When Apple finally confirmed HomePod, the long-rumored Siri speaker, Tim Cook said that before anything else, a home speaker had to deliver great audio.
It should be said that the Echo isn’t exactly stiff competition – it may be a smart device, but it’s a pretty crude speaker. The Sonos Play 3, however, could be considered a serious competitor. It may be not be the most impressive speaker in the Sonos line-up (and many people including folks here think it is their worst and worse than the Play:1), but for a relatively small device, it delivers impressive sound quality and volume. It also automatically adjusts its sound output to match the characteristics of the room in which it’s used, a feature shared by the HomePod.
To me, the fact that Apple put the HomePod up against the Sonos suggests confidence. A couple of writers did query whether the Sonos had been tuned to the room – which is a manual process – but What HiFi checked and confirmed that it had.
Business Insider
CNET
Still, it was tough to evaluate the HomePod on its own, and I didn’t realize just how good it sounded until I heard a nearby Sonos 3 speaker playing the same songs. The Sonos sounded OK, but the sound wasn’t nearly as rich as the HomePod [and] the Echo sounded like someone was singing through a tin can a mile away. It isn’t even in the same league as the HomePod or Sonos.
Engadget
The Verge
What HiFi?
Apple is claiming that, using the microphones, the speaker can work out the shape of the room and then beam different parts of the song to different areas. So the vocals get pumped straight out into the center of the room while the “ambient” bits get bounced off the wall. I can’t speak to the proper audiophile terms for what they’re talking about, but I can say that it sounded pretty immersive and impressive in person.
The take-out, then, seems to be that the HomePod certainly leaves the Echo for dust, and competes well with the Sonos Play 3 – though it seems fair to conclude that this is partly because Apple’s speaker throws out more bass. But it appears to deliver the kind of audio quality you’d expect of a speaker at this price level. I’m looking forward to hearing it for myself.
We listened to Superstition by Stevie Wonder and DNA by Kendrick Lamar. Both sounded good on the Sonos but appeared punchier and louder on the HomePod. As we moved around the room, the HomePod managed to project in every direction, with no discernible sweet spot.
We also heard a pair of HomePods playing a live recording of Hotel California by The Eagles. The attention to detail was striking, with different instruments sounding discretely realised. Did we feel like we were at the concert? Maybe not, but it did sound powerful.
