521: Dance Compatible

0:00:00So I might sound slightly hoarse tonight because I came from a not a very loud bar, not a big party,

0:00:08but a elementary school children's dance.

0:00:12Ooh!

0:00:13Elementary school dance? Is that a thing?

0:00:16The earliest I can recall having a dance was sixth grade.

0:00:18Yeah.

0:00:19Yeah, same.

0:00:20Yeah, so that's apparently a thing here,

0:00:23and I can say that I am exactly as comfortable here

0:00:28as I was in sixth grade at my sixth grade dance.

0:00:32Whatever that is in a person that makes them

0:00:38maybe incompatible with that kind of social situation,

0:00:42that does not change when you are 40.

0:00:44Whatever you were when you were,

0:00:47how old are you in sixth grade, like 11, 12?

0:00:49Whatever age you were then, it's the same when you're 40.

0:00:54That does not leave a person.

0:00:55- What about your kid?

0:00:57Did Adam inherit your dance and compatibility?

0:01:01- Fortunately, he seems to have taken after his mother

0:01:04in that way, which is of huge benefit.

0:01:07It's like, I couldn't wait to get home.

0:01:10And it's funny, it doesn't feel this way

0:01:13'cause we're all staring at computers

0:01:14in our offices and our houses and no one's around,

0:01:16but in a way we are talking to 80,000 people.

0:01:20And so it's weird to think like,

0:01:22I'd rather talk about computers to a football stadium

0:01:27full of strangers mostly,

0:01:29which most people would consider a terribly scary thing,

0:01:33but I'd rather do that than try to dance

0:01:35in front of 40 children and their parents

0:01:37at an elementary school.

0:01:38- Wait a second, wait a second.

0:01:40Why are you doing any dancing at this?

0:01:43I thought you were just like, the vibe is awkward

0:01:45and it felt like a place that you didn't wanna hang out.

0:01:47But isn't it the kids supposed to be dancing?

0:01:48Aren't you just like a chaperone?

0:01:50Like aren't you just standing against the wall?

0:01:51- Basically, except that there's some parents

0:01:53who are like the fun parents,

0:01:55and they're like dancing a little bit.

0:01:56- No, that's not fun.

0:01:59- Well tell me, but yeah.

0:01:59- I'm saying it's not fun for the kids

0:02:01who wants their parents to, ugh.

0:02:03- Well, the good news is, this is an elementary school.

0:02:07You know, the oldest anyone is here is fifth grade.

0:02:10And so no one is actually old enough

0:02:13to really be awkward about girls and boys

0:02:17and cooties and stuff.

0:02:17So the good thing is that there wasn't any of that really.

0:02:21So the kids are just running around like lunatics.

0:02:24They're just running and throwing balloons at each other.

0:02:26- Did Adam enjoy it?

0:02:27- Yes, yes, and that's what mattered.

0:02:29- And did Tiff just not go?

0:02:30- No, no, she was there too.

0:02:32- She like it?

0:02:33- She is dance compatible.

0:02:35And so she has a much easier time.

0:02:39- Right, right, right.

0:02:41Yeah, I am not. I am also not dance compatible. That is not my thing.

0:02:46I perhaps with the appropriate amount of social lubricant,

0:02:50maybe a teeny bit, but no, not generally speaking, that is not for me. However,

0:02:54I don't think being the cool parent is always bad. So, um,

0:02:59I don't remember if I mentioned on the show,

0:03:01but we joined a little community pool this past summer and it was really,

0:03:04really great for our family. You know, we got to meet some new friends, you know,

0:03:08get closer with some old friends, et cetera.

0:03:10And early on in the summer, I decided

0:03:12I was going to not do the normal Casey thing

0:03:15of just sitting on the sidelines,

0:03:16being like, "Yeah, have fun kids, I'll see you later."

0:03:18And instead, I was going to try to be the cool pool dad

0:03:22that will get in there and roughhouse

0:03:23with all the kids and whatnot.

0:03:24And even though sometimes my back looked like

0:03:28it had been attacked by a bunch of feral kittens,

0:03:31because that's effectively what was going on,

0:03:33generally speaking, I thought being the fun, cool pool dad

0:03:37was enjoyable.

0:03:38But that doesn't require any sort of coordination at all,

0:03:42unlike being the fun, cool dance dad,

0:03:45which requires coordination and rhythm,

0:03:46two things I have none of.

0:03:48- See, that's the thing, I'm very coordinated

0:03:49and I have really good rhythm,

0:03:51and yet I still cannot dance to save my life,

0:03:53'cause I think it's more of a mindset,

0:03:57it's more mental, I think,

0:03:58and whatever the mindset is that requires a person

0:04:01to be able to let go of their inhibitions

0:04:04and just dance their hearts out

0:04:07And I don't have that necessarily,

0:04:10or I have trouble shifting my brain to that mode.

0:04:13And no matter how much social lubricant one has,

0:04:16which of course at an elementary school dance is none,

0:04:19(laughing)

0:04:20but even if that were there,

0:04:22in situations where that is available,

0:04:24that doesn't help me.

0:04:24I still cannot become a dancer for whatever reason.

0:04:28So it's just, I can do a lot of things.

0:04:32That's just not on the list,

0:04:34and I've learned to live with it.

0:04:36I've learned to cope with this lack of my personality

0:04:40that I have here and I try to make up for it

0:04:42in other ways as best as I can.

0:04:45- Well, the good news is I don't think you're gonna be

0:04:46going to too many more dances as your kid gets older.

0:04:49- I sure hope not.

0:04:51The good thing is I was able to use my skills

0:04:54in a much better way.

0:04:56Last night, my kid brought home, he had a school project.

0:05:00They're working on, they're making public service

0:05:03announcements as part of their unit on making

0:05:06persuasive essays.

0:05:07So he wrote a script basically,

0:05:10and it had to be a 90 second recording.

0:05:13And I'm like, oh man, dude, I got this,

0:05:17I got your back on this.

0:05:18So everyone else is gonna show up

0:05:20with their voice memos thing.

0:05:21I had him use my good mic 'cause he wanted to,

0:05:23and I was like, of course you can.

0:05:24And then he recorded 90 seconds max,

0:05:27and the take, he was really happy with the take,

0:05:30but it was like 15 seconds over.

0:05:33And I was like, well, look, I record three,

0:05:36two minute segments a week for this show.

0:05:39I know what you're doing, and trust me,

0:05:41the easiest thing to do is just rerecord it

0:05:43and just go a little faster, maybe cut a sentence

0:05:45out here or there if you can.

0:05:46- Why don't you use smart speed?

0:05:47- I thought about that.

0:05:49But I kind of did, and so he said,

0:05:53can't you just edit it to be shorter?

0:05:55And I was like, well, let's try, what the heck,

0:05:58let's try it.

0:05:59And so we shortened the silences

0:06:02and took out one repeated word that was in the middle there.

0:06:06- Am I good to go 1.1 times?

0:06:08- Yeah, I took out a couple of breaths here and there

0:06:10that didn't necessarily need to be there to sound natural.

0:06:12And I showed him, oh, if it cut here,

0:06:14it doesn't sound natural, if you cut over here, it doesn't.

0:06:16And 90 second limit, the time clock at the end said 129.996

0:06:21and we were like, done.

0:06:24(laughing)

0:06:25And of course it sounds amazing,

0:06:26'cause he's on my podcast mic, so I'm like,

0:06:29I can't dance to save my life, but that,

0:06:32that I can really help you out, son.

0:06:35- I don't think it's gonna be great on audio quality though.

0:06:38(laughing)

0:06:39(electronic beeping)

0:06:40- Let's do some follow up,

0:06:41'cause we have a lot of audio quality things

0:06:43to talk about coincidentally.

0:06:44And we have some HomePod 2 follow up

0:06:46and a teaser, spoiler even,

0:06:49Marco has his HomePod 2 review coming later

0:06:51in the episode after follow up.

0:06:52But before we get there, we have HomePod 2 follow up.

0:06:54- This is like when you're watching TV growing up

0:06:56and it's like, the story you all came here for,

0:06:59news at 11 and then eventually you get to 11 o'clock and they don't get to it

0:07:02until like the last 10 seconds of these of the half-hour segment it's after the

0:07:07next commercial after the next commercial you'll see when we come back

0:07:10you'll you'll hear all about this crazy thing you wanted to hear about yeah

0:07:13fortunately I have way more to say about it than those old news shows and we

0:07:17won't make you wait until 11 29 hopefully not anyway alright so a home

0:07:21pod 2 series speed tests done on video by Steven Robles who is also known as

0:07:25bearded teacher. First of all, kudos to this unbelievably handsome gentleman for wearing a

0:07:31gorgeous shirt during the recording of this video. I am deeply impressed with his choice of wardrobe,

0:07:37but even with that said, the video was legitimately really good. And so Steven talks through,

0:07:44somehow he has like 17 different Sonos setups, including the setup that I have in my living room,

0:07:53with the exception of no rears or he didn't mention those anyway. But he tests that against the Home

0:07:58Pod 2 stereo pair and makes some very interesting but reasonable conclusions about, you know, what

0:08:06would you, what would he advise one to buy depending on what you're looking at. You know, if you're

0:08:11really more of a TV person then you might want to go this route. If you're more of a music person you

0:08:16might want to go this other route. It was a really good video. I think it was like 15-ish minutes. Yeah,

0:08:21of 14 minutes 38 seconds and it's worth it.

0:08:23You should definitely check it out.

0:08:24- The reason I brought this in here

0:08:25is because last week I complained that people,

0:08:29all the YouTube reviews I'd watch,

0:08:30nobody actually tested how the new system on a chip

0:08:32affected the response speed of Siri,

0:08:34which seems like a pretty important part of a product

0:08:36that mostly hasn't changed,

0:08:37but one thing that did change in it was the SOC

0:08:39and the old one was slow, so you should test that.

0:08:43And then that's how I got to this video.

0:08:44I said, you know, somebody did test the speed of Siri

0:08:47on the new home pods and you know who did it?

0:08:49somebody wearing, as Casey was alluding to before,

0:08:52an ATP M1 Ultra shirt, 'cause he knows what's up.

0:08:56- Definitely knows what's up.

0:08:57Do we want to cover this related Ask ATP

0:09:01that we were originally gonna cover next week,

0:09:02but I think it kinda slides nicely right in here.

0:09:05Is that allowed, Jon, or do I need to wait

0:09:07until next week for this?

0:09:08- Yeah, I think I put that there.

0:09:09- No, I did.

0:09:10- All right, well anyway, yes,

0:09:11that was a fine time to cover it.

0:09:12- All right, so Justin Saussier wrote,

0:09:14"Would a stereo pair of HomePods

0:09:16be a better TV setup than a soundbar?

0:09:17I know Jon will scream true surround sound

0:09:19and Casey loves the Sonos, but purely comparing

0:09:22between a soundbar Visio to be specific.

0:09:25So as you expected, I cannot state enough

0:09:30how much I adore my Sonos setup,

0:09:32but I will be the first to tell you

0:09:32it is heinously expensive.

0:09:34It is incredible, but it's very expensive.

0:09:37- Was it more than $600 for the HomePods?

0:09:40- Oh yes.

0:09:41- All right, I guess I haven't priced it out,

0:09:43so I didn't realize.

0:09:44- Sonos doesn't sell a lot of products

0:09:45for less than $600.

0:09:47- I don't know, you're counting it,

0:09:48- Because you got the sub with it too, right?

0:09:50- That's correct.

0:09:51- And the back surrounds too, or no?

0:09:52- That is also correct.

0:09:54So, and you're-- - Okay, yeah,

0:09:54that's gonna be a lot.

0:09:56- Yes, but that's actually in some ways a perfect segue,

0:09:59because what I was going to recommend,

0:10:00and I'm gonna try to vamp a little bit

0:10:02while I'm looking up the price,

0:10:03is Sonos sells a set of the Sonos Arc,

0:10:07which as we record is their most high-end soundbar,

0:10:12which is what I got, and a Sonos sub,

0:10:15and there's two different subs.

0:10:17I got the larger of the two subs, the SubGen 3.

0:10:20And actually, as we record, coincidentally, it is $200 off.

0:10:24It is generally listed for $1,648.

0:10:27It is currently on sale for $1,448.

0:10:30Now, this sounds phenomenal.

0:10:33And I don't personally have any experience with HomePods, so

0:10:35I can't make any sort of claims it sounds better or

0:10:37worse than HomePods.

0:10:39But it sounds incredible.

0:10:41But it's also what, like 2 and 1/2 times the cost, 2 times

0:10:43the cost, right?

0:10:45It's two times the cost of two HomePods, so it's not cheap.

0:10:49I think there's something to be said for if you're doing a lot of home theater viewing,

0:10:55you might be better off with some sort of soundbar with sub.

0:11:00But - and I'm kind of spoiling Steven's video now - really, if you just want to get in the

0:11:05door at a semi-cheap price and get easily 80% of the way there, even for home theater

0:11:11stuff, even I can concede that a stereo pair of HomePod 2s might be the better answer.

0:11:17Jon, correct me on this.

0:11:19Yeah, so here's the thing.

0:11:20The problem with soundbars is most of them are bar-shaped, so they're not that big.

0:11:29The fancier ones have, what is a factor is because that means you can't have speaker

0:11:33cones that are that big.

0:11:35It's very difficult to get any decent bass out of a two-inch speaker cone, depending

0:11:39how short your soundbar is, that may be a limiting factor.

0:11:44As you get fancier and fancier soundbars, a lot of them put the big cones facing up

0:11:49or down and they're actually fairly deep if they're not that tall.

0:11:53The very very fancy soundbars are not small anymore.

0:11:56Like they're just really big and so you're like "oh you can fit big drivers in there"

0:12:00and they do and they have a whole bunch of them and they're all over the place.

0:12:03But for television viewing, with that aside, the main thing that I feel like you would

0:12:09want in a television viewing system has less to do with sound quality, which you can decide

0:12:15how much money you want to spend to get whatever sound quality you want, and more to do with

0:12:18you want all the channels represented.

0:12:20So if I was spending my money and I was doing a television, I don't think I could ever give

0:12:25up the center channel, which means you can't just have a stereo pair, right?

0:12:28You have to have a left and a right and a center.

0:12:31And then you should probably also have a subwoofer, and then you can consider whether you want

0:12:34the back surrounds or not, right?

0:12:36And that is something that home pods can't give you, because you just got the two of

0:12:41them, and the two of them does not even give you a center channel, right?

0:12:45And they have plenty of bass or whatever.

0:12:46Now the thing is, if you have a cruddy soundbar, two home pods will probably sound better,

0:12:51even despite the fact that the cruddy soundbar has a quote-unquote center channel.

0:12:54Soundbars are usually about the width of your TV, so you're not going to get that much stereo

0:12:57separation because how far can the right and left be from each other?

0:13:00much farther than the width of the soundbar.

0:13:03And when they do have a center channel, a very cheap soundbar will have a center channel

0:13:06made of these tiny little speakers that are just...

0:13:09Right?

0:13:10And so in that case, you would say, "Oh, two home pods does sound better than this cheap

0:13:14soundbar."

0:13:15But the cheap soundbar probably costs less than two home pods.

0:13:17So it's a little bit of a complicated question, but in general, what I would say is, if you

0:13:21care about television and movies, don't get a two-channel setup.

0:13:26Everything now has more channels than that.

0:13:27You want center, left, and right, and preferably some kind of surround if you can manage it,

0:13:33right?

0:13:34And of course, as we know, anything that was shot to be 3D capable, you should also be

0:13:39viewing on a 3D TV, because just because that capability is there, you need to have that.

0:13:44It's always better, right?

0:13:453D TV is terrible, but surround sound is good.

0:13:47Oh, really?

0:13:48Why is that?

0:13:49That's interesting.

0:13:50Why is that?

0:13:51Because it's good!

0:13:52Because it sounds good.

0:13:53Because it's what you have in movie theaters.

0:13:55People like it, it sounds good, it is not annoying.

0:13:56it makes the movies and the television shows better.

0:13:59- And everything about a movie theater experience is better.

0:14:01So for instance, you have to make your home smell

0:14:03like stale step on popcorn.

0:14:05- That's not what we're talking about.

0:14:07Anyway, and so even just for things that you don't care about

0:14:11like forget about the word surround,

0:14:12like I don't wanna hear things behind me,

0:14:14forget about that.

0:14:14Just right in front of you sound,

0:14:16having a center right and left

0:14:18is better than just having right and left

0:14:20because the shows are mixed for center right and left.

0:14:22And they're mixed to be put out that way.

0:14:25All the sound is coming from the front of you,

0:14:27no weird bouncing off anything,

0:14:28but even just in that scenario,

0:14:30that's how the shows are mixed.

0:14:32They're usually mixed with also backs around stuff too.

0:14:34Anyway, so the reason I give all those caveats

0:14:38about cruddy soundbars is it's not universal.

0:14:40It's not like you should always get any soundbar

0:14:41over any pair of hos, because you shouldn't,

0:14:43because cheap soundbars do not sound good.

0:14:46They won't have bass, and the home pods do have bass.

0:14:48A cheap soundbar will barely have any separation,

0:14:51because the bar is not very long,

0:14:53And the center channel is probably really credit quality

0:14:57'cause those usually aren't upwards or downwards facing,

0:14:59so they're coming right at you.

0:15:00So it's not a universal, but in general,

0:15:02look for discrete channels.

0:15:04Now, the obvious, if you're wanting to actually

0:15:07spend a little bit more money,

0:15:08KC setup is good if you don't want to spend money

0:15:11on a receiver or if, like KC, you have an ancient receiver

0:15:13that can't handle this, because you don't need a receiver

0:15:15in that Sonos setup, it does all this stuff for you.

0:15:18But kind of like when you go to sort of the top end of,

0:15:21used to be max, but these day species,

0:15:23a modular system where you buy a receiver

0:15:25and then you buy speakers and then that's all modular

0:15:28and you can mix and match.

0:15:30I can pick a receiver based on capabilities,

0:15:31I can pick speakers of sizes and shapes

0:15:34and costs to fit my setup,

0:15:36I can change those speakers over time,

0:15:37I can swap out the receiver and keep the speakers the same.

0:15:40A modular system is going to cost more

0:15:41but it gives you the ultimate flexibility

0:15:43of deciding exactly how much money you wanna spend

0:15:45for how big a speaker, for which role,

0:15:47and any modern receiver has more channels than,

0:15:50it's enough channels to fill your entire room

0:15:52depending on where you can put speakers or when you can't.

0:15:55So that's how I feel about HomePods' TV speakers.

0:15:58They're probably better than your cheap soundbar,

0:16:00they're way better than what's built into your television,

0:16:03but if it's possible for you to get discrete channels

0:16:07for your sound, that's what I would suggest.

0:16:10- I agree with you, but for slightly different reasons,

0:16:13of course, the functionality of sending the audio

0:16:17back to the Apple TV via eARC,

0:16:19and then that wirelessly sending it to the HomePods

0:16:21over some kind of protocol that's going to introduce,

0:16:25obviously, a few problems.

0:16:26Number one is going to be there's

0:16:27going to be some latency.

0:16:28And I have not tried this setup yet,

0:16:30but I've heard the latency is OK.

0:16:33But it's always going to be there.

0:16:36It's always going to be a little bit worse than other speakers.

0:16:39And that might be OK for movies and TV,

0:16:42because you can adjust delays here and there.

0:16:44It's not going to be OK for anything

0:16:45that you need to be low latency in real time,

0:16:47like, for instance, games.

0:16:48Like, if you have a game system connected to your TV,

0:16:50you're not gonna want any additional latency

0:16:52added by the audio, and so that's gonna be a problem.

0:16:55Number two, it's just gonna be more complicated

0:16:57and potentially buggier.

0:17:00This is the ability to be used as TV speakers

0:17:03is not the main role and selling point

0:17:06and focus of the HomePod as a product.

0:17:09And so maybe you can do it,

0:17:10but if that's really what you're shopping for,

0:17:14you should probably go a different direction

0:17:16to something that's actually made more for that purpose,

0:17:18'cause your life will probably be simpler and better

0:17:21and more reliable in the long run.

0:17:22Like for instance, if you wanted to buy a computer

0:17:25to primarily play video games on, that can be a Mac.

0:17:29You can buy a Mac and Macs can run games.

0:17:32That's a thing that can happen,

0:17:33but you're better off buying a gaming PC.

0:17:36So, John, so you can do it with the Mac,

0:17:40but that's not really what it's made for.

0:17:42The HomePod is never, that's never gonna be

0:17:45a main priority for them.

0:17:47that's never gonna get all the testing in the world,

0:17:50it's never gonna have all the capability in the world.

0:17:52Down the road, a software update might break it

0:17:54in weird ways and maybe your TV speakers

0:17:55will be broken for a month while they fixed it.

0:17:58You don't wanna be in that world.

0:18:00If you're buying specifically to be used as TV speakers,

0:18:04get regular TV speakers.

0:18:05Now, whether that's a soundbar,

0:18:08which I still hate that entire product category

0:18:11and term and everything.

0:18:13See, soundbars,

0:18:16The same way that when Steve Jobs was first talking about

0:18:21apps in the app store, and he kind of talked about them

0:18:23almost like diminutively, like, oh they're just apps,

0:18:27oh just snack on these apps.

0:18:29It was like, the way he was speaking about them

0:18:32didn't show a lot of respect for them,

0:18:35or reverence to them, it was more just like,

0:18:38here's these little things that kind of don't matter,

0:18:39here, snack on them, good luck with that.

0:18:41That's what soundbars are to the entire

0:18:44world of home theater audio.

0:18:45It's like, oh, we just gave you a little soundbar.

0:18:47Yeah, here, have a soundbar.

0:18:49- There are high-end soundbars now, believe it or not.

0:18:52- Yes. - They are very expensive,

0:18:53and they are actually pretty good.

0:18:55Like I said, they are actually pretty good

0:18:57because they're really, really wide,

0:18:58so you actually get stereo separation, and they're big,

0:19:01so they have large speaker drivers in them.

0:19:03So what they are essentially is speakers,

0:19:06enough of the guts of a receiver to make them work,

0:19:08all shoved in one thing.

0:19:10So it's not, most of them, I agree,

0:19:12most of them are not great, but there are actual ones,

0:19:14if you spend a ton of money and you have limited space that

0:19:18are fairly impressive.

0:19:20Sound bars are the point-and-shoot camera

0:19:23of the home theater audio world.

0:19:25So you have the built-in speakers on the TV

0:19:28that you get for free with no space.

0:19:30And they do kind of remarkable things

0:19:32considering the limited space and front-facing grills

0:19:36and stuff that they tend to be lacking.

0:19:38So you have the built-in speakers on the TV.

0:19:40Then you have this huge quality gap.

0:19:42And then you have a nice speaker system,

0:19:45whether it's two channel, three channel,

0:19:46five channel, 19 channel, whatever it is,

0:19:49you have like, there's that big gap in size, complexity,

0:19:52cost between TV speakers and then a full blown

0:19:56separated speaker system with a receiver.

0:19:58Soundbars try to be in the middle of that,

0:20:00but they have a very hard time,

0:20:02most soundbars are not that much better

0:20:06than the built-in speakers of your TV

0:20:08and also are way, way worse than a big system.

0:20:13And so if you can do the big system,

0:20:16and it doesn't have to be a high-end big system,

0:20:19it just gets bigger.

0:20:20You have to have generally some kind of receiver or amp,

0:20:22and then you have to have,

0:20:24you have to buy separate speakers, you know?

0:20:25And even though I'm a two channel or 2.1 person,

0:20:30I love having a subwoofer and the two speakers,

0:20:33that's a great system for me.

0:20:34I know Jon espouses at least having a center channel,

0:20:37and I can see the reasons for that.

0:20:38That's kind of, it's kind of a preference thing.

0:20:40And so I see that both ways.

0:20:42And again, John was right, you know, with HomePods,

0:20:45like you can't expand that system,

0:20:47whereas with anything else you can.

0:20:49But what everybody will tell you,

0:20:51all the people who are soundbar apologists,

0:20:53they'll tell you, oh yeah, get the soundbar, it's okay.

0:20:55But if you really want the best setup,

0:20:58also get front, left, and right separate speakers

0:21:01and rears and a subwoofer.

0:21:03Well, if you're doing that, then all the soundbar is

0:21:06is an extraordinarily expensive, crappy center channel with an amp in it.

0:21:10And you're better off separating out those rules.

0:21:13I don't think they'll tell you to get bright and left with a soundbar.

0:21:16Yeah, no, I think you've jumped off the ship at this point.

0:21:20I mean, I understand the point you're making, but--

0:21:22and I agree wholeheartedly, by the way, that your average soundbar,

0:21:26from everything I've experienced, sounds like garbage.

0:21:28I completely agree.

0:21:29Although I still think it sounds way better than most TV speakers.

0:21:31Like, there is a jump between--

0:21:32It's a pretty low par.

0:21:33--TV speakers and even the worst soundbar.

0:21:35That's true.

0:21:36but that's a very, very low bar.

0:21:37- Honestly, not for many people.

0:21:39Like, it turns out, like, I mean, look, obviously,

0:21:42you know, everyone is picky about different things,

0:21:44but like, for most people's needs,

0:21:47a sound bar isn't that much better

0:21:49than the built-in speakers on most decent TVs.

0:21:52Now, that's a lot of mosts,

0:21:53there's a lot of qualifying words there, I know that,

0:21:56but for the most part, sound bars usually do not pull off

0:22:00what they purport to pull off.

0:22:02What they purport is, this is going to be

0:22:04a relatively smallish, relatively simpleish thing

0:22:08that's gonna be way better.

0:22:09And of course they play all the same tricks as HomePods.

0:22:13Like, oh, you can just have this one thing in the middle

0:22:15and we'll bounce sound off the walls.

0:22:16And none of that really works very well.

0:22:18You can always tell, oh, this is all coming from the middle.

0:22:21It's not fooling anybody, you can't beat physics.

0:22:23But what people think they are good at,

0:22:28they're not that good at.

0:22:29- I don't know, I think it's one of those things

0:22:32where if you are willing to spend the money for a,

0:22:35like Jon has been saying, a properly good soundbar,

0:22:39then it can be done well.

0:22:41Although I will say even the ARC,

0:22:43which is the most fancy soundbar that Sonos makes,

0:22:46it is pretty tinny without an attachment.

0:22:48- And it is not, that is not an example

0:22:50of a high-end soundbar, by the way.

0:22:52- Okay, well then what would you?

0:22:53- Like the fancy ones are substantially more expensive

0:22:56than the Sonos ARC and substantially larger

0:22:59and usually do come with a subwoofer.

0:23:01They're not cheating, they just have tons of speaker drivers

0:23:05widely separated with high quality and the built in guts

0:23:08to amplify them and make them sound good.

0:23:10And they have some smarts to make the,

0:23:13aiming them around the room.

0:23:14Like the bouncing is never gonna make it sound like

0:23:15it's coming from behind you, behind you.

0:23:17But the very best ones sound like they're on the side of you

0:23:20which is much better than only being in the front.

0:23:22(upbeat music)

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0:25:27- Vortech writes with a recommendation

0:25:34for what happens when you accidentally tap a HomePod

0:25:36and you're an outlet.

0:25:37Well, it turns out accessibility is for everyone,

0:25:40as we know but often forget.

0:25:42You can go into Touch Accommodations

0:25:45and then have a Hold Duration.

0:25:47I presume this is specific to the HomePod.

0:25:49I don't have a HomePod, so I can't try this out myself.

0:25:51But anyways, you can set a Hold Duration

0:25:54for a very small amount of time.

0:25:55In this screenshot, Vortec had set it for 0.2 seconds,

0:26:00and that will presumably stop an accidental touch,

0:26:03and you can always make it longer if need be.

0:26:05- Yeah, I mean, this is better than nothing,

0:26:09but if only there was some way,

0:26:12if we had designed some kind of input device--

0:26:15- No, it's impossible, can't be done.

0:26:16- Where you could maybe brush against it or dust it

0:26:20without actuating an action,

0:26:23but if you wanted to create the action,

0:26:26there wouldn't be any kind of weird gesture or delay,

0:26:28you could just maybe like push it.

0:26:30I don't know if there's--

0:26:30- How about we add a camera to look at your eyeballs

0:26:32to tell if you're looking at the button

0:26:34and then only if you have like your eye

0:26:36if it's focused on the button,

0:26:37then it will activate the button

0:26:38'cause that's the only thing I can think of.

0:26:40Same with car interior design,

0:26:42is we need to have buttons on the steering wheel.

0:26:44It's not like people's hands are gonna be

0:26:45near that area frequently, right?

0:26:47So we can just make those touch buttons,

0:26:48I'm sure that'll be fine.

0:26:49(laughing)

0:26:50- Yeah, I just like, you know, this makes the HomePod

0:26:53a little bit less annoying to use,

0:26:54but the fact is like, I actually do use the top tap input

0:26:59as a quick gesture to play pause or to go next track,

0:27:01you know, double tap, like, I actually do that

0:27:03on a regular basis, so I don't want to make the interaction

0:27:06with it worse or slower or more annoying.

0:27:09I just want it to ignore accidental input and--

0:27:12- They'll add force touch sensors to it.

0:27:14Still not a real button, but it has force touch,

0:27:16you have to press real hard.

0:27:17- Yeah, it's like, they're putting all this effort

0:27:19things like, you know, this would be so much better if it was just a button. You're just making a button,

0:27:24an actual button that moves up and down. It's even cheaper, like, I don't, it's just,

0:27:28it's like, it's, what they have now is worse in every way. And it's not, it's not like it's

0:27:33gonna wear, it's not like it's gonna wear out, like, a mouse button from hundreds of thousands

0:27:37of clicks either. It's not like you're sitting there hammering the top of the home pod all day

0:27:40long. It's like, it doesn't even have to be a good button, just put a button on it, geez.

0:27:46You know, my Sonos speakers, they have buttons that you can press.

0:27:50I know!

0:27:52Just saying.

0:27:52All the touch sensors on the top of the Apple devices, you gotta go for this variation of the frequent internet meme.

0:28:00Did a cat design this?

0:28:03Alright, moving along, Sevrere Bjorkvinson—I'm sorry if that's wrong, I'm doing my best here—

0:28:10points out and reminds us that the Foo Fighters did perform at an Apple event.

0:28:15It was the iPhone 5 launch event and even provided a YouTube link that we will put in

0:28:20the show notes.

0:28:21Good, I'm glad we're all excited about that.

0:28:23Hey, so Twitter is still a mess, as it turns out.

0:28:27So on February 2nd, Twitter Dev, which is the Twitter account that represents, I guess,

0:28:34the developer relations, in so much as such a thing exists.

0:28:38Anyways, they tweeted on February 2nd, "Starting February 9th, we will no longer support free

0:28:44access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead.

0:28:49Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion tweets with billions

0:28:53more every week. Twitter data are among the world's most powerful datasets. We're committed

0:28:56to enabling fast and comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us. We'll

0:29:00be back with more details on what you can expect next week." Well, those details still

0:29:04haven't arrived, as we record, which is super fun. However, two days later, the chief idiot

0:29:11in chief wrote, "Responding to feedback, Twitter will enable a light write-only API

0:29:16for bots providing good content that is free." Well, thank you. That really clarifies things.

0:29:21Good content. Dare I ask, what is good content, King? I don't, I can't.

0:29:28I feel like this is one of those things where people focus a lot on his individual words

0:29:34or the individual details of the policy, but what you need to do is take a step back here

0:29:38and look at the big picture.

0:29:40This is an unreliable platform

0:29:42run by unreliable, erratic leaders.

0:29:46And so this is not a place to build anything.

0:29:49And if you already built something there,

0:29:52this is like one of many recent warning signs

0:29:57that you should probably look to move

0:29:59whatever it is you need that for

0:30:01to move that role somewhere else.

0:30:03Because this is just a, it's an unreliable platform.

0:30:05You cannot build on this platform anymore

0:30:07and if you've already built there,

0:30:10it's just a matter of time before anything you built there

0:30:12or invested in there is arbitrarily

0:30:15and capriciously set on fire.

0:30:17- Yeah, and it's not like charging for API access

0:30:19is a bad idea, it's a perfectly good idea.

0:30:20It's all about the way it's been done

0:30:22and the sort of lack of understanding

0:30:24of the sort of value ecosystem

0:30:25that the API has provided for Twitter.

0:30:27It's existed for so long, a lot of the value on Twitter

0:30:30is done by people having fun bots

0:30:33that make little accounts that you can follow

0:30:35or post the weather or show pictures of cats,

0:30:37or I follow one that does a calendar accurate

0:30:42retelling of snippets of Lord of the Rings.

0:30:44So like when October happens in the book,

0:30:46there'll be a tweet on that day in October saying

0:30:49where the characters are in the story or whatever.

0:30:51That's all like extremely low volume, silly,

0:30:54frivolous stuff that's getting by on the free API, right?

0:30:58And then of course there are bots that abuse it

0:31:01and do bad things, and then there are things

0:31:03that are actually using the API thoroughly.

0:31:06And it's like, this is not the first site to have an API.

0:31:09Like this is a known thing that's been around for ages

0:31:12and Twitter has history behind it.

0:31:13You wanna monetize the API,

0:31:15you monetize the big ones that you know can pay,

0:31:18you allow the Lord of the Rings bot to continue to exist

0:31:21and you have a free tier with low limits

0:31:24for everybody else to do.

0:31:25And you come out with that plan, with ample warning,

0:31:29with a clear explanation of what it's gonna be

0:31:31and the pricing structure and everything like that,

0:31:33and of course they didn't do any of that.

0:31:35And so it's not the fact that they're charging for an API.

0:31:37It's not the fact that they're killing the whole free API.

0:31:40It's the fact that they just have no idea

0:31:42what they're doing, they're just blundering through

0:31:44like a bull in a china shop.

0:31:45Just unknowingly destroying value, scaring people away,

0:31:49frightening developers into saying,

0:31:51well I don't even wanna deal with that,

0:31:52so I'm just taking Twitter support out of my app.

0:31:54All the people who had bots are like,

0:31:56well, you know, I was already kind of sketchy on this place,

0:31:58but now it's just like, whatever, I'm just gonna give up,

0:32:00And if I want to have my fun thing, I'll go somewhere else.

0:32:03It's just, you know, typical Elon Musk's quitter behavior,

0:32:07which is even if you are kind of sort of on the right track

0:32:11for something that might possibly be a good idea,

0:32:13do it in the worst way possible

0:32:14to get any benefit you might have.

0:32:16And by the way, this still does not solve

0:32:19the giant money problem they have

0:32:21because charging for the API,

0:32:23no matter how much they charge,

0:32:24there's just not enough money at this point

0:32:25to ring out of Twitter in the next year

0:32:27to be able to service their debt or whatever.

0:32:29So, typical comedy of errors going on over there.

0:32:32- He's a incredible businessman though, let's not forget.

0:32:37Move to Dawn was killed for unspecified rule violations,

0:32:40surprise, surprise.

0:32:41Tibor Martini writes, and this is the creator,

0:32:44"According to Twitter, the app has violated

0:32:46"Twitter rules and policies.

0:32:47"I can't tell much more at the moment

0:32:49"since the email they mentioned never arrived in my inbox.

0:32:51"I try to get more information from Twitter,

0:32:53"but they already mentioned that it may take

0:32:54"a few days to get back to me."

0:32:55- It'll take a few days to get back to them.

0:32:58By the time they get back to them,

0:32:59the free API will be turned off anyway.

0:33:02It's like, your app is dead no matter what.

0:33:04Because that's what people were saying.

0:33:05Movetodon is that thing that lets you find your followers.

0:33:08Find people you follow on Twitter,

0:33:09if they put a Macedon address in their bio

0:33:12or in their name somewhere, it will find it.

0:33:14And then it will let you follow them

0:33:16using your Macedon account.

0:33:17There's a bunch of tools that are like that.

0:33:18This was one of the better ones we talked about

0:33:20on the past in the show.

0:33:21I think at some point where these things,

0:33:23they weren't banned.

0:33:24No, they were doing the thing where they weren't letting you

0:33:26put Macedon addresses in your address.

0:33:27It's hard to keep track of all their weird rules.

0:33:29But anyway, one of the people like,

0:33:33oh, they killed the API so they could kill

0:33:34these migration services.

0:33:36I'm sure they enjoy the fact that these migration services

0:33:38won't be able to exist on the free API anymore,

0:33:40but these people could, in theory,

0:33:41just pay for the API if they wanted to continue this.

0:33:44It's ascribing to them some master plan.

0:33:48They're there going, haha, we're gonna do this thing.

0:33:50Same thing with the bots.

0:33:50This is to get rid of the bots.

0:33:51Like, are you kidding?

0:33:52If there's anything in the world that is going to

0:33:55do HTML scraping of your website

0:33:57to get around API limits is spammers, right?

0:33:59Like, don't worry, they'll be, spammers will be fine.

0:34:02They don't need your API.

0:34:04And they'll just find a way to pay for your API

0:34:05with stolen credit cards anyway.

0:34:07You'll have fun chasing them around, yeah.

0:34:08Solving spam is easy.

0:34:09Just, you know, end the free API.

0:34:11You'll never have spam again.

0:34:13I'm sure that'll work great.

0:34:14But yeah, this thing got suspended, who knows why.

0:34:17You're not, like Margaret was saying,

0:34:19you're not dealing with, you know,

0:34:22I know it's not an individual,

0:34:23but if you were to personify Twitter,

0:34:25you're not dealing with an adult here.

0:34:26You're not dealing with a professional adult.

0:34:28Things are gonna happen,

0:34:29and there's not gonna be any explanation,

0:34:31and there's nothing you can do about it.

0:34:33It's just like a completely unreliable, flaky other party

0:34:38that is gonna ban you and not tell you why

0:34:40and tell you they're gonna tell you

0:34:41and not ever send you that email.

0:34:43They're just gonna flake out on you.

0:34:44Like, the whole company is like that.

0:34:45So it doesn't take much of interaction like that

0:34:48to make people think, yeah, screw this.

0:34:51I'm like, I don't need to deal with this.

0:34:52I'm just trying to make,

0:34:54I was trying to make a fun Twitter account

0:34:55that post pictures of kittens every day,

0:34:56and I don't need to deal with my thing getting banned

0:34:59and them telling me they're gonna tell me what I did,

0:35:00but they never tell me and I try to get back to them,

0:35:02but they don't have a communications department

0:35:04and it's just, whatever.

0:35:06It just makes people not wanna deal with it.

0:35:09- For what it's worth, Mastodon Flock,

0:35:12which is similar to Move to Dawn, is still working.

0:35:14Also, breaking news via Smythe in the chat,

0:35:17Paul Haddad of Tapbots just tweeted that,

0:35:21sometime in the last couple hours,

0:35:23Twitter dev finally announced some more details.

0:35:25This is breaking news.

0:35:27Delay the new rules for four days.

0:35:29Free bot level of up to 1,500 tweets a month for a single

0:35:33authenticated user.

0:35:34And Paul surmises that probably means no read access.

0:35:37You can only post.

0:35:39$100 a month for low level of API usage tier.

0:35:42So $100 a month if you want to post is what we're assuming.

0:35:46That's not factual, but that's what we're assuming.

0:35:48And then the premium API, which is the expensive one that

0:35:51had prices listed goes away in favor of the Enterprise API,

0:35:55which is the even more expensive one that didn't even

0:35:57have prices listed.

0:35:58And Paul continues, before anyone asks,

0:36:00this does not mean third party clients are coming back.

0:36:02If anything, it is the exact opposite.

0:36:04Having no read access kind of kills the-- well,

0:36:07it doesn't entirely kill the-- I don't know.

0:36:10The move to Don type scraping things kind of

0:36:13need read access in addition to-- well,

0:36:14I guess they don't need write access.

0:36:15But the write only ones is like, oh, you

0:36:17can contribute content to this black hole,

0:36:18but you can't actually read from it.

0:36:20But like for example, our Ask ATP--

0:36:21- Birdhouse would be okay.

0:36:22- Our Ask ATP scraper that was looking for the Ask ATP

0:36:26hashtag and putting it into a Google Sheet,

0:36:28that just uses read, it doesn't use write at all,

0:36:30and that thing would still be screwed,

0:36:31not that we would ever pay for access to that anyway, but.

0:36:34Yeah, whatever, and this set of rules or whatever,

0:36:37imagine if you had like an adult come up with a plan

0:36:39for the API before you started announcing things,

0:36:42before you started canceling the API

0:36:44and had like an actual plan and put it together

0:36:46and rolled it out smoothly with warning ahead of time

0:36:49and a PR push and marketing, you know,

0:36:51like a real grown up company,

0:36:53but that's not the way any of this works.

0:36:54- Imagine.

0:36:55We are sponsored this week by Pushcut,

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0:37:18So for instance, you can send yourself custom notifications

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0:37:38And you can create custom widgets with push cuts.

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0:37:42or use one of the many examples that they give you,

0:37:44and this is home screen or lock screen widgets.

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0:37:48or anything else in your device with shortcuts,

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0:38:01whether your front door is unlocked

0:38:02or your blinds are closed.

0:38:04You can get information on the next F1 race.

0:38:06You can count down until your next vacation

0:38:07and have that be on your lock screen,

0:38:08everything you look at your phone.

0:38:10And the automation server function

0:38:12allows you to use a dedicated iOS device

0:38:13to run shortcuts whenever you like

0:38:15without confirmation prompts.

0:38:17This is very, very powerful.

0:38:18You can trigger these at certain intervals,

0:38:20specific dates and times, or in response to a web hook,

0:38:23or in response to HomeKit.

0:38:25It's amazing what you can do with PushCut.

0:38:27They also have background triggers.

0:38:29So you can do things like use location

0:38:31and custom notifications to prompt you to run a shortcut,

0:38:33or choose a HomeKit scene, or open a link.

0:38:35So you can do things like start a workout

0:38:3710 minutes after getting to the gym.

0:38:39Or remember to check your shopping list

0:38:41when you pass a store and it's during its opening hours.

0:38:44Or instead of notifications, you can run background actions

0:38:46such as shortcuts on your automation server

0:38:48as previously mentioned, or even a webhook.

0:38:50There's so much here.

0:38:51Go to pushcut.io/atp to find out more about how PushCut

0:38:55can improve your automations

0:38:57and customize your iPhone and iPad.

0:38:59Download PushCut and start your free trial now

0:39:01at pushcut.io/atp.

0:39:04Thank you so much to PushCut for sponsoring our show.

0:39:07- Marco, you've bought one to seven HomePod 2s.

0:39:14Please tell me-- - I bought two HomePod 2s.

0:39:17- Please tell me, are they worth the money?

0:39:19Are they good, are they bad?

0:39:20Are they better than the ones?

0:39:21Have they solved all your problems?

0:39:23What's the situation?

0:39:24- Actually, before Marco starts,

0:39:25I have a comment on the picture

0:39:27that I'm assuming he will make the chapter art

0:39:29for this little section here.

0:39:31He posted a bunch of pictures

0:39:32of your little HomePod testing area

0:39:34that slowly gained more and more pods.

0:39:38- That kept multiplying. - Yes.

0:39:39- See the little baby ones after next to the two parents?

0:39:41- Yes.

0:39:42Now obviously this is not,

0:39:43He doesn't have an anechoic chamber in his house.

0:39:46This is not super scientific testing, blah, blah, blah.

0:39:49Even down to the point of like some people saying,

0:39:50well, you know, audio devices take a while to break in

0:39:53and if you just got them today,

0:39:54like you need a week to break in and it's like, whatever.

0:39:56But this is not, we're not going super scientific here.

0:39:59But I will say that even from the very first picture,

0:40:02when I saw that you had arranged the right and left

0:40:05old and new home pods and little stereo pairs

0:40:08next to each other, I mean, I guess you can tell me,

0:40:12But they're pretty close to each other.

0:40:15And my recollection is the HomePod 1s at least

0:40:18did something where they sprayed out sound

0:40:20and then saw how it bounced back to figure out

0:40:23how they're supposed to adjust to their environment.

0:40:27But the environment is weird when you've got HomePod,

0:40:31the two right ones right next to each other

0:40:34and the two left ones right next to each other

0:40:35because it's not an apples to apples comparison

0:40:39because the environment for both of them is different.

0:40:42one of the right ones has something to its left

0:40:44and one of the right ones has something to its right.

0:40:46- Yes, the reason I arranged them this way,

0:40:47and you're right on a bunch of things that I'll get to,

0:40:49but the reason I arranged them this way

0:40:51is so that each pair would have the same amount

0:40:53of space between it, because otherwise I figured,

0:40:57if I had the new ones on the inside

0:40:59and the old ones on the outside, then it would be unfair.

0:41:01- No, no, I get it.

0:41:02You want the stereo distance to be the same.

0:41:04- Yes.

0:41:05- But the distance to its neighbor,

0:41:07and here's the problem.

0:41:08You can't just, well, why don't you just have two of them

0:41:10and then swap them out?

0:41:11You want to be able to do like A/B testing like immediately.

0:41:13You're not like, oh, let me just lug a bunch of bricks, right?

0:41:15So it's not ideal.

0:41:17The second thing is that-- and this is an accurate test

0:41:20for Marco's environment for sure,

0:41:22but I always think about this when I see HomePod set up.

0:41:24You've got him on a counter with like a backsplash, right?

0:41:27That's not an ideal audio environment, a speaker that

0:41:30is like inches away from--

0:41:31Not at all.

0:41:32--a stone backsplash or whatever.

0:41:35But that's how they're going to be used in a lot of places.

0:41:37So it is a representative test for Marco's environment,

0:41:41but again, it is not an anechoic chamber

0:41:44where you have this beautiful isolated speaker.

0:41:47So let's say this is a challenging scenario

0:41:50for all the little felt covered orbs involved.

0:41:53And I think also a challenging listening scenario

0:41:55because you can never know how much of what you're hearing

0:41:57is a result of the devices

0:41:59versus a result of the devices

0:42:01either not adjusting for their environment

0:42:03or badly adjusting for their environment.

0:42:05And finally, how much of what you're hearing

0:42:06is just a result of like, look, the sound,

0:42:08it's gonna be bouncing off marble

0:42:09that's two inches behind it.

0:42:10- Right, and it's not a marble, it's quartz.

0:42:12We have a marble table, like the little circular marble,

0:42:15and it's like the biggest pain in the butt.

0:42:18Oh my God, never get marble anything.

0:42:20Quartz is so much better.

0:42:22Anyway, so, and you're right.

0:42:23So, and I think a huge disclaimer here that all of these,

0:42:28I think except the HomePod Minis, but all the,

0:42:30so I have in this test two old HomePods,

0:42:34two new HomePods, two HomePod minis,

0:42:37and a fourth gen Amazon Echo.

0:42:40I only have one 'cause the second one died

0:42:42after like two seconds 'cause they're garbage.

0:42:45They're the worst built Amazon thing I've ever had.

0:42:47Anyway, and I tested them in stereo pairs

0:42:51and in single configurations,

0:42:54except for the Echo where I only have one,

0:42:55so I couldn't test stereo pair of that.

0:42:57A huge disclaimer here that, again,

0:42:58besides the HomePod mini, which I think doesn't do this,

0:43:01all of the other ones, maybe the Echo,

0:43:03do some kind of sound processing

0:43:06based on whatever surroundings they sense.

0:43:08Or like the HomePod for instance has a microphone

0:43:11inside of it that tweaks the bass response I think.

0:43:14And it also, it does like you know,

0:43:16measure reflections and everything.

0:43:18If you like shake a HomePod while it's playing,

0:43:22it has accelerometers to detect that it's been moved

0:43:24and it will kind of like reset itself

0:43:25and like readapt the sound briefly.

0:43:27It sounds really weird, try it.

0:43:29Anyway, with all that said, these are all speakers

0:43:31that use a lot of software processing.

0:43:34What I try to do when I'm judging,

0:43:35like does this sound better than that or whatever,

0:43:38and how does it sound better,

0:43:40I also have to consider the fact that

0:43:41not only are people's environments different,

0:43:43but the state of the software is going to vary over time.

0:43:47And so it might be adjusting for something in my room

0:43:49that somebody else wouldn't have,

0:43:51and it even might be like that maybe in a software update

0:43:55they'll tweak the mix slightly over time as well.

0:43:57So that's a huge disclaimer.

0:43:59So what I'm really judging here is

0:44:01to some degree how they sound now,

0:44:03but also you can tell when you're judging a speaker

0:44:06or a headphone, you can tell, or a microphone even,

0:44:09you can tell what you can fix in EQ versus what you can't.

0:44:14If you look at a frequency response graph,

0:44:17you'll see these in reviews sometimes

0:44:19where it'll have like 30 hertz on one side

0:44:22and like 16,000 or 20,000 hertz on the other side,

0:44:24it'll show a logarithmic graph,

0:44:25you'll see a little wavy line,

0:44:27it's usually, it's supposed to be somewhat flat

0:44:31In practice, usually you see like a slow hump up

0:44:34on the base side and left side,

0:44:36and then all the way on the right

0:44:37when the high treble frequencies,

0:44:38he goes zigzag, zigzag, zigzag,

0:44:39and kind of fall off at the end.

0:44:42A frequency response graph is the kind of thing

0:44:44where you can use EQ to tweak things about that

0:44:48that you don't like a little bit to some extent.

0:44:50But where EQ doesn't help you

0:44:53and processing doesn't help you

0:44:54is in other areas of sound design,

0:44:57and you'll have to forgive me,

0:44:58I'm not a speaker or headphone designer,

0:45:00So I know a little bit about this stuff,

0:45:02'cause this is like a world that I'm a big enthusiast about,

0:45:05but a lot of the science I don't know.

0:45:07So with that disclaimer in mind,

0:45:09and I'm sure we'll hear from people

0:45:10who design speakers in our audience.

0:45:12So with that being said, so other factors, for instance,

0:45:16are things like distortion characteristics,

0:45:18or like weird phase interference issues you can get

0:45:22with certain designs of, like certain physical designs

0:45:25of the enclosure the speakers are in,

0:45:27the drivers, how they're arranged.

0:45:29There's all these different other factors,

0:45:31and a lot of those can't be corrected in EQ.

0:45:33So what I'm judging here, this is a huge preamble I know,

0:45:36this is almost John level of preamble,

0:45:37what I'm judging here, I'm trying to listen to like,

0:45:40what is the speaker capable of,

0:45:42and then what is it doing now,

0:45:43as like kind of two separate things.

0:45:45Because what it's doing now could be adjusted

0:45:47with software over time,

0:45:48what it's capable of, for the most part, can't.

0:45:50- And speaking of these frequency response curves

0:45:52and phase stuff or whatever,

0:45:54one of the things that that Dirac Live software

0:45:56that I've talked about in the past,

0:45:57like an app that you run on your Mac or PC,

0:45:59that talks to your receiver, that measures your speakers with stereo, with the microphone

0:46:04that you put where your head would be, it takes these frequency response curves and

0:46:08it will level them out with very detailed EQ and everything, and it will also tell you

0:46:13these speakers are out of phase, there's destructive interference over here, like that's what those

0:46:19applications do, because you can't really do it by ear, you need sort of equipment to

0:46:22do it, and if you have your speakers wired the wrong way, if you have your subwoofer

0:46:29phase switch the wrong way, if your crossover is in the wrong spot, this software will tell

0:46:33you because you might not know what you're supposed to, I certainly don't, what I'm supposed

0:46:36to be listening for or I hear this, I know this wrong, but the software will literally

0:46:40tell you until you get your thing sounding as good as it possibly can with your equipment,

0:46:45which is actually fairly challenging.

0:46:47Presumably, HomePods are doing something similar internally, but all they can do is change

0:46:52the sound that comes out of them.

0:46:54I don't think they ever demand that you move them.

0:46:56Like hey, nobody puts HomePod in a corner.

0:46:58What am I doing?

0:46:59and a picture frame is blocking me,

0:47:01but my HomePod is, by the way,

0:47:02behind a bunch of fractured pictures of my dog,

0:47:04'cause I don't care what it sounds like.

0:47:05And I bet it hates that,

0:47:06because it's like the worst environment.

0:47:08Like it's in a corner, it's got glass pictures in front of it.

0:47:12- Blocked by glass, oh God.

0:47:14- I'm listening to podcasts on you, HomePod,

0:47:16and most of the time you do nothing,

0:47:17and usually you can't even turn off my lights,

0:47:19so shut up and take it.

0:47:20But anyway, the D-Rack software does help

0:47:24with stuff like that, and it is fun to kind of tweak manually

0:47:27But the HomePod is like, I'll do that all for you.

0:47:29And presumably it does a passable job.

0:47:31- And one other quick thing, you know,

0:47:33John just mentioned like the alleged phenomenon

0:47:36of break-in periods for headphones or speakers.

0:47:40This has been pretty widely discredited

0:47:43as a thing that's real.

0:47:44What is real is that your perception of the sound adjusts.

0:47:49Like, so it's not that the speakers are being broken in,

0:47:54it's that your ears are being broken in,

0:47:55Like your brain's being broken in.

0:47:57That's what's actually happening.

0:47:58And so if there is something about a particular transducer

0:48:02that is different from what you are used to before that,

0:48:06over time you get used to that.

0:48:07You stop hearing it as like,

0:48:09oh that's weirdly harsh or different.

0:48:11That just becomes what you think of as normal.

0:48:12It's almost like the way your eyes

0:48:14perform automatic white balancing.

0:48:16You know, it's the same thing for sound.

0:48:17Your brain's being broken in.

0:48:18And then finally, how I was A/B testing them.

0:48:22What you wanna do if you're comparing speakers,

0:48:25like this, you want to be able to play the same thing

0:48:28on all of them and to be able to switch between them

0:48:30as quickly as possible.

0:48:32If you have to unplug stuff, start something,

0:48:34or start something, it becomes much harder.

0:48:37If the difference between them is more than a couple

0:48:39of seconds, it becomes much harder to remember

0:48:42how that sounded and try to compare.

0:48:44You can't rely on memory for much here.

0:48:47You have to be, it has to be quick,

0:48:49being able to transition between them quickly.

0:48:51That's how you can really tell the differences.

0:48:52And when you can do that, the differences become

0:48:55very apparent.

0:48:56So the way I do this, I use AirPlay,

0:48:58and I play to all of them at the same time,

0:49:01and as a group in the AirPlay selector,

0:49:04and then you drop down the AirPlay selector

0:49:06so you get individual volume sliders for each speaker,

0:49:08and I just would drag to zero the ones I wasn't listening to

0:49:11and drag up the one that I was testing,

0:49:13and then quickly swap that, drag that one down,

0:49:15drag this one up.

0:49:16- Did you do the thing where you drag all the sliders down

0:49:19except for one pair and then shake that pair

0:49:22and then drag all the sliders down except for another pair

0:49:24and then shake that pair, because what you want them to do

0:49:26is to adjust to their acoustic environment

0:49:28when other speakers aren't playing in their face,

0:49:31you know what I mean?

0:49:32- I did not do that, I probably should have done that,

0:49:33but I didn't.

0:49:35But again, I think, again, I want to not lean too heavily

0:49:39on the specifics of whatever the adaptive EQ processing

0:49:43is doing at that moment.

0:49:45Because again, that can change,

0:49:46that changes a lot with environment.

0:49:48- But that's gonna change the sound of the speakers, too.

0:49:50- Trust me, it doesn't change sound like this.

0:49:52- All right, well then.

0:49:54So my opening, so first let me cover the, you know,

0:49:57the non-sound aspects first.

0:49:59Aesthetics, physical design, the new HomePod compared

0:50:02to the old one is very similar overall looking.

0:50:05You would only notice the differences if you saw them

0:50:07side by side for the most part because it still looks like

0:50:10approximately the same size cylinder, it has the same

0:50:14material on the outside, at least the white ones,

0:50:16I don't have the black ones to compare.

0:50:17- Is it skinny or is that just an optical illusion

0:50:19because the top disk is bigger?

0:50:21- I think it just, if you look at the measurements,

0:50:23they're very similar, like it's slightly shorter,

0:50:25it might be a little bit fatter,

0:50:26but it just, it looks like the same kind of object.

0:50:29You could change them out and the less observant

0:50:32or less caring members of your household wouldn't notice,

0:50:34until you touch the top.

0:50:36The biggest difference you'll notice is that the top screen,

0:50:39the quote screen, the top LED color visualizer thing,

0:50:43now goes all the way to the edge and is bigger.

0:50:46It is also kind of, it's inset instead of being convex,

0:50:48but that honestly doesn't matter in practice.

0:50:51maybe it'll collect dust a little bit differently,

0:50:53but otherwise, as you tap it to dust it off,

0:50:56you'll blast your Foo Fighters at night again.

0:50:57But anyway, with the previous one,

0:50:59when it was totally not playing anything,

0:51:02like just sitting there idle or off,

0:51:04you wouldn't see the plus and minus

0:51:06that indicated the volume buttons.

0:51:07They were themselves individually lit

0:51:10little white LED things that would turn off,

0:51:12so it would just look like a flat white surface.

0:51:15The new one, the plus and minus

0:51:16are permanently etched in there,

0:51:18so they're just like, they're drawn on the top,

0:51:20so you can always see the plus and minus.

0:51:21Some people saw this as a downgrade,

0:51:23I see this as a positive thing

0:51:24because if you nudge your HomePod on the counter

0:51:27as you're working on your kitchen counter accidentally

0:51:29and you wanna reset it and make sure it's aligned correctly,

0:51:32you can just look at the plus and minus, it's always there,

0:51:34and you can say, oh, now it's straight, okay.

0:51:37So that to me is an improvement.

0:51:39The wider color panel of the LEDs on top,

0:51:43I don't think it's an improvement.

0:51:44When it's just playing,

0:51:46it does the same thing as a HomePod Mini.

0:51:48If you have a HomePod Mini, it's that same pattern.

0:51:50So when it's just playing, it's showing this kind of like

0:51:53soft white glow from the middle, and that's fine.

0:51:56When Siri is processing, it's attempting to do that kind of

0:52:00Siri like multicolor pulsing logo thing,

0:52:03and it does it across the whole service,

0:52:05and this is now a pretty big service,

0:52:07and so it kind of looks garish,

0:52:10and I don't think this panel needed to,

0:52:11I don't think the LEDs needed to go all the way to the edge

0:52:13the way they do now, and if they were looking to cut cost

0:52:16somewhere, I don't know why they didn't cut cost there,

0:52:18because that seems to serve no real purpose,

0:52:23except looking garish during serial requests

0:52:25and showing this weird rainbow light show

0:52:27at a scale that I don't think it was designed for.

0:52:31It looks better on the smaller ones,

0:52:32but it doesn't look good on the big size.

0:52:34- It's interesting that this is like a thing

0:52:36that Apple hasn't done in ages

0:52:39and didn't really do that much before,

0:52:41which is have lights on their devices

0:52:44try to imbue some kind of personality.

0:52:47We've talked about the breathing sleep light way back when on the laptops or the glowing Apple logo on the the back of the old laptop

0:52:53screens

0:52:54In general if Apple wants to do something to him to imbue a device with dynamic personality

0:53:00They use a screen and still on all the home pods

0:53:03No screens and I can't recall the last time I saw them say, okay

0:53:06We're not gonna have a screen

0:53:08But what we want to do what they want to do is like when if you hold down like the power button on your phone

0:53:12You see that Siri colored blob thing

0:53:14This is like well if we could we'd show the Siri colored blob things

0:53:18That's our branding for Siri when you're interacting with it, whatever that colored blob thing that waves around a cool little animation

0:53:23Why don't we show that well, we can't we don't have a screen

0:53:25Well, can we show like a really blurry version of that with just a bunch of RGB LEDs under like a translucent frosted surface

0:53:32It's like we could but it's but I feel like that doesn't accomplish

0:53:36The branding because it's like it's it reminds you of the branding

0:53:41But it's like the branding is trapped underneath cloudy glass and you can't really see it and the second thing is

0:53:46Like what value does that add does it look does it look good does it put on a laser light show does it does it?

0:53:53Indicate something to you from a distance any more than like just a single LED would or something like that

0:53:57It's a strange gesture to spend that much time and space on a thing that isn't a screen

0:54:03And I'm not particularly against it like I mean I don't mind it on mine or whatever

0:54:08It just reminds me of an older Apple that wanted to put

0:54:13these type of sort of, I don't know,

0:54:15like a appearance personality, dynamic appearance

0:54:18personality into their hardware that is not a screen.

0:54:22And we keep waiting for a HomePod-like device

0:54:25with a screen on it, but it's not this one.

0:54:26- To some extent, I actually don't mind it not being

0:54:29a screen just because in most contexts where you'd put

0:54:32these things, you don't really have a lot of visibility

0:54:34onto that top surface anyway.

0:54:36Like it's not like, you can't see it from across the room.

0:54:38Having the screen face, the ceiling is not great, yeah.

0:54:41- Right, so anyway, so that's the physical stuff aside,

0:54:44I did replace the power cords with nice shorter ones now,

0:54:47they came in today and I'm super happy about that,

0:54:49that's nice, but anyway, so onto the sound,

0:54:52this is what everybody wants to know, does it sound,

0:54:54but frankly, all the reviews are like,

0:54:59yeah, it sounds pretty much the same.

0:55:01It doesn't, it does not sound pretty much the same,

0:55:03it sounds surprisingly different,

0:55:05much more different than I thought it would.

0:55:07I'm gonna start easily the bass.

0:55:09It is lighter, the bass is lighter.

0:55:12However, there are asterisks on this.

0:55:15In general, the new ones have less bass

0:55:18at medium to high volume,

0:55:19and they have actually a lower maximum volume.

0:55:24The old ones go louder.

0:55:26Now this is all relative.

0:55:28These are still really impressive for their size,

0:55:31and anything else that's anywhere near their size,

0:55:34You know, when you compare them to other multi hundred dollar premium, you know,

0:55:39smart speakers or self powered speakers,

0:55:41usually what people compare these to are much larger than them because things,

0:55:45the things that cost $300 are usually much larger than them.

0:55:48But in this size class, they do shockingly well at base and volume.

0:55:53If you have a large room, again, going back to the home theater thing,

0:55:57it might not be enough. That being said, for their size, still great,

0:56:01Still plenty of bass, but it is definitely a reduction

0:56:04in bass strength from before.

0:56:06That's at medium to high volumes.

0:56:08Now, at lower volumes, it seems like there's

0:56:11plenty of bass there.

0:56:12And what I think they are doing-- a lot of people

0:56:14don't realize this, but in any kind of speaker that

0:56:16has some kind of processing going on that isn't just

0:56:20like an amp connected to some wired speakers

0:56:22that you turn the knob and it gets louder,

0:56:24in most other modern powered speakers that

0:56:27have their own kind of DSP stuff built in,

0:56:30many of them will actually dynamically ramp the bass down

0:56:34as the volume goes up.

0:56:35And there are multiple reasons for this,

0:56:37but the two key ones are, number one,

0:56:41it sounds really nice to have relatively strong bass

0:56:45when it's turned down lower.

0:56:47It sounds like a more premium, nice, rich experience.

0:56:51But if you take that exact same amount of bass

0:56:54that's down low, and you'll see this in Bose products,

0:56:56like this is a common thing,

0:56:57or like any of the fancy power speaker brands,

0:57:01B&O, B&W, some of us might even do this

0:57:04in some of their power stuff.

0:57:05I'm not positive on that,

0:57:06but anything that does processing on the sound,

0:57:09at low volumes, the bass will be proportionally

0:57:12much more strong than if you turn it up a lot,

0:57:16it would sound ridiculous if the bass was that strong

0:57:18at the high volume, so they actually ramp it down.

0:57:21Part of that is because again, it sounds better that way,

0:57:23makes it sound better at lower volumes

0:57:25without having the negatives of very loud bass,

0:57:28of like, when you turn it up, you wouldn't want it to like,

0:57:30you know, be really boomy and like vibrate things

0:57:32in your house or, you know, anger at your neighbors

0:57:35or whatever else.

0:57:36I think it's doing that to a pretty strong degree.

0:57:39I haven't measured that, I didn't have time

0:57:40or equipment, frankly, to measure that,

0:57:43but it sounds like it's doing dynamic bass roll off

0:57:45as the volume goes up.

0:57:46And I think for a product of this category,

0:57:48that's the right choice.

0:57:49The other reason somebody might not wanna have bass

0:57:52that strong at high volumes is,

0:57:54it takes a very powerful amp to deliver high volume bass.

0:57:58I think in a lot of these products,

0:58:00the amp just is not spec'd for that much power.

0:58:02The old HomePod had a custom designed main woofer amp.

0:58:07I tried to look at the specs for it,

0:58:09nobody really has them

0:58:10'cause it's a custom designed chip from this company.

0:58:12As far as I can tell, no one has figured out yet

0:58:15what the chip is in the new HomePod,

0:58:17so I couldn't find any information to compare,

0:58:19like does the bass amp actually have less wattage

0:58:23or less power potential in the new one.

0:58:26I would speculate that it probably does.

0:58:28- And by the way, this is why if you have

0:58:29a individual component set up and you have a receiver

0:58:32that puts out however many watts per channel,

0:58:34the subwoofer that you buy will plug into the wall

0:58:37because it has its own amplifier.

0:58:39- Yes, powered subwoofers are the way to go.

0:58:42- Right, 'cause it doesn't like,

0:58:44two things in receivers, one, no matter how much power

0:58:46per channel they say in the receiver,

0:58:48it's like whatever, 150 watts per channel,

0:58:50still it's a hangover of historical things.

0:58:53That number you see, like 150 watts,

0:58:55that's for two channels.

0:58:57They don't, if you put seven speakers,

0:58:59you don't get 150 watts on all seven of the speakers.

0:59:03The math doesn't add up real fast,

0:59:04but for historical reasons,

0:59:06because stereo receivers used to just be like that,

0:59:08that is still the standard.

0:59:10And not only that,

0:59:11but the manufacturer won't even tell you

0:59:13how many watts you get if you hook up seven speakers.

0:59:15And then yes, the point one for the subwoofer,

0:59:18that's a powered subwoofer.

0:59:19That plugs into a different outlet in a wall.

0:59:21It's got its own amplifier.

0:59:22The other thing to consider, by saying it has less bass,

0:59:26that even could be, again, this could be software.

0:59:29It has an internal microphone to measure the bass response

0:59:32and any kind of resonances and stuff.

0:59:34It might just be throttling its own bass

0:59:37to prevent vibration and stuff.

0:59:38So there's all sorts of things that go into this.

0:59:40So in short, it sounds, compared to the old one,

0:59:43it sounds like there's less bass at high volume,

0:59:46but at low volume it sounds about the same

0:59:48and might even have more.

0:59:49It sounds very pleasant on the bass

0:59:52at moderate to low volumes, I'll tell you that for sure.

0:59:55So anyway, that's the bass.

0:59:57The mid-range and the treble.

1:00:00This is now, we're moving into the tweeters.

1:00:02And by the way, this is one of the biggest reasons

1:00:04why the HomePod Mini, which only has one speaker cone

1:00:08in there, it uses a quote passive radiator design

1:00:11for the bass, I'm not entirely sure what those do,

1:00:15but the Mini effectively is one speaker cone in there,

1:00:18like one driver.

1:00:20And the HomePod, as we know, has the one big

1:00:23four inch woofer that faces, I think, up from the middle,

1:00:26and then it has formerly seven, now five,

1:00:29tweeters around the bottom.

1:00:31And the whole reason for this is to separate these out,

1:00:35if you want something to be able to produce bass,

1:00:38you need a pretty large speaker cone

1:00:41that moves in big waves forward and back.

1:00:44That's how you make good bass.

1:00:46but a very large speaker cone has a lot of mass to move,

1:00:50and if you want to make something that produces

1:00:52very good high frequency sounds, like in the treble range,

1:00:55you actually want as little mass moving as possible,

1:00:58because you want it to be vibrating really small,

1:01:00really fast, and so it's kind of impossible

1:01:03to physically design the same speaker cone,

1:01:05like one speaker cone, that does really good bass

1:01:07and really good treble.

1:01:09That's why when you have nicer speakers,

1:01:11they tend to have more drivers,

1:01:13and they cover different size classes basically.

1:01:16You might have a few woofers or one big woofer

1:01:18and usually you have like maybe a mid-range driver,

1:01:21maybe a little tiny tweeter,

1:01:22or you'll have just a woofer and a tweeter,

1:01:24but that's why there's a separator.

1:01:25And so you might think that when you go from

1:01:28the old HomePod with the seven tweeters

1:01:30to the new HomePod with five,

1:01:31you might think this would hurt its treble performance

1:01:34in some meaningful way.

1:01:36And I can tell you that the treble and the mid-range

1:01:40sound way better on the new one.

1:01:44It is the opposite of what you think it would be.

1:01:47The new one, treble and mid-range sound awesome.

1:01:51I am a huge snob for these things.

1:01:55I don't care that much about bass.

1:01:57I care a lot about mid-range and a little bit about treble.

1:02:00I care about vocals sounding smooth,

1:02:03guitars sounding smooth, and having them be present,

1:02:07having them be right there hitting you in the face

1:02:09in the middle of the mix.

1:02:10Oftentimes what cheap, crappy speakers and headphones

1:02:12will do is they'll have kind of a weak response

1:02:15in that kind of mid-range vocals and guitars

1:02:17and pianos kind of area.

1:02:19It almost gets pushed back in the mix

1:02:21so you don't hear it too much.

1:02:22You know, they'll like crank up the response

1:02:24for the bass and treble so that it kind of,

1:02:26you know, kind of masks the crappy, distorted,

1:02:30you know, harsh mid-range they have in the middle there.

1:02:33And I don't like that.

1:02:34I wanna hear really clear, crisp vocals

1:02:37and really strong, smooth guitars.

1:02:40That's what I want in my music.

1:02:41That's my favorite part of the music.

1:02:43Very, very few speakers or headphones

1:02:46are able to deliver that very well.

1:02:48The whole reason I love my KEF or KEF,

1:02:51I don't know what it is,

1:02:52that series of the Q150, the Q350,

1:02:55they have the best mid-range I've ever heard in a speaker.

1:02:58The whole reason I love my ridiculously old,

1:03:02super high-needs, HiFiMan HE6 headphones

1:03:06is because they have the best mid-range

1:03:08I've ever heard in headphones.

1:03:09These new full-size home pods have really great mid-range.

1:03:14Smoothness, detail, lack of harshness,

1:03:18lack of distortion in the mid-range.

1:03:20It's amazing in these new home pods.

1:03:23And so this makes vocals sound better.

1:03:25Pianos, guitars, like the kind of, you know,

1:03:28the main like middle of the frequency range.

1:03:30Those all sound really great.

1:03:33What I'm trying to get away from,

1:03:34Like when I talk about mid-range distortion,

1:03:36what this kind of sounds like is,

1:03:38you know those bands came out like in the early 2000s

1:03:41where it sounds kind of like they're talking through a phone

1:03:44as they're singing like, rar, I can't even do it.

1:03:48It's like, is it The Strokes, The Killers, whatever?

1:03:51Those kind of bands, and they did it intentionally,

1:03:54you know, that that was part of their style,

1:03:55but it sounds like kind of a crunchy filter on the vocals

1:04:00or it's kind of like you're talking through an old telephone.

1:04:03that kind of sound effect.

1:04:05Crappy mid-range on speakers and headphones

1:04:08makes all vocals sound a little bit like that.

1:04:11It's like a little bit of distortion in the mid-range

1:04:13that does not sound good.

1:04:15And the opposite of that is when things sound clear.

1:04:18It just sounds like someone's there

1:04:19singing in the room with you.

1:04:21In audio terms, people talk about,

1:04:22they use the word transparency.

1:04:24And what you want, and unfortunately,

1:04:26this is kind of a, it's a tricky term

1:04:29'cause everyone's definition of transparent

1:04:31is different in audio, but the idea of transparency is

1:04:35you don't notice the speaker, you don't notice the headphone,

1:04:38it just sounds like the music is there in the room.

1:04:40It isn't imparting a bunch of, you know,

1:04:42filters or effects or noticeable artifacts on the music,

1:04:46it is just, it sounds natural.

1:04:49That's how these sound in the mid-range and the treble

1:04:52way more than the old ones.

1:04:54And the old ones sounded great overall,

1:04:56but when you do a side-by-side comparison,

1:04:57it's no contest, mid-range and treble are way,

1:05:01way nicer and clearer and better on the new ones.

1:05:04Frankly, I'm blown away.

1:05:06I'm so happy with how good these are in that area.

1:05:09Again, if you compare these,

1:05:11put on whatever track you like,

1:05:12but if you really wanna hear the kind of differences,

1:05:14put on a track that has like a singer with a piano

1:05:17or something, or like a singer with a guitar,

1:05:18like one of those, you know, there's not a ton going on,

1:05:21you can just hear that, and you will hear,

1:05:23there's a pretty substantial difference between the two.

1:05:26And so whatever they did to reduce from seven tweeters

1:05:29to five, I can tell you not only is not a downgrade,

1:05:32it's a massive upgrade.

1:05:34Just overall, the new HomePod in those ranges,

1:05:38and even frankly in the base,

1:05:39it just sounds way better overall.

1:05:42- What they might have done is bought five

1:05:44slightly more expensive tweeters instead of seven

1:05:46slightly less expensive tweeters.

1:05:47You know what I mean?

1:05:48Spend a similar amount of money,

1:05:49but get a higher quality thing.

1:05:52And speaking of the way you're describing about

1:05:54sort of the transparency of the mid-range stuff.

1:05:56I watched a review recently.

1:05:57They were reviewing receivers, believe it or not.

1:06:01Like, you know, they had a set of speakers

1:06:03that was the same through all the tests,

1:06:04but they were saying, with a given set of speakers

1:06:07that we think are these fancy high-end speakers, whatever,

1:06:09that the receivers were imparting a,

1:06:12some receivers would impart a personality

1:06:15on things like vocals in the mid-range or whatever,

1:06:17and they described it by brand,

1:06:18that these, some particular brands,

1:06:20like I think it was like, Marantz,

1:06:22some other fancy expensive one had a more rounded sound

1:06:26and they said like NAD was 100% neutral right in the middle

1:06:29and didn't impart any personality on the sound whatsoever

1:06:32and then they had the other one was like,

1:06:34like Sony or Yamaha that was more of a,

1:06:37more of a sharp or sparkly sound.

1:06:40If you had to, I know these words are so bad

1:06:41'cause if you watch a lot of--

1:06:43- I would caution that there is a lot of placebo effect

1:06:46in a lot of those kind of judgments.

1:06:47- Well, but I know what they're talking about.

1:06:49As someone who's not an audiophile,

1:06:51You like ever I think is everyone has heard something where the what you talked about even with podcasting of a sibilance

1:06:58But with the treble is too sharp, right?

1:07:00The the that is just too kind of spiky in your ears and then the more rounded one like Casey would like on vinyl where?

1:07:07All the edges are cut off of everything that sounds like someone singing through a sock, but people

1:07:11Sharp edges, right

1:07:17It smooths off all the sharp edges.

1:07:18And then neutral.

1:07:20Lots of people have bad things to say about audio devices

1:07:23that are like, if you use something to measure it,

1:07:27like I'm gonna objectively measure the frequency response.

1:07:29Wow, look at this frequency response.

1:07:30It's just, it's exactly, almost exactly level.

1:07:33It's extremely neutral.

1:07:34It doesn't impart anything.

1:07:35It's just perfectly clean,

1:07:37and you hear things through that, and people go,

1:07:39"Yeah, I don't like how much that sounds."

1:07:41It sounds better on one of the ones that is less neutral,

1:07:43that does more to the sound

1:07:45instead of just having like a completely flat frequency response but instead accentuates

1:07:50whatever part of the sound that they like.

1:07:52In your case you like the mids and the highs, some people might like it accentuated in the

1:07:56bass.

1:07:57That's not a neutral profile, whether it's done with EQ or done with processing or done

1:08:02as part of the nature of the set of drivers they have.

1:08:06The difficulty with audio equipment is that it's not something that you can measure scientifically

1:08:12and say this one has the flattest frequent response,

1:08:14therefore it's the best, or it has least distortion,

1:08:17flattest frequency response,

1:08:18like it's all scientifically accurate,

1:08:19and then you'll put it next to something

1:08:21that just has way more bass than is in the original recording

1:08:24and people will like that better if they like bass.

1:08:26And in your case, I feel like if you get the mids

1:08:29and the treble accentuated more than some people might like it,

1:08:33that's exactly what you want out of it.

1:08:35So that's why audio reviews are so difficult,

1:08:37and that's why they come up with all these different words for it.

1:08:40And even in the receiver view, they weren't saying

1:08:41that one of those that spectrum was worse or better,

1:08:44they're saying it depends on what you want.

1:08:46And the example they gave was the NAD one,

1:08:48which is super expensive, extremely neutral thing

1:08:50or whatever, is that some people hate that.

1:08:52Some people think it sounds quote unquote dead

1:08:54and they'd rather have one of the other brands

1:08:56that imparts more quote unquote personality on the sound,

1:09:00depending on what personality they want in the sound,

1:09:03depending on what part of the sound

1:09:04is important for them to hear.

1:09:06And honestly, for people our age and older,

1:09:08depending on what frequencies they can still hear.

1:09:10- Right.

1:09:11- Yeah.

1:09:12- And they're decrepit old age.

1:09:13That's why very often young children

1:09:15have very different ideas about what sounds good

1:09:17and what doesn't when it comes to music.

1:09:19- Setting aside whether amps really make that big

1:09:22of a noticeable difference on the sound quality,

1:09:24which I question honestly,

1:09:26in my experience they really don't, but--

1:09:29- The receivers aren't acting as amplifiers here,

1:09:31that's because the receivers are doing processing.

1:09:33- Oh, okay, right.

1:09:34- Everything is doing processing now,

1:09:35so that's what they're saying,

1:09:37that the processing that these things are putting,

1:09:39It's not just straight up, it's not like an analog amplifier

1:09:41where they're measuring it that way.

1:09:42- Right, right.

1:09:43But like, and it's funny, there's a long time ago,

1:09:45decades ago, I think, the Harman Audio Company

1:09:48developed this thing called the Harman Curve,

1:09:49and this is through some kind of scientific

1:09:52or survey-based method, whatever it was,

1:09:55they'd advise like, what people actually want

1:09:58out of an ideal frequency response is not flat.

1:10:01It's not like perfectly even reproducing of all frequencies.

1:10:03It's a certain curve that people find most desirable,

1:10:06and they publish this as the Harman Curve,

1:10:09and over the last many decades,

1:10:12the manufacturers of audio gear

1:10:14have been slowly trying to make their stuff

1:10:16more closely match the Harmon Curve.

1:10:18And this kills me because I don't like the Harmon Curve.

1:10:23I find it sounds really boring.

1:10:25- And it's not that the Harmon Curve is arbitrary,

1:10:28but it is subjective, right?

1:10:30It's not completely arbitrary,

1:10:31'cause I'm sure they did ask people

1:10:33what they thought sounded better.

1:10:34But people are different.

1:10:35First of all, people's physical hearing is different,

1:10:37but second of all, people's taste is different.

1:10:38So targeting a matching of any particular curve exactly is,

1:10:43unless you know what your curve is

1:10:46and your name is Mr. Harmon or Mrs. Harmon,

1:10:48you don't know, that's why you have to sort of

1:10:52adjust the thing to your liking

1:10:54and listen to things against each other

1:10:56to decide which one actually sounds better to you.

1:10:58But there is some scientific basis,

1:11:00like the things you mentioned, distortion or like that,

1:11:03for example, if you look at a curve and it just drops off

1:11:05before you even get close to the low frequencies,

1:11:07you know that's not gonna have any bass,

1:11:08or if it goes off a cliff before it gets to the highs,

1:11:10that's gonna suck too.

1:11:12So there is a room for a scientific assessment

1:11:15of the sounds that can and can't be reproduced

1:11:18by a sound system, or sounds that can and can't be

1:11:20reproduced by a sound system without massive distortion

1:11:23that destroys it.

1:11:24But once you start getting into the details,

1:11:26okay, now I'm making a decision.

1:11:29Do I want the Harman curve?

1:11:30Do I want something different than the Harman curve?

1:11:32What you want is whatever frequency response

1:11:35is desirable for you, you want to be able to hear that

1:11:38without distortion of the volumes you wanna listen.

1:11:40- Yeah, exactly.

1:11:41And frankly, I have looked at so many

1:11:44frequency response graphs trying to figure out,

1:11:46like before I wanna buy a pair of headphones,

1:11:48trying to figure out like, is this what I want?

1:11:49Is this gonna sound good to me?

1:11:51And it's so rare that my expectations

1:11:55from the frequency response graph have matched

1:11:57how happy I am with the actual thing when I get it.

1:12:00All these other factors are at play,

1:12:01so you really need to like kinda try this stuff out yourself.

1:12:04it's really hard to get much out of a frequency response

1:12:06graph that could tell you, am I going to like this or not,

1:12:09or is this good or not?

1:12:10- Do you look at the frequency response graph

1:12:12from the Dave2D YouTube video,

1:12:14which we'll put in the show notes?

1:12:16- I do.

1:12:17- It's hard to see in that when we put it in the show notes,

1:12:18but if you look at the actual video,

1:12:19and you just look at HomePod one versus two?

1:12:22- Yes, and I see that, and it's funny,

1:12:25so his conclusion, I like Dave2D, he's good,

1:12:28but his conclusion here was kinda like,

1:12:30oh yeah, they sound about the same,

1:12:31but if you look at this frequency response graph,

1:12:33there are gaps of like five, eight decibels

1:12:37like between some of the, like those are big gaps.

1:12:40- Like look right in the middle,

1:12:41look right in the mid range, the HomePod is an orange

1:12:44and there's a huge dip in the mid range there

1:12:47and then a little bit past the mid range,

1:12:48past one kilohertz, there's a huge spike on the new HomePod,

1:12:51that to me is a big difference

1:12:53because that's kind of the area you're talking about,

1:12:54isn't it, kind of the mid range, the middle of that graph

1:12:57and the HomePod one has a big divot cut out of it

1:13:00and the HomePod two is level and then has a big spike

1:13:03at the higher frequencies,

1:13:04and that is obviously the Marco spike.

1:13:06That's the part that you like.

1:13:08- And then as you get into the treble range,

1:13:09above the 10K, you start seeing,

1:13:12there's like a 10 decibel gap in frequency ranges

1:13:15that are still audible.

1:13:16So you can see what I'm talking about in this graph.

1:13:19It's not gonna tell you exactly how the thing sounds.

1:13:22You gotta hear it for yourself.

1:13:23But Apple, in recent years,

1:13:25especially with the AirPods, and in my case,

1:13:28I don't have any real experience with the regular AirPods

1:13:31'cause they wouldn't really fit me,

1:13:32but the AirPod Pros in particular.

1:13:34And also even the AirPod Max,

1:13:36which I wish those were comfortable on me

1:13:38'cause they sound really good.

1:13:39But Apple has really mastered a certain frequency mix

1:13:44that sounds really, really good,

1:13:47but yet not offensive to pretty much anybody.

1:13:50It's a great kind of all-arounder.

1:13:53It's not the Harman curve,

1:13:55but it probably isn't too far from it, if I had to guess.

1:13:58I don't have it in front of me,

1:13:59but because what Apple, like Apple's recent

1:14:03high end speaker designs, again, AirPods Pro,

1:14:05AirPods Max, HomePod, they all, they sound really good.

1:14:10Even like their built in speakers

1:14:11on a lot of their computers now,

1:14:12like you know, the built in speakers on the studio display

1:14:15or on like some of the laptops,

1:14:16like you know, obviously within the realm

1:14:18of what you can do in those size, you know,

1:14:20classifications and you know, the space you have

1:14:22in the enclosures and stuff and the budget,

1:14:24they do surprisingly well.

1:14:25Like Apple's really good at making stuff

1:14:27that sounds pretty good to pretty much everybody.

1:14:30And this is not Beats.

1:14:34Beats had a much more personality in their sound,

1:14:38that was much more bass heavy.

1:14:39They would frequently withdraw the mid-rings,

1:14:42you'd hear boom, boom.

1:14:44And sometimes I wish they would add EQs

1:14:47to some of their products, but in this case,

1:14:50with the exception of how much bass you want,

1:14:52and there is a setting that you can say reduce bass,

1:14:54which as far as I can tell, I tried it out,

1:14:56As far as I can tell, it seems to just be like

1:14:59a high pass filter, but like it just lets

1:15:00the running frequency above maybe like 100 hertz

1:15:02or something like that, like it cuts out

1:15:04all of the bass below that, so you really don't want that

1:15:07unless you're in like a situation like maybe

1:15:09if you're in an apartment with thin walls

1:15:10or if you know, the sound travels through the floor

1:15:12and you wanna be able to watch movies with it,

1:15:14you know that's a different story,

1:15:15but for most listening, I wouldn't recommend

1:15:17using that setting if you can help it.

1:15:19But that's the only setting they have

1:15:21to control the audio of this product.

1:15:22And I wish there was maybe a little more control

1:15:25over the bass, because I would ask for a little bit more

1:15:27out of it sometimes.

1:15:29Some people would ask for a little bit less,

1:15:30and that seems to be the main holdup.

1:15:32But again, for the most part, they've made a product here

1:15:34that sounds really great, and really great

1:15:38to pretty much everybody, I think.

1:15:39Now, a few more details on the sound before I move on.

1:15:41What I would describe it most is transparent.

1:15:44You really don't notice the speaker.

1:15:47Music just sounds good.

1:15:48You do get, in a stereo pair,

1:15:51you do get the larger sound stage,

1:15:53And what that, that's a term of art in the audio world.

1:15:56Basically means like, how big does the sound source

1:16:00sound like it is?

1:16:01Like, does it sound like you're hearing music

1:16:03from a huge wide area?

1:16:05Or is it something that's all coming out

1:16:06of like one little point, you know?

1:16:08And when you have a stereo pair,

1:16:11physics are helping you a lot.

1:16:12This is why sound bars suck.

1:16:14This is why individual speakers

1:16:15are not as good as stereo pairs.

1:16:16What the hell, Siri?

1:16:19My watch keys, I don't know.

1:16:22Why is my watch?

1:16:23Oh, 'cause I'm moving my hand while talking,

1:16:24'cause I'm Italian.

1:16:25All right. (laughs)

1:16:27Anyway, the soundstage on these,

1:16:29like how big the sound space sounds,

1:16:33even on just one, even when comparing single speakers,

1:16:37the new HomePod soundstage is much wider,

1:16:41much larger than the old one.

1:16:43And when you hear the stereo pair,

1:16:45again, it's not as big of a difference

1:16:47as when comparing individuals,

1:16:48'cause stereo, again, it's helping with physics there,

1:16:50but you get a larger soundstage.

1:16:53It sounds airier, it sounds like there's,

1:16:55it's coming from a larger space.

1:16:57That's a very good thing.

1:16:59I did one comparison, 'cause people have often asked,

1:17:01like if they already have a HomePod Mini,

1:17:03or if they have two HomePod Minis,

1:17:05'cause they're, I mean, they're so inexpensive.

1:17:07And then people have often asked, like, what's better,

1:17:10a single large HomePod, or a stereo pair of HomePod Minis?

1:17:15I did that test.

1:17:16The single large HomePod I would still prefer in most cases,

1:17:19just because the soundstage is actually

1:17:22not that much worse than two HomePod Minis and the rest of the audio just sounds so much

1:17:28better.

1:17:29The vocals, the mid rings, it just sounds so much better on the big one.

1:17:33So I would say compared to two Minis a single large HomePod is better for most people's

1:17:39uses.

1:17:40When compared to the HomePod Mini in a stereo pair, stereo pair versus stereo pair, again

1:17:46the HomePod Mini is a very small speaker.

1:17:48It's very, very small.

1:17:50And again, there's only one driver in there.

1:17:51And it's a third the price, you know, about a third to a quarter the size.

1:17:56So it's this is not a fair comparison and it shows the HomePod mini is a great product

1:18:01for its price and size.

1:18:04But the large HomePod totally destroys it in audio quality.

1:18:08And that's again, that's just the nature of this difference here.

1:18:11Like that's that's a big difference in physicality there.

1:18:13The big HomePods have much larger soundstage, much better treble response, much better bass

1:18:19response, much smoother and better mid-range.

1:18:23The HomePod Mini has the problem I was talking about before where the vocals and guitars

1:18:27are kind of withdrawn, they're kind of pushed back in the mix.

1:18:31It just isn't doing a good job of reproducing those.

1:18:33So the full-size HomePods are a large step above the Minis.

1:18:38People often ask about how the HomePods compare

1:18:41to just speakers, regular bookshelf-sized speakers

1:18:45or countertop or desktop monitors,

1:18:48whatever size speakers you think are similar to HomePods,

1:18:51which by the way, their HomePods are way smaller

1:18:53than most bookshelf speakers,

1:18:54but anyway, that's beside the point.

1:18:56How they compare to bookshelf speakers,

1:18:57and I would say I have heard better bookshelf speakers

1:19:01than the HomePods.

1:19:02I just said my KEF Q150s are better sounding in most ways.

1:19:08They also have way less bass.

1:19:10I need a subwoofer with them.

1:19:11I don't need a subwoofer with the HomePods

1:19:12for the most part.

1:19:13And they're way bigger, like way bigger.

1:19:16Comparing it to bookshelf speakers is not super useful

1:19:20'cause they're just so much smaller

1:19:22and don't need to be amplified and everything else.

1:19:23But then also, where the HomePods really shine

1:19:27is a situation like where I have them

1:19:28where they're on my kitchen counter.

1:19:30Well, I'm oftentimes not working in front of them.

1:19:34I'm often working next to them, off to the side.

1:19:37The HomePod Minis do an okay job of kind of off-axis

1:19:41listening when you're not right in front of them

1:19:42when you're off to one side,

1:19:44but the full-size HomePods do a really great job of it.

1:19:46They sound really good even when you aren't

1:19:49directly in front of them.

1:19:50So if you're in a situation like this

1:19:51where you have them somewhere where you will often

1:19:53not be right in front of them,

1:19:54if you'll be off to one side,

1:19:56the HomePods, the full-size ones,

1:19:58are I think possibly the best products

1:20:01I've ever heard in this category.

1:20:02They are amazing for that,

1:20:05and they destroy almost all of the competition

1:20:07people usually would compare them to,

1:20:09they destroy them in off-axis listening.

1:20:11They're so much better for that.

1:20:13It doesn't sound like you're listening to a crappy,

1:20:16treble-reduced side version of the sound,

1:20:18you just hear the music, and it's not as good

1:20:20as standing in front of them, but it's still really good.

1:20:23- They're radially symmetrical, that's why.

1:20:25Like, they are not directional.

1:20:27Like, regular speakers have their speaker cones

1:20:29facing a single direction.

1:20:31That's not true of the HomePods.

1:20:33There is no front or back, like the base one is pointing either directly up or down, I

1:20:44forget which, and then the five that are surrounded, they're equally spaced in a circle.

1:20:49That's the whole point of this device, that's why the HomePod is round.

1:20:54There is no wrong place to put it, and so it should be exactly the same no matter where

1:20:59you are, plus or minus the fact that you have it up against the backsplash or there's a

1:21:03mixer in the way or you know what, obviously physical obstructions are going to cause it,

1:21:07but that's why these speakers are like, "Look, just put it wherever you're in your house."

1:21:10And that whole thing of like it's saying, "Oh, I'm going to play sound and figure out

1:21:13how to adjust myself," half of that is figuring out which one of my tweeters is blocked by

1:21:18a wall and I should maybe not send super amount of sound into that one tweeter because it's

1:21:22pointless because it's going to be bouncing all over the place.

1:21:24So, you know, when you compare HomePods to,

1:21:28you know, again, anything else, say the Sonos One,

1:21:31which is a common comparison,

1:21:33which I find massively overrated,

1:21:35the Sonos One is a totally fine, small, cheap speaker.

1:21:39It sounds closer to the HomePod Mini

1:21:41than the full-size HomePod.

1:21:43Price-wise, it's kind of right in the middle,

1:21:45and so I respect that.

1:21:46It isn't $300, it's about $200, so, you know, that's fine,

1:21:51but it's also as big as a HomePod.

1:21:53And I think if you're gonna have that amount,

1:21:55that size on a countertop with the Sonos One,

1:22:00I think unless you want the Sonos ecosystem

1:22:02for other reasons, I think the full size HomePod

1:22:04for 100 bucks more, you get a lot more than $100 worth

1:22:07of additional sound quality.

1:22:08And again, the Sonos One is highly directional.

1:22:12The HomePod Mini is mostly directional.

1:22:15It's kind of, the HomePod Mini is kind of a,

1:22:18kind of mushes the sound.

1:22:20It's not, there's not a lot of definition there.

1:22:22What tends to be very directional is the higher frequencies,

1:22:27the treble frequencies, and the HomePod Mini

1:22:29has such poor treble response that you don't really

1:22:32notice as much, so it's less important.

1:22:35- Isn't the HomePod Mini also radially symmetrical

1:22:37internally?

1:22:38- No, it's just one driver, it's one speaker.

1:22:40- Right, but isn't it pointing straight down?

1:22:42- Oh, I think you might be right.

1:22:44I forget, I think you're right.

1:22:46I forgot about that.

1:22:46- I mean, obviously that's not ideal direction

1:22:49for a speaker to be facing, just ask any person

1:22:52of the television with down firing speakers, which is very common these days. It's not

1:22:55great. But I think I think the HomePod mini if it's directional, it's just because it

1:23:00has no control over the bounce, unlike the big HomePod, which can decide how much power

1:23:05to put in any of its five or seven right, right. There's pointing in different directions.

1:23:09What the hell can the mini do? It's like, well, I have one speaker and it's facing the

1:23:14direction it's facing. And that direction is down or up. I don't know if it's up or

1:23:18down. I think it's I think it faces down anyway. You're right. Yeah, I forgot about that.

1:23:22Anyway, so again, this is an area where the HomePods really excel.

1:23:25And so when you're looking at what should you buy, what should you have for your area,

1:23:29again, if you're setting up things like a TV speaker system, you'll probably be better

1:23:34off with regular bookshelf or other speakers because you're not going to be watching TV

1:23:40from 90 degrees off-axis.

1:23:43You're going to be like--

1:23:44No, you have an LCD TV.

1:23:45Yeah, you're going to be watching the front of it pretty much from the front.

1:23:50from enough distance that minor variations

1:23:53and being a few degrees off axis here

1:23:55and they aren't gonna matter.

1:23:56Whereas if it's on a kitchen counter

1:23:58or in the smallest rooms of your house

1:24:00or wherever else you might use a HomePod

1:24:02or if you only have room for one of them

1:24:04or various, you'd be on a budget for one of them,

1:24:06it's just a much more versatile speaker

1:24:07for many more different spaces

1:24:09than you can fit bookshelf speakers

1:24:10or other systems like that.

1:24:12So anyway, I'll try to be quick here

1:24:14with the rest of these things.

1:24:16Let's see.

1:24:17Compared to the Echo, the Amazon Echo,

1:24:19fourth generation.

1:24:21When I was talking earlier about being able to EQ away

1:24:24certain flaws or not, one of the common strategies

1:24:27that cheap electronic designers will use

1:24:30to make up for the fact that their speakers suck,

1:24:32again, they'll use some kind of EQ, especially in treble.

1:24:35It's commonly done in treble where you know the sound

1:24:39when in the 80s and 90s or whatever,

1:24:41when you had the treble knob on your boombox

1:24:43and you would turn it all the way up

1:24:44and everything would sound kind of really crisp

1:24:47and everything, but it would sound a little aggressively

1:24:49crisp and it would even that crispness would be a little distorted it wouldn't

1:24:52it was not smooth or natural sounding it just sounded artificially boosted too

1:24:57much that's how the Amazon echo sounds they it sounds like they took a very

1:25:02cheap speaker and used EQ to really crank up something it really was not

1:25:07able to do very well and it just sounds like a very over processed harsh you

1:25:13know sharp sound it just sounds awful to me I like the Amazon echo the original

1:25:18like cylinder shape one from a million years ago,

1:25:21that was a totally fine product for its time.

1:25:24There are many better products now.

1:25:27And the modern Echo is not one of them.

1:25:30I mean, it's better than the old cylinder,

1:25:31but it's not, it isn't as much better as you would think.

1:25:34So I did also compare Siri versus Alexa.

1:25:40And this is, again, so much variation here.

1:25:45In general, and this will kind of speak

1:25:47to the Siri performance in the new HomePods.

1:25:49Like Siri has gotten way faster with the new SoC.

1:25:54It is just noticeable.

1:25:57It's like I measured, you know,

1:25:59we're saving like five or six seconds in certain responses

1:26:03depending on what you're asking.

1:26:04Siri is now almost as fast as Alexa

1:26:08with most common things.

1:26:11There's a couple of exceptions

1:26:12which I'll get to in a second.

1:26:13But for the most part, like,

1:26:13so I would do things like I would say, you know,

1:26:15hey Dingus, stop and measure how long after,

1:26:19from when I stopped saying the word stop

1:26:21until it actually stopped.

1:26:22How long did it take with each voice system?

1:26:24I did a whole bunch of tests to make sure

1:26:25it wasn't some kind of weird fluke.

1:26:26I did it in different noise levels,

1:26:28whether the music was playing loudly or not,

1:26:29how close I was, how far I was.

1:26:31Both the Echo and the new HomePod and the old HomePod

1:26:35and the HomePod Mini all have really great microphones.

1:26:39And they were all able to hear me ridiculously well,

1:26:42even from like, I would like walk to the other side

1:26:45of the floor and kind of just say at regular volume,

1:26:48like, hey, things stop.

1:26:49And just kind of see, like, while music's playing

1:26:51and see if they can hear me, and they did.

1:26:53It was remarkable.

1:26:55The microphones on all of these are extremely good

1:26:58and can pick up you speaking at normal volume,

1:27:02even with music playing, even from far away.

1:27:05If you're concerned about privacy, that should terrify you.

1:27:07And that should maybe sway you more in the Apple direction,

1:27:11I would say, compared to the Amazon system

1:27:15for the police.

1:27:16So anyway, overall performance, Alexa is still faster.

1:27:20And it's more consistent.

1:27:21And it's faster to do things like set timers.

1:27:24It's faster to return knowledge.

1:27:26It's faster to begin music playback.

1:27:30Music playback is an area that I had problems with Siri.

1:27:33Because I would do things like, hey thing, play so and so.

1:27:38And it would say, okay, playing for Apple Music.

1:27:40And so the speed that it would recognize what I wanted

1:27:43and would give me a response playing so and so

1:27:46from Apple Music, that speed matched Alexa

1:27:50in almost every case.

1:27:51Alexa was a little bit faster sometimes

1:27:52but it usually matched it.

1:27:54But then Apple Music would take like 20 seconds

1:27:57to actually start playing the track.

1:27:59So it would say, okay, you know, playing Weezer, whatever,

1:28:02and then 20 seconds of silence

1:28:05and then it would start playing.

1:28:07And this is just one example of many,

1:28:08and this isn't, that isn't typical,

1:28:10But what is typical is random weird failures of Apple Music.

1:28:15And so I don't know if that's Siri,

1:28:17I don't know if that's Apple Music,

1:28:18probably some of both if I had to guess.

1:28:21But the actual Siri performance of giving me responses,

1:28:26you know, listening, basic things like stop

1:28:28and pause and stuff, Siri was almost as fast

1:28:31or as fast as Alexa most of the time.

1:28:34And that is very impressive, that is not how it always was.

1:28:38The old HomePods were way slower.

1:28:40and those delays would be even longer, so that's good.

1:28:45The Alexa device was also extremely chatty

1:28:48with trying to upsell me things constantly.

1:28:52- Yup.

1:28:53- Everything you'd say, all right, here's the timer,

1:28:54you said, "By the way," it's like, "Shut up,

1:28:57"I don't care what else you can do."

1:28:59It always--

1:29:00- It's time for you to reorder

1:29:01that weirdly shaped pasta again.

1:29:02- Yeah, right. (laughs)

1:29:03- Do you want me to add it to your cart?

1:29:05- No.

1:29:06- By the way, did you know you can ask me to do so?

1:29:09I don't want to be handheld through all

1:29:12of your new promotions, Alexa, thank you though.

1:29:14So yeah, overall, Siri is now fast enough.

1:29:20Whether it can stay consistently fast, that's the question.

1:29:25And HomePods, I even had bugs with the stereo pairing still.

1:29:30HomePods have been around now for a long time.

1:29:33They've had stereo pairing since, I believe,

1:29:35like the third week they were out or something.

1:29:37It was very fast, so like,

1:29:40they've had stereo pairing for a number of years now.

1:29:42It should be fine.

1:29:43It's not.

1:29:44It's not rock solid.

1:29:45Even now with the new ones,

1:29:46the stereo pairing is not rock solid.

1:29:48Now, it's way better than the old ones so far.

1:29:50Am I limited time with them so far?

1:29:52But that could change over time.

1:29:53We'll see, I'll tell you how that goes.

1:29:55But I would still have bugs like,

1:29:58one of them would occasionally just drop out of the pair

1:30:01and rejoin it a few seconds later.

1:30:03So one of them would be silent

1:30:04and then rejoin it a few seconds later.

1:30:06Or when the song would change, like between tracks,

1:30:11only one of them would start playing the next song

1:30:14and then the other one would jump in

1:30:16like five or six seconds in.

1:30:18And it's like, you just, this is a brand new product

1:30:21based on a five year old, four, four and a half year old

1:30:25product, like why?

1:30:26These products sound so good in stereo pairs.

1:30:32I wish they would fix these ridiculous software bugs

1:30:36that they still have with them.

1:30:38The performance papers over a lot of this.

1:30:40It is still now, now it recovers faster from those bugs

1:30:44than the old ones did, but the fact that they still

1:30:45have those bugs is really disheartening,

1:30:48'cause this is such a great product

1:30:50and you have them in stereo pairs,

1:30:51and it should work better.

1:30:53What year is this?

1:30:55- Well, the reason it's so difficult for them

1:30:57to get it to work is kind of the same reason

1:30:59this happens with your AirPods.

1:31:00These are two independent little computers

1:31:03that have no idea, like they're manufactured separately,

1:31:06you buy them, they have no idea about each other

1:31:08until you introduce them to each other

1:31:10and you have to say, hey, there's another one over there,

1:31:14you two coordinate with this third party source of audio

1:31:17or maybe just with each other

1:31:19to make sure that you are both playing and are both in sync.

1:31:21And we've all heard the AirPods

1:31:23where you put them in your ear

1:31:24and one starts playing the music before the other ones.

1:31:25AirPods are also tiny little computers

1:31:27that coordinate with each other to get in sync

1:31:30so they're gonna play the audio.

1:31:31It's kind of a little miracle that they work at all.

1:31:33- They're also buggy as hell, by the way.

1:31:35My AirPods Pro also incredibly buggy in that way.

1:31:38- Right, but because it's a hard,

1:31:40it's a split-brain scenario to use,

1:31:42like, server-side things.

1:31:43So you have two separate little brains

1:31:45that have to coordinate.

1:31:46This is a problem that is avoided

1:31:48if you have a central brain

1:31:50that then sends sound to the speakers

1:31:52that reproduce it, like in a traditional receiver

1:31:55with passive speaker setups.

1:31:57Now, I don't think you want HomePods to be passive speakers,

1:31:59and for people that we've always been asking,

1:32:01"Well, why don't they just put audio inputs on them?"

1:32:03I think it's not quite that simple

1:32:04because of the processing that goes on in the HomePods,

1:32:07that in the end, even if you had a central brain,

1:32:09still with the processing,

1:32:11if the brain was in the individual speakers,

1:32:12you'd have to move the brains into the central thing as well

1:32:15but it's like inherent in their design

1:32:16that you can just have one of these

1:32:18and it's got all the brains

1:32:19and all the amplification or whatever,

1:32:20that when you get two of them,

1:32:22it is really trying to get two things

1:32:24to be synchronized down to seconds.

1:32:25I mean, this is arguably the--

1:32:27- Well, hold on though,

1:32:29'cause I can plug a turntable into my Sonos setup.

1:32:33- I was about to say Sonos.

1:32:34- Okay, and it will play perfectly synchronized

1:32:38no matter where I put the speaker in my hand,

1:32:41the speakers in the porch,

1:32:42the speakers in the living room.

1:32:46It does not compute to me

1:32:47how they can be so perfectly synchronized.

1:32:49- Well, that's kind of arguably what the entire Sonos,

1:32:52why does Sonos exist as a company?

1:32:54It's because they were dedicated to solving

1:32:57this very specific problem and they solved it

1:33:00way before other people did,

1:33:01which is how do I make the audio come out

1:33:03of all the speakers at the same time,

1:33:04even when those speakers are independent little computers?

1:33:08There is a, I mean, I'm sure what they do structurally

1:33:11and architecturally is probably wildly different

1:33:12than what Apple does, if only because Sonos

1:33:14was created so long ago, and I do think they have

1:33:17more of a central, the ability at least

1:33:19to have a central brain thing going on,

1:33:22but what I'm getting at with the Apple thing

1:33:23is I'm not excusing their bugs,

1:33:25I'm just saying that Apple has chosen

1:33:26to try to solve a harder problem

1:33:28because of the way they have architected this product.

1:33:31If they were more fully dedicated to the idea

1:33:34that we want to provide a premium audio experience

1:33:39with more than one speaker, right,

1:33:42they would choose to do something different architecturally,

1:33:45whether that's having the Apple TV contain all the brains

1:33:47and making the speakers more passive,

1:33:49or selling an Apple receiver,

1:33:51or even selling an Apple soundbar,

1:33:53where at least the soundbar is not,

1:33:54never gonna miscoordinate between it,

1:33:56right in its left speakers, right?

1:33:58So I feel for the people trying to solve this problem,

1:34:00but they've kind of brought it on themselves

1:34:02by assigning to them, and I have to say with the AirPods,

1:34:04it's more acceptable to me for one AirPod

1:34:06to take a half second to the other one,

1:34:08but for a set of expensive speakers

1:34:10that I want to be a stereo pair,

1:34:12I find that much less acceptable.

1:34:14They should never do that.

1:34:15They should never, never.

1:34:16It's like, I almost wish they had a mode where it said,

1:34:19look, nobody gets to make any sound

1:34:20until you're sure the other one is in lockstep with you.

1:34:22Just wait, and that would just make them even slower,

1:34:24which then you'd complain about that, right?

1:34:27But anyway, I feel like this is a big Sonos advantage

1:34:30and it is a big advantage for dumb ass speaker wire

1:34:32going to dumb ass speakers from a central receiver

1:34:36where you will never have this problem.

1:34:37- Yeah, and that's entirely right.

1:34:40You would think for these devices that are hard wired

1:34:44to power, they always have power, they're stationary,

1:34:47and they're usually not very far from each other.

1:34:49You would think that this would be better.

1:34:52AirPods are a much harder problem

1:34:54because they have your head in the way in the middle

1:34:57between the two of them, and your head's full of water,

1:34:59and it blocks RF.

1:35:00- And you're taking them out of the case,

1:35:02and before they were like off?

1:35:03- Yeah, like the AirPods are in a much more

1:35:06high-needs, demanding situation for this kind of coordination

1:35:11whereas the HomePods, you're just sitting on a counter.

1:35:13It plugged in, like always connected to WiFi.

1:35:15What's changing about this environment

1:35:17that they have to somehow drop out sometimes?

1:35:19Anyway, so the area of stereo pairing is still buggy

1:35:24and still needs work, but with that exception,

1:35:28everything else about this is an improvement.

1:35:32Even that is improved, it's just not correct yet,

1:35:34but it's still improved.

1:35:36Everything about this new HomePod is better.

1:35:39I am so happy they not only didn't screw it up,

1:35:43but actually made it even better.

1:35:44It sounds so much better,

1:35:46and I thought the old one sounded pretty good.

1:35:48So this is again a really great product,

1:35:52not for every role, as mentioned earlier,

1:35:54like this is probably not your best home theater choice,

1:35:57but for the size that it is,

1:36:00and how simple and clean the setup is,

1:36:02and for all the different advantages it has

1:36:05in terms of things like not only the privacy angles

1:36:07I mentioned earlier with your Amazon Police cylinders,

1:36:09or your Google Creepy cylinders,

1:36:11you have this as a good option there,

1:36:13and to things like off-access listening,

1:36:16where it truly is way better than everything else

1:36:18in its category.

1:36:19If you want something that is good looking enough

1:36:22to put in your kitchen counter

1:36:23and maybe needs to be partner compatible for aesthetics,

1:36:28but also you want these different capabilities that it has,

1:36:31there is no other option on the market,

1:36:33or the other options are worse.

1:36:35So this is a great product.

1:36:37I am extremely happy with it so far.

1:36:40It's only been a couple of days with that disclaimer.

1:36:43But I expect that this is gonna be pretty good

1:36:47for a pretty long time, I think, I hope.

1:36:49- I'm excited to receive my shipment of your old HomePods.

1:36:52(laughing)

1:36:53What are you gonna do with all of them?

1:36:54You got a lot of those old ones.

1:36:56I mean, granted, some of them don't work anymore, but.

1:36:58- Yeah, I have four, two of which work okay,

1:37:00two of which work less okay.

1:37:01So I was thinking of maybe, you know,

1:37:04I might upgrade one of the small rooms in my house

1:37:06to a full-size HomePod, or maybe I'll set up

1:37:09the two old ones as TV speakers

1:37:12to our downstairs secondary TV,

1:37:16although that's usually used for video games

1:37:18that would probably be bad.

1:37:18- You should do that so you can tell us how good the,

1:37:21speaking of stereo pairing and flakiness,

1:37:22what is the reliability like on that setup?

1:37:25- Yeah, I mean, we don't use that TV that often.

1:37:28And when it is used, it's almost always for gaming.

1:37:31So this is not what these are good at.

1:37:33- Yeah, no, you're just, yeah.

1:37:35Someone was saying that it was a latency-related bug

1:37:37that they supposedly fixed in 16.3 or something.

1:37:39But yeah, I think that for things that are really

1:37:42latency sensitive, you really kind of need,

1:37:44it helps to have like the thing that I went through

1:37:46for all the struggles I went through to get my sync up.

1:37:49I had a central box that was controlling it all,

1:37:51including the video.

1:37:53And so, you've got the input lag of your TV,

1:37:56which you're at the mercy of,

1:37:57and there's not much you can do there

1:37:58except for going to game mode.

1:38:00But if you want something to align the audio latency

1:38:04to match the video, it helps to have sort of one traffic cop

1:38:07in the middle there.

1:38:08don't have that with these two home pods

1:38:10just hanging off the end of your TV.

1:38:12- Yeah, and as mentioned earlier,

1:38:14for gaming you really want dumb ass wires

1:38:17going to dumb ass speakers.

1:38:19That's what you want.

1:38:20When you want to minimize latency, you want wires.

1:38:22Simple as that.

1:38:23So anyway, thumbs up on the HomePod 2

1:38:27and I'm really happy it's here.

1:38:29- So is there anything that you feel is worse or degraded

1:38:33as compared to the last one?

1:38:34'Cause this sounds like it was a freaking home run.

1:38:37with the exception of there being less bass at high volume.

1:38:41That's the one thing that seemed like a regression.

1:38:44But again, at low to medium volumes it's fine,

1:38:48and all the other aspects of the sound

1:38:50are significantly improved.

1:38:51So I'm willing to take that loss.

1:38:55- No, that's awesome.

1:38:57I'm super impressed.

1:38:58- We are brought to you this week by Collide.

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1:40:05That's collide spelled K-O-L-I-D-E, collide.com/ATP.

1:40:10Thank you so much to Collide for sponsoring our show.

1:40:15- All right, let's do some Ask ATP.

1:40:20Gavin Whitaker writes, "Do you think large enterprises

1:40:22"will ever set up Mastodon instances

1:40:24"and would there be business opportunities in doing so

1:40:27"or would it be too much hassle to manage

1:40:29"like you have previously discussed?"

1:40:31I noticed recently that a couple of our mutual friends,

1:40:36this is Jason Snell, Stephen Hackett, Mike Hurley,

1:40:39have all been setting up their own bespoke Mastodon

1:40:42instances, I think using, what is it, masto.host,

1:40:46if I'm not mistaken, which is something,

1:40:48it's less than 10 bucks a month if you want to do

1:40:51a very, very small instance, not a sponsor, maybe should be.

1:40:54But anyways, they've been doing that,

1:40:56and that I think makes some amount of sense,

1:41:01perhaps for organizations,

1:41:04but I don't think most organizations

1:41:06are gonna care about Mastodon enough to have a presence,

1:41:09to be honest with you.

1:41:11I would be very surprised if most corporations

1:41:15are gonna care, and if they did,

1:41:17I presume there would be some particular instance

1:41:20that would try to cater to those sorts of clients,

1:41:24but I just don't see this happening.

1:41:26- I think if Mastodon ever gets enough critical mass

1:41:29that companies care that it exists, which is not implausible but hasn't yet happened.

1:41:34I think that the Washington Post is verifying their reporters' profiles, at least on Mastodon,

1:41:40so they get the green checkmark.

1:41:42So there's some kind of awareness.

1:41:43But anyway, if Mastodon ever grows to the point where big companies want to be on it,

1:41:49I think the big companies will run their own instances, just because the lesson they will

1:41:54have learned by this whole thing of "We've got to deal with this again, why can't we

1:41:57just be on Twitter?"

1:41:58Like, because again, if Mastodon gains

1:41:59some kind of critical mass,

1:42:00it means things continue to go crapily over at Twitter.

1:42:03And they're gonna feel burned by that.

1:42:05And if they feel burned by that,

1:42:07someone in the company will say,

1:42:08"You know, the only silver lining to this hassle

1:42:11"that we now have to deal with is that on Mastodon,

1:42:14"we don't have to have a repeat of the scenario

1:42:16"where we invested all this time and effort into this thing."

1:42:19Like, a lot of these companies have, like,

1:42:21their only customer support is through Twitter,

1:42:22which is a company they don't control, right?

1:42:24So now they're gonna be paying for API access

1:42:26and everything for their automated system

1:42:28to be able to talk to, you know, like,

1:42:30and they're gonna be cranky about that.

1:42:32And, you know, obviously it takes technical expertise

1:42:34and cost money to run an instance,

1:42:36but big corporations like to control stuff.

1:42:38That's why big corporations will like to control

1:42:40their own IT, maybe their own, you know, email thing.

1:42:43That's why Microsoft makes money.

1:42:44They let people run Exchange in-house

1:42:46instead of outsourcing it to Google's business thing,

1:42:48'cause they're like, oh, we gotta control it all ourselves.

1:42:50So I think if mass.com becomes popular,

1:42:53big companies will run their own mass.com instances

1:42:56and they'll like it.

1:42:57Like, they will want to run it because they're like,

1:42:59we controlled it just for our stuff.

1:43:00No one can ever kick us off.

1:43:02No one can ever, you know, like, they could be defederated

1:43:05if they just do something super terrible.

1:43:06But in general, I think they will want to run their instances

1:43:09not to be at the mercy of people like Elon Musk.

1:43:13- Nathan Roberts writes, "I am always hearing

1:43:15how iOS developers have to redownload Xcode

1:43:17when Apple announces new features.

1:43:19I don't fully understand how you need to download

1:43:20the entire IDE rather than a set of updates

1:43:22to support new features.

1:43:24For those of us who are more familiar with IDEs,

1:43:25like Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ,

1:43:28can you elaborate on the integration between Xcode

1:43:30and developing for Apple platforms?

1:43:32Who would like to handle this?

1:43:34- So this is an instance where Apple could provide

1:43:38incremental updates to Xcode, but they do not, right?

1:43:42So Mac OS has, and has for most of its history,

1:43:47the ability to do incremental updates.

1:43:49You don't have to redownload the entire OS.

1:43:50At various times, you'd need to redownload way more

1:43:52than you thought you should for the update size

1:43:54that they give you, but in general, over the years,

1:43:56there have been various systems to send less

1:43:58than the entire operating system every single time.

1:44:00And Mac OS is way more complicated than Xcode, right?

1:44:04So they could do that.

1:44:05- Is it?

1:44:06Modern Xcode is pretty complicated.

1:44:09- No, but the OS is way bigger, right?

1:44:12But they don't do that.

1:44:14Why don't they do it?

1:44:15This is not important enough to do it.

1:44:17Like the number of developers versus the number

1:44:19of Mac users is a small fraction.

1:44:22The download size used to be reasonable,

1:44:23then I was like gigs or whatever, but still it's like whatever. It's just easier to make one

1:44:29one artifact as they say, one thing that's the same for everybody, you don't have to worry about

1:44:35your update or going weird or whatever, they even got to the point where you know everything is

1:44:38packaged in the thing and the first time you launch it it says do you want to install these

1:44:42sdks and then it does all the stuff where it does you know whatever it needs to do like one thing

1:44:47that's one chunk. So the answer is yes, they could do incremental updates. It would be less download

1:44:53time, but Apple doesn't because it's simpler and more straightforward. And honestly, of all the

1:44:57things that are annoying about Apple's development, having to download Xcode and waiting for it to

1:45:02un-XIP, unzip, takes a long time. Maybe that encourages developers to buy faster Macs, I don't

1:45:08know. But in the grand scheme of the thing, it's not a big deal, right? Just don't do it through

1:45:12the Mac App Store because you'll be sad. Yeah, that's the thing. The Mac App Store does do

1:45:17Delta updates, but Xcode is such a large app with so many files in it.

1:45:25Does it do Delta updates to Xcode?

1:45:28I mean, the Mac App Store, I think it does in general, but because Xcode is so big, it doesn't matter.

1:45:33It ends up being slower than it would be to just download the whole thing.

1:45:38And it's not because of the size, because 8 gigs is big, it's because of the number of files.

1:45:43Just go, you know, do a find command on the Xcode.app

1:45:45and see how many files are in there, it's ridiculous.

1:45:48- Oh my God, so it's like,

1:45:50whenever you have to like empty your recycle bin,

1:45:53or your trash, excuse me.

1:45:54I forgot what platform I was on there for a second.

1:45:56Whenever you have to empty your trash

1:45:57and there's a version of Xcode in there,

1:45:59it takes forever because there's so many files

1:46:03in that bundle.

1:46:04- I'm counting the files right now.

1:46:05That's how long it's taking on an SSD here.

1:46:08Just watching the command, it's way down waiting.

1:46:10And I'll chime in when it tells you.

1:46:12Yeah.

1:46:13All right, and Darren Kelkoff writes, "I'm fairly new to iOS and macOS development.

1:46:19One thing I've struggled with is when I want to search the web for how to do a certain

1:46:22something in a code for an app, that I'm not sure exactly the best way to tweak my search

1:46:27terms to get hits relevant to a developer rather than iOS or Mac user.

1:46:31For example, if I wanted to add code to an iOS app to automatically run an iOS shortcut,

1:46:35if I search for, quote, iOS launcher shortcut, quote, the results are all about how to run

1:46:40shortcuts as an end user.

1:46:41The best strategy I've used to date has been to add the term "Swift" to my search terms,

1:46:45but I was wondering if you guys had any recommendations or successful experiences to share.

1:46:50That's my trick, is add Swift.

1:46:52But Marco, as the old hat of the three of us, what's the right answer?

1:46:56All right, before he goes, I've got the number of files.

1:46:59Without cheating, you want to do Price is Right rules.

1:47:01What are your two guesses?

1:47:02I'll say a million.

1:47:03Oh, come on now.

1:47:04One dollar!

1:47:05Price is Right rules!

1:47:06One dollar!

1:47:07One dollar!

1:47:08You're gonna go one?

1:47:09No, all kidding aside.

1:47:10I know to do Price is Right rules, I would guess one file,

1:47:13but I think it's something to the order of 5,000

1:47:17to 7,000 files, so we're in that neck of the woods.

1:47:20- So your guess is five to 7,000, Marcos is one million.

1:47:23Do you wanna converse with each other

1:47:26to figure out why you're this far apart

1:47:28and maybe think about which one of you is closer to right?

1:47:30- I'm closer to right, Marcos bananas.

1:47:33- It includes all the headers and all the SDK files.

1:47:37That's where I think so many of the files are.

1:47:39All the different device support.

1:47:40It's like there's so much.

1:47:42We're talking like multiple OSs,

1:47:44multiple versions of those OSs oftentimes being bundled.

1:47:47Like it's just, it's a massive, massive thing.

1:47:50- So I feel like if we weren't playing

1:47:53by Price is Right rules, I feel like Marco should win

1:47:56because at least he understands the scale of the problem.

1:47:585,000 files, Casey, I think Switch Glass has more than,

1:48:02nothing, are you kidding?

1:48:045,000 files? - No, shoot, I'm thinking,

1:48:06no, 'cause what I was thinking of is when I empty the trash

1:48:08- No, it is in the tens of thousands, isn't it?

1:48:10I don't think it's anywhere near a million though.

1:48:11- So anyway, the answer from the current version of Xcode,

1:48:15this is on an Intel Mac in case it's different,

1:48:16is 398,311.

1:48:19- Oh, that was way more than I thought.

1:48:21- I was not that ridiculous.

1:48:22- Especially at 400,000 and Marco pretty much doubled it,

1:48:25which is, you know, in the ballpark.

1:48:27- I was fewer orders of magnitude away than Casey was.

1:48:31- No, that's fair, that's fair.

1:48:33I gotta pay attention next time I empty the trash

1:48:34'cause that's what I was thinking of

1:48:36is when I empty the trash after an Xcode update,

1:48:38you know, how many files does it say it has to delete?

1:48:40And I think it, well, maybe I'm wrong,

1:48:42I must be wrong if it's really hundreds of thousands,

1:48:44but I thought it was somewhere between like 10

1:48:46and 30,000 files when I emptied the trash.

1:48:48But I'll try to pay attention.

1:48:49- Well, anyway, I just counted them.

1:48:50And by the way, Switch Glass has 23 files,

1:48:52so sorry, Switch Glass, for saying bad things about you.

1:48:55- I was gonna say, how did you get that?

1:48:56There's no NPM in there.

1:48:57- And keep in mind also, like, the whole, like,

1:48:59you know, developer, or, you know, library developer,

1:49:01there's different places that it puts files

1:49:04once you actually use it to do anything.

1:49:07So it isn't just the files in the bundle

1:49:09that it's also dealing with.

1:49:10Like there's also then all the device support

1:49:13and all that crap that gets spewed all over your desk.

1:49:15- Is it a spew Simlinks these days?

1:49:17I never watched what it's actually doing these days.

1:49:19It used to be way more complicated,

1:49:20but now it's all in the bundle

1:49:22and then it does some, the quote unquote installation stuff.

1:49:25I thought it might have just been a bunch of Simlinks

1:49:26that it sets up, but maybe it does spray files too.

1:49:29- I don't know.

1:49:30Anyway, so to answer Darren's question

1:49:33about how to search for things.

1:49:36I would, so there's two tricks here.

1:49:39Number one is if it's more like generic words

1:49:44you have to search for, you can always go to Stack Overflow.

1:49:47Site colon StackOverflow.com, that's where most

1:49:51of the good answers for stuff like that are anyway,

1:49:53with the exception of there's also sites like

1:49:55Hacking with Swift that have really good Swift tutorials

1:49:59and certain examples, things like that.

1:50:00There is some stuff out in the general web that's good,

1:50:03but if you're really having trouble finding things

1:50:06and you're kind of name colliding with common words,

1:50:10oftentimes the search of sacoverflow.com

1:50:12is oftentimes better.

1:50:14The other thing is if you search for an API name

1:50:18in particular, usually you're good.

1:50:20And so oftentimes to find that API name,

1:50:22that might take a little bit of searching,

1:50:24but one thing I would try to do

1:50:25is search the Apple developer app,

1:50:27because, or the documentation of course,

1:50:29the Apple documentation.

1:50:30'Cause then you'll at least hit upon a W2C talk

1:50:34or a code example or a documentation example,

1:50:38you'll at least hit upon something

1:50:39that will tell you the name of the API.

1:50:41And then you can search for the name of the API

1:50:43specifically on the web,

1:50:45and that will cut out almost all of that other stuff.

1:50:47So that's the real answer.

1:50:49- Oh, that'll cut out all the other stuff if you're lucky.

1:50:51Back in the old days with name prefixes,

1:50:53you'd have NS in front of things,

1:50:55or you'd have CF or something like that.

1:50:56But now with Swift where the thing is called View

1:50:58and stuff like that,

1:50:59then you have to add whatever proper nouns you can find.

1:51:01So add SwiftUI, no space after the T,

1:51:04and before the SwiftUI all in Word instead of just adding Swift.

1:51:08I found that sometimes you can also throw in Xcode.

1:51:10What you're trying to look for is words that you think will come up in close proximity

1:51:14to that, like conceptually, that someone might mention Xcode in their question, especially

1:51:19if they're a novice and don't know the name of a thing or whatever.

1:51:22If you're lucky enough to come up with an NS or a UI, a UI table view, NS string, NS

1:51:28-- that will definitely get you -- what you want to do is you want to weed out the non-dev

1:51:33of answers because the problem is you end up with all these people putting questions

1:51:38that have nothing to do with development and have to do with using your Mac and you don't

1:51:41want to see those and if you have a word overlap with them it's very difficult.

1:51:44But if you throw in the word Xcode no one's going to mention that in their question about

1:51:47iOS shortcuts unless they're actually developing it now.

1:51:50The problem is most developers, experienced developers are not going to mention Xcode

1:51:55in their question probably so yeah it's a bit of a challenge but domain specific searches

1:52:00and even just doing stuff like Apple has dev forums, right?

1:52:02If you're on that thing where you're like,

1:52:04I don't even know what word to search for yet,

1:52:06if you limit your search to the dev forums,

1:52:08either by using a Google site colon search

1:52:10or by using the dev forums own search,

1:52:11I don't know if it has one, but I assume it does somewhere,

1:52:14then that will let you find the proper nouns

1:52:17and then you go back to the bigger Google

1:52:18and throw in the proper nouns.

1:52:20- Thanks to our sponsors this week,

1:52:22Draft, Pushcut and Collide.

1:52:25And thanks to our members who support us directly.

1:52:26you can join atp.fm/join and we will talk to you next week.

1:52:33Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin

1:52:39'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

1:52:45John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

1:52:49'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

1:52:55And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

1:53:00And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them

1:53:05@C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

1:53:10So that's Kasey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

1:53:14Auntie Marco Arment S-I-R-A-C

1:53:19USA, Syracuse

1:53:21It's accidental (it's accidental)

1:53:25They didn't mean to, accidental (accidental)

1:53:30Tech podcast so long

1:53:34So did your family listen to the cavalcade of fuzzy cylinders as well?

1:53:40Or were they just ignoring you while you were there playing mad scientist and making the house noisy?

1:53:44They were not a fan of this test, and so I did it while Tiff was working in the basement and Adam was at school.

1:53:51Because I was wondering if they had opinions about old vs. new or did none of them really care and they just want you to get this over with and get it back to just having a normal kitchen where you can play music?

1:53:59can play music. Definitely the latter. I will occasionally ask, like you know, Tiff

1:54:05is usually pretty amenable to like, "Hey, try these headphones, what do you

1:54:09think?" You know, something like that. But this was a larger scale

1:54:12thing that, you know, nobody in the house cares as much as I do. They just

1:54:17want things to work and be good and fast. She took your AirPods Max though, right?

1:54:20Aren't there like her favorite headphones now? Yeah, she wears them much of the

1:54:24day when she's working up here because they're just, they're very comfortable on

1:54:27and that's great, I mean, and I even went,

1:54:31I figured like the AirPods Max have been out for what,

1:54:33almost two years now, and so I figured surely

1:54:36somebody has made a wide array of third party

1:54:40magnetically attaching ear pads that can go on them

1:54:43instead of the stock ones.

1:54:44- That was the part that was uncomfortable to you?

1:54:46'Cause I tried them on, I tried them on whenever

1:54:48and I'm an alzle store just hanging out,

1:54:50and I find the headband to be the thing

1:54:52that's objectionable to me.

1:54:53- So it isn't that the headband was pressing

1:54:55against my head, it was, the AirPods Max,

1:54:57as we discussed at great length when they came out

1:55:00and I kind of reviewed them on the show,

1:55:01whenever that was, two years ago,

1:55:03their main problems are weight, they're very heavy

1:55:06and that makes it hard to make it comfortable for headphones

1:55:09it's not impossible, but it is harder.

1:55:12And that their ear pads, like the contact area

1:55:15that the ear pads touched your head

1:55:17was almost too narrow of a rim,

1:55:19and so it wasn't spreading that weight

1:55:21across a very wide area, so it was like

1:55:24digging in almost to your head,

1:55:25and I find them to be okay for a few minutes,

1:55:29but then if I wear them for like, say a whole morning,

1:55:31I'll take them off and be like, I'll have a headache

1:55:33and my head will hurt the rest of the day.

1:55:35It's like, you don't realize how uncomfortable they are

1:55:37until you take them off after a while,

1:55:38then you're like, oh no, I feel terrible.

1:55:41- And Tiff doesn't have that problem when she wears them?

1:55:42- No, many people don't have that problem,

1:55:44but it's just, yeah, whatever it is,

1:55:45they're not comfortable on me,

1:55:47and apparently you for different reasons.

1:55:49- Yeah, 'cause I was wearing them for 30 seconds

1:55:51in the Apple store and I was like,

1:55:52hell no on this headband, cannot handle it.

1:55:54- I know, and it's a shame because they sound amazing.

1:55:57But I even tried, I bought, I found finally

1:56:00there was one company I found on all the internet,

1:56:03one company on Amazon that I found that had

1:56:06third party ear pads for them, and they are softer.

1:56:09But they look, they are made to look almost the same.

1:56:13So they aren't wider, they don't have,

1:56:15there's so many great aftermarket third party

1:56:20ear pads for most regular headphones.

1:56:23like Brainwaves is a popular brand of them.

1:56:25There's these companies that make aftermarket ear pads

1:56:28and they're like big and plush and they're really nice

1:56:30and if you have a pair of headphones

1:56:31that isn't very comfortable,

1:56:33I suggest you try one of these,

1:56:34like one of these ear pad things

1:56:35that you can get on Amazon for like 25, 30 bucks.

1:56:38They're oftentimes much more comfortable

1:56:41and much more plush and everything like that.

1:56:43And for AirPods Max, that just seemed not to exist.

1:56:45And so I did find this one company that made this one

1:56:47and it was a little more comfortable

1:56:50but it wasn't enough to make a difference.

1:56:52Like it was still, it was more comfortable,

1:56:54but it was still very uncomfortable after a long time.

1:56:58So it's a shame.

1:56:58I wish those fit me, but they just don't.

1:57:01- And speaking of third party things for Apple products,

1:57:04when you got the shorter power cords,

1:57:07did you find ones that are like color matched

1:57:09and like nice and pliable?

1:57:11Like I would like to see the setup of your like,

1:57:13when you again get everything off your counters again

1:57:15and just set it up the way you want it.

1:57:16Did you find a nice cord that just is long enough

1:57:19to reach your outlets and isn't like stiff and weird

1:57:21or the wrong color?

1:57:23I found basic white, like, you know,

1:57:26lamp cord-looking kind of ones.

1:57:28So, you know, the basic, you know,

1:57:29like two-conductor, you know, standard, you know,

1:57:32white plug that comes straight out.

1:57:33Like, I was hoping to get a right angle plug, at least,

1:57:35so I could make it a little more flush against the wall.

1:57:37But, you know, I just did a quick Amazon search

1:57:39during the last episode and just, you know,

1:57:41ordered it after the show.

1:57:44But, you know, they're fine.

1:57:45You know, it was $10 on Amazon for a two-pack.

1:57:48It was-- it's fine.

1:57:49I have one foot cables now.

1:57:51And you can see from the picture,

1:57:53they're right next to the outlets.

1:57:54I don't need a whole bunch of extra cable.

1:57:56And it was totally fine to just pop out the stock cables,

1:58:01pop these in.

1:58:03It doesn't look as nice 'cause they aren't braided.

1:58:06And they have the regular cheap lamp plug ends.

1:58:10- Are they kinked from how they were wrapped

1:58:12when they were packaged?

1:58:12- No, they're only one foot cables.

1:58:14They're too short to have those problems.

1:58:16And they're flexible and it's fine.

1:58:17It isn't like pushing them out from the wall or anything.

1:58:19So it's fine.

1:58:20Speaking of that, I went down this little rabbit hole

1:58:23briefly and never actually ordered anything.

1:58:25I should revisit it.

1:58:26All of my speakers are connected with just plain old speaker

1:58:29wire.

1:58:30And--

1:58:31That's all you need.

1:58:32Well, there's lots of different ways

1:58:34that you can connect speaker wire to a speaker.

1:58:37And the way I have done it is the laziest way,

1:58:39which is you just strip off a little bit of the insulation.

1:58:42And then you twist the wire so it's a stiff little thing.

1:58:45And then you--

1:58:45I forgot what it's called.

1:58:47There's a name for it.

1:58:47Someone in the chat room will say it in two seconds.

1:58:49but there's like a post with a hole through it

1:58:50and you shove the wire through the hole

1:58:52and then you screw down--

1:58:53- A binding post.

1:58:54- Yeah, and then you screw down the little thing

1:58:56and then it's interesting.

1:58:57It's fine, it works fine.

1:58:58But the problem is it is like,

1:58:59put the wire through a hole and you screw a thing.

1:59:01It's in there, right?

1:59:03You're pressing the conductor against the little metal thing

1:59:07with the screw thing, right?

1:59:09And that sounds fine, except for the fact

1:59:11the back of my receiver has lots of those things

1:59:15plugged into it because you've got all the speakers

1:59:17going there, and each of them have two conductors,

1:59:19and they all go to the back of the receiver,

1:59:20and all of them are screwed into these little posts,

1:59:23and those wires are all routed all around the room,

1:59:26and then behind the TV and into the thing,

1:59:28and it's such a pain in the butt to like,

1:59:31I don't have enough slack to like pull the whole receiver

1:59:33out of the entertainment center,

1:59:35but you have to pull it out enough

1:59:36to be able to get to the wires,

1:59:37and God forbid you have to like turn the thing around,

1:59:39and it's just, so another solution that would solve this is,

1:59:42that's supported by lots of different receivers

1:59:44and speakers, including my receiver and my speakers,

1:59:46what they call a banana plug, which is an actual plug that plugs into and out of that

1:59:51thing that you screw down. I don't know if banana plugs are considered to be worse or

1:59:56better or whatever. All I know is that I don't have them and I wish I did. But then I started

2:00:00looking into that. You can easily convert them. Yeah, no, you totally can. Like, these

2:00:05are banana plug ready. All I'd have to do is buy some little banana plug-ins. You just

2:00:09buy these things, they're pretty cheap, and you take your speaker wires out, you probably

2:00:14cut them and strip them again, or whatever.

2:00:16And then you put them into the bin.

2:00:17- You screw them in.

2:00:18- Yep, and then you're all set.

2:00:19But there's like 17 different ways to do that,

2:00:21and there's lots of very strong opinions

2:00:23about which ones are and aren't good,

2:00:24and which ones are gonna corrode,

2:00:25and which ones are gonna do this,

2:00:26'cause this is audio, and I'm like,

2:00:28how much of this is real, and how much of this is people?

2:00:30- I can tell you, I've used these before.

2:00:32None of that matters at all.

2:00:35Because the great thing about Speaker Wire,

2:00:37you know, there's all the audio files,

2:00:39you know, the high-end audio, you know,

2:00:41shops and blogs and magazines,

2:00:43They will tell you how much cabling matters

2:00:46and it really, really doesn't.

2:00:48You could unbend a coat hanger

2:00:51and run it to power your speakers

2:00:53and it would sound just as good as the $5,000 a foot,

2:00:57gold infused, never seen air.

2:01:01There's so much ridiculousness in speaker cables.

2:01:04- I'm not worried about the electrical conductivity.

2:01:06I'm worried about physically speaking

2:01:08because it's stranded wire.

2:01:09My speaker wire is stranded.

2:01:10It's not a coat hanger. - Yeah, most is.

2:01:11- It's a solid conductor.

2:01:12I'm worried about that stranded wire being crimped

2:01:15in some weird thing and then eventually just cracking off

2:01:17and just my speaker wire going bink

2:01:19and then no longer being connected

2:01:20because I put it into the banana plug

2:01:21and screwed it down too hard or something.

2:01:23So anyway, I haven't gotten around to it.

2:01:25- It's way easier than you think it is.

2:01:27It's really not a problem.

2:01:29It's very idiot proof, lots of idiots do it

2:01:31and they're fine.

2:01:33Keep in mind with speaker wire,

2:01:34typically speakers are stationary.

2:01:37And so any crazy way you might hook up the wire,

2:01:41it's not gonna be under a lot of stress

2:01:43'cause it's not moving and flexing.

2:01:44- Well, but it's not the speaker end

2:01:46that I'm worried about, it's the receiver end.

2:01:47I wouldn't put banana plugs on a speaker

2:01:49because who cares, they're fine, I can see them.

2:01:51I can get to the back of the speakers real easily, right?

2:01:53It's the stupid receiver.

2:01:54And part of the thing that's keeping me from doing it

2:01:56is like, oh, if I get banana plugs,

2:01:58now I have to get to the back of the receiver again.

2:02:00And this time, when I initially do it,

2:02:02there's no banana plugs on it now,

2:02:03so I gotta do the whole thing of like finding a way

2:02:06to pull the stuff through and rotating the thing sideways

2:02:08my stupid glass shelves that are on.

2:02:11Like when you try to rotate the receiver,

2:02:12the glass shelves go off the little nubbins

2:02:14that it's supposed to be on and it crashes down.

2:02:16It's just, it annoys me so much.

2:02:18Like every time I see someone who has an AV setup

2:02:21where they can just walk behind their equipment,

2:02:22I'm like, oh my God, how much?

2:02:24I would love to have that.

2:02:25Can you imagine just walking behind your equipment

2:02:27and being able to get access to all the back panels?

2:02:30I do not have that luxury.

2:02:31It's jammed into a corner that's really hard to get to.

2:02:34And it's just, it's such a mess.

2:02:35So then every time I think about the Benet plugs,

2:02:37to look at my setup, I'm like, well, it's working now,

2:02:40just don't touch it, but if I ever have to go back there

2:02:42again, I'm gonna order a mess of banana plugs probably

2:02:44and just get back, and the reason the banana plugs

2:02:46will help is that I can just yank the freakin' receiver out

2:02:49and the banana plugs will pop pop pop out, who cares?

2:02:51- Oh no. - I'll pop 'em back in

2:02:51when it goes back in.

2:02:52- No, that's not, they don't work the way you think.

2:02:55So there's two things. - They're not that easy

2:02:56to get out. - Number one,

2:02:57banana plugs are huge, so they actually might not,

2:03:01like they're way bigger than you think from pictures.

2:03:02- Oh, I have plenty of room behind it,

2:03:04they're not gonna hit into it.

2:03:04- Okay, and then number two, they hold on really tightly

2:03:07in the sockets, 'cause they have little springy ends

2:03:10that kinda get compressed, and so they're--

2:03:12- Oh yeah, no, that's the banana part of it.

2:03:14- Yeah, so they don't pop out easily.

2:03:16You gotta give 'em a good yank,

2:03:18and so I don't think this is gonna do what you think it is,

2:03:20and I don't think it's gonna save as much.

2:03:22- Well, I mean, maybe I just reach behind there

2:03:24and pop them out, because here's the thing.

2:03:26If you don't have enough slack to get them in or out,

2:03:30that means you have to thread, you know,

2:03:32you know what I just said, it's like,

2:03:33it's threading it through a hole in a post

2:03:35and then screwing a plastic thing down.

2:03:36If you ever look at the back of the receiver,

2:03:38there's like a dozen of those right next to each other.

2:03:41So imagine trying to like lay on the ground

2:03:44and shove your body into the AV cabinet

2:03:46and crane your head around with a white on your forehead

2:03:49so that you can shove in the middle wire

2:03:51of the center channel speaker between 17 other ones

2:03:54like with very little slack, shove it through a hole

2:03:58and the little post that's in the middle of that

2:04:00and then screw the thing down and it's so hard to do.

2:04:02It is just like, I need like a, what do you call it?

2:04:06Endoscopy equipment, like the surgeons use

2:04:08with like a fiber optic cable and a little thing

2:04:10'cause it's just, it is not fit for humans.

2:04:13And I guess the solution would be,

2:04:14just put seven feet of slack on all your speaker wires,

2:04:17but that ship is sailed 'cause I made a mistake

2:04:19when I laid down all the speaker wire

2:04:20and I do not have enough slack at the receiver end.

2:04:25And I don't wanna run all the wire again.

2:04:26- I had forgotten that like, you know,

2:04:28you have a billion speakers and I only have two,

2:04:30so it's different, you're dealing with a different degree

2:04:32of complexity here, so yeah, I'd say,

2:04:34yeah, go ahead and get 'em.

2:04:35But, and they're very easy.

2:04:38The great thing about speaker wire, again,

2:04:40like it's, speaker wire is so dumb,

2:04:42and it is so tolerant of mistakes or sloppy work.

2:04:47Like, literally, as long as the positive and negative wires

2:04:51aren't touching each other, and you're not shorting it out,

2:04:53you're fine.

2:04:54Like, anything else you do, it's fine.

2:04:56You can use regular lamp cord, you can use,

2:04:58like, you don't have to get fancy cable,

2:05:00You don't have, like, if a few little strands

2:05:03break off on one of your ends,

2:05:04you don't have the full number of strands

2:05:06to shove into the hole, it's fine, doesn't matter.

2:05:08It's so easy, you can do pretty much whatever you want

2:05:11and be as sloppy as you need to be,

2:05:13and again, as long as you're not shorting it out, it's fine.

2:05:15- So were we doing ATP when the mouse chewed

2:05:18through my speaker cable, do you remember that?

2:05:20- Might have been before we started this one.

2:05:21- I don't know, I don't remember that.

2:05:23- I don't think so.

2:05:24- It was shortly after I had first set up speaker wire

2:05:26in my house, maybe it was after I just moved in,

2:05:29We had a mouse problem chewed right through the speaker wire.

2:05:33Oh, I'd be so mad.

2:05:34That's bad.

2:05:34I don't know.

2:05:35It chewed through one of the conductors of the speaker wire.

2:05:37It was like a clean surgical cut.

2:05:39Like, you saw a speaker wire with the two little conductors,

2:05:41and all of a sudden, one of the conductors just stopped.

2:05:42And it was like a three-inch gap where

2:05:44there was none of that wire.

2:05:45And then it started again.

2:05:46I was like, well, how would I explain why the speaker--

2:05:48and speaking of the different things,

2:05:50we just had recently the thing where my tweeter stopped

2:05:52working on my standard channel, and I

2:05:53couldn't figure out what was going wrong,

2:05:55and I eventually figured it out.

2:05:56It's real important to have all those different cone sizes.

2:05:58'cause if you're missing one, you notice.

2:06:00[beeping]

2:06:03[ Silence ]