One of the most reputable tech review sites isn’t that impressed with the HomePod’s superb sound.
While most reviewers have noted the HomePod as the best sounding speaker they’ve ever listened too, Consumer Reports claims Google Home Max and Sonos One sound better.
Apple’s HomePod speaker went on sale last week after it was unveiled during WWDC 2017. The speaker comes with Siri integration to go with the 7 tweeters and subwoofer that adapt the sound to any room.
In its initial testing, Consumer Reports found that Apple’s speaker is acoustically perfect though.
“The HomePod will serve many music fans well, but CR testers did hear some flaws. The HomePod’s bass was a bit boomy and overemphasized,” wrote Consumer Reports. “And the midrange tones were somewhat hazy, meaning that some of the nuance in vocals, guitars, and horns was lost: These elements of the music couldn’t be heard as distinctly as in more highly rated speakers. Treble sounds, like cymbals, were underemphasized.”
We were mightly impressed with HomePod’s sound, but the experience is pretty subjective. Not all listeners enjoy heavy bass. Our only problem with HomePod has been Siri’s lack of smarts.
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Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
8 responses to “Consumer Reports says HomePod doesn’t sound as good as its rivals”
Emerge victorious? I didn’t know it was a competition. The HomePod is another product in the market place. Competition is good. I do like my HomePod.
noted
Consumer Reports, who declared iPhone 4 unbearable due to Antennagate, meanwhile nobody else noticed? Why do people care what these idiots think anymore? They are as bad as the wire cutter for rating things that are irrelevant as being all that matters.
“While most reviewers have noted the HomePod as the best selling speaker they’ve ever listened too,…”
Wow out a week and it’s already the best selling speaker, another Home run for Apple.
“While most reviewers have noted the HomePod as the best selling speaker they’ve ever listened too”
There’s something wrong with the grammar in that phrase. The product has only just been launched, so it cannot really be classed as “best selling” yet, can it? If you replace the word “selling” with “smart” the sentence makes more sense, and that’s without even shining a critical eye over the final word, which really should be “to” and not “too,” but thats another story for another day LOL
There needs to be a HomePod app like on sonos. Anything airplayed to it is a lesser experience and it’s delayed to connect, etc.
Too much bass? Oh no. Why did Apple let the beats guys develop this product!?!? Because we all know when it comes to sound quality nothing comes close to beat, right?
If you want to get a good understanding of HOW Consumer Reports came out with such a negative assessment of the HomePod, in contradiction to the almost unanimous superlative reviews and testing results done by audio engineers and technology professionals, read this excerpt from CR’s “review”:
“Consumer Reports evaluates sound quality for speakers, smart or otherwise, in a dedicated listening room in which our experienced testers compare each model with high-quality reference speakers. Each test unit that allows for user controls is tuned for optimum sound quality—we want the speakers to sound their best.”
Also, take a look at the photo of CR’s testing “rig”. It has all speakers crammed together on a multi-shelf stand with many speakers in front of, behind, above, and below each other. It is a very cumbersome setup, in a very unnatural test environment (unlike ANY room and speaker placement that a real person would ever experience).
In the photo of the Consumer Reports speaker setup in the listening room, notice that the HomePod speaker has no space or flat wall surfaces on the left and right sides, and on the back. The HomePod uses that free space around it, and the rear and side walls to reflect the left and right channels, using audio beamforming, while the center channel (audio that is centered in the sound space) is beamed forward.
The HomePod is unlike other speakers that just have their internal speakers facing forward, and that DO NOT rely on reflected audio beamforming.
In Consumer Report’s setup, instead of clear, reflected left and right audio channels, the sound would have been muffled. It is unknown whether this debilitating positioning of the HomePod was done purposely, or if it was done due to a lack of understanding by the CR testers.
In other words, it was a very poorly setup test environment, and the review consisted of “listeners” giving their own subjective feelings about which speaker they liked best. Aside from any unstated motives or biases of the “listeners” at Consumer Reports, there was no methodical or scientific testing done of the speakers, in various “natural” room environments. In contrast, this type of analytical and realistic testing WAS done by other reputable audio engineers and technology professionals.