant can answer random queries with more accuracy than Apple or Amazon and it is no secret they gather the most information. I went ahead and ordered a HomePod. I don't think they are for everyone, but I subscribe to Apple Music (Siri control on many devices is the key reason), I have three Airplay 2 devices already (AppleTVs), and I want to be able to control them by voice and have the option of Airplaying to it (and use it in the multiroom Airplay situation). I don't plan on replacing my main systems with it. It is to get decent sound from my subscription music of choice when I don't feel like firing up the main system or don't have time to. I do plan on using it to send commands to other Airplay 2 devices so that I can listen on my main system without needing to always get my phone out (when that feature is enabled down the road). I updated my Apple TVs to the latest beta and also installed it on my phone. The one main thing people have complained about with Airplay has now been addressed Airplay 2. They have added multi-room audio control from iOS. You can now send the same stream all over the house or even pick different audio streams from iOS to send to multiple rooms. The HomePod will fit right into that system when I want to listen to the Overcast app or some other audio app that isn't supported directly on the HomePod. I am just hoping some of my components with Airplay built in also get updates. The only real competition to the HomePod is the Google Max right now. However, its footprint makes it too big for the area I would want to use it. Also, some reviewers say the HomePod sounded better in Apple's controlled test (though, I would take those initial reviews with a grain of salt). I am looking forward to some of the real life reviews, though.
If it's not an Apple Music track or an iTunes purchase, you need to enable iCloud Music Library for HomePod to play it. No thanks. How HomePod works with Apple Music, iTunes Match, iCloud Music Library, AirPlay, and FLAC files
You can still use Airplay to the HomePod from any source. For voice control, it needs the music on the cloud. I think they could add iTunes Home Sharing down the road, but they would need some way to get at least the iTunes metadata to the cloud, so that the HomePod knows it exists and can pull music out on command. The Echo (which I believe has been around for about 3 years) doesn't have access to anything that I have on my computer/NAS, either. It also has to read from the cloud. I think there may be a third party app to get around that issue on the Echo, but I paid them $25 a year to match my files (which, they are reportedly dropping the matching program for new users).
To add to that irony, there's a restaurant around here called Ruby Tuesday's. Bet that confuses Siri on the home pod.
