Article: Apple HomePod Review - An Audiophile Perspective

[twist222]

Chris,

 

Could you share some details on the room placement of the HomePod for your listening tests. Given you seemed to have some fairly uneven frequency response from the  HomePod it would be interesting to hear how it reacted to different speaker placement options. I understand it does have does have DSP capability and some people will place it were the wife gives it the highest acceptance factor but like all audiophiles we will put more effort into speaker placement before undertaking critical listening.

 

Regards

Mark

[twist222]

23 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

2. On my preamp about 24 inches from the rear wall and between my amps and speakers. 

 

If position 2 is what is shown in your main photo that might be a tough ask for an omidirectional speaker that has the tweeters located towards the bottom of the speaker. It looks like the perforated sides of the amps are less then 12 inches from the sides of the speaker. Probably less of of a question mark when you only have a forward firing tweeter but with 7 tweeters firing around 360 degrees ?

 Of course it is a;ways easy for someone to look at things after you have done the hard yards and throw up options that may have given you a better result. But equally important it may be worth people reading your review, perhaps people with less experience, understanding that your speaker placement may not have been optimised and for most speakers speaker placement can make a significant difference. Particularly if your reference is a high end system.

 

Regards

Mark

[twist222]

On 2/20/2018 at 2:14 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Mark - Can you say why it’s a tough ask for this speaker? It senses its environment and adjusts automatically. 

 

Chris,

 

Having high frequency drivers firing into a half height wall located about 8 inches from the driver would not be my preferred option for critical listening. Of course if I want make it a bit tougher I can have perforations in the walls with the diameter of the peferations within the range of wavelengths cover by the high frequency driver. I understand the 7 high frequency drivers are mounted around the botom half of the HomePod.

Yes you can rely on DSP to try and correct for speaker placement but as per my original post "I understand it does have does have DSP capability and some people will place it were the wife gives it the highest acceptance factor but like all audiophiles we will put more effort into speaker placement before undertaking critical listening."

Hence my comment on it being a "tough ask" with that speaker placement when you are undertaking critical listening for a review.

 

Regards

Mark

[twist222]

29 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi Mark - Wouldn’t the DSP just adjust for those tweeters firing at the close wall?

I don’t know what the capability of the DSP in the HomePod might be. Do you know of any DSP that can currently correct for half the HF drivers output firing into a very close wall with the over half going over the wall ? Add to that perferations in the wall and then have all the calculations performed by an A8 chip ?

Like many here I have used DSP to make final corrections but that has always been after trying my best to optimise my speaker placement first. 

‘How have you found optimising speaker placement compares with relying on DSP to try and correct for less than optimal speaker placement.

Regards

Mark

[twist222]

On 2/25/2018 at 11:22 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Given that the HomePod has microphones for listening and correcting DSP I don’t believe it matters if this thing has tweeters firing at the wall. It would be a pretty dumb design if the rear-firing tweeters continued to blast high frequencies at the wall. 

 

Hi Chris,

Looks like we are going to have to agree to disagree on this. I am used to reading HiFi reviews where the reviewer adjusts the positioning of the speaker/s to obtain the best sound and the response is not to rely on DSP to adjust for less than optimal positioning. These reviews usually even provide commentary on how the sound of the speaker changes with changes in positioning, particularly when initial placement resulted  in a less than even perceived frequency response.

 

Regards

Mark

[twist222]

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Adjusting this speaker to obtain obtain the best sound? That’s not possible because you can’t disable DSP while it’s positioned. 

Chris,

Could you explain this a little further ?

 

Regards

Mark