ATP

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

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

00:00:12 ◼   ► Ooh!

00:00:13 ◼   ► Elementary school dance? Is that a thing?

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

00:00:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Yeah, same.

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

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

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

00:00:32 ◼   ► Whatever that is in a person that makes them

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

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

00:00:44 ◼   ► Whatever you were when you were,

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

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

00:00:54 ◼   ► That does not leave a person.

00:00:55 ◼   ► - What about your kid?

00:00:57 ◼   ► Did Adam inherit your dance and compatibility?

00:01:01 ◼   ► - Fortunately, he seems to have taken after his mother

00:01:04 ◼   ► in that way, which is of huge benefit.

00:01:07 ◼   ► It's like, I couldn't wait to get home.

00:01:10 ◼   ► And it's funny, it doesn't feel this way

00:01:13 ◼   ► 'cause we're all staring at computers

00:01:14 ◼   ► in our offices and our houses and no one's around,

00:01:16 ◼   ► but in a way we are talking to 80,000 people.

00:01:20 ◼   ► And so it's weird to think like,

00:01:22 ◼   ► I'd rather talk about computers to a football stadium

00:01:27 ◼   ► full of strangers mostly,

00:01:29 ◼   ► which most people would consider a terribly scary thing,

00:01:33 ◼   ► but I'd rather do that than try to dance

00:01:35 ◼   ► in front of 40 children and their parents

00:01:37 ◼   ► at an elementary school.

00:01:38 ◼   ► - Wait a second, wait a second.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Why are you doing any dancing at this?

00:01:43 ◼   ► I thought you were just like, the vibe is awkward

00:01:45 ◼   ► and it felt like a place that you didn't wanna hang out.

00:01:47 ◼   ► But isn't it the kids supposed to be dancing?

00:01:48 ◼   ► Aren't you just like a chaperone?

00:01:50 ◼   ► Like aren't you just standing against the wall?

00:01:51 ◼   ► - Basically, except that there's some parents

00:01:53 ◼   ► who are like the fun parents,

00:01:55 ◼   ► and they're like dancing a little bit.

00:01:56 ◼   ► - No, that's not fun.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - Well tell me, but yeah.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - I'm saying it's not fun for the kids

00:02:01 ◼   ► who wants their parents to, ugh.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - Well, the good news is, this is an elementary school.

00:02:07 ◼   ► You know, the oldest anyone is here is fifth grade.

00:02:10 ◼   ► And so no one is actually old enough

00:02:13 ◼   ► to really be awkward about girls and boys

00:02:17 ◼   ► and cooties and stuff.

00:02:17 ◼   ► So the good thing is that there wasn't any of that really.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So the kids are just running around like lunatics.

00:02:24 ◼   ► They're just running and throwing balloons at each other.

00:02:26 ◼   ► - Did Adam enjoy it?

00:02:27 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, and that's what mattered.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - And did Tiff just not go?

00:02:30 ◼   ► - No, no, she was there too.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - She like it?

00:02:33 ◼   ► - She is dance compatible.

00:02:35 ◼   ► And so she has a much easier time.

00:02:39 ◼   ► - Right, right, right.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Yeah, I am not. I am also not dance compatible. That is not my thing.

00:02:46 ◼   ► I perhaps with the appropriate amount of social lubricant,

00:02:50 ◼   ► maybe a teeny bit, but no, not generally speaking, that is not for me. However,

00:02:54 ◼   ► I don't think being the cool parent is always bad. So, um,

00:02:59 ◼   ► I don't remember if I mentioned on the show,

00:03:01 ◼   ► but we joined a little community pool this past summer and it was really,

00:03:04 ◼   ► really great for our family. You know, we got to meet some new friends, you know,

00:03:08 ◼   ► get closer with some old friends, et cetera.

00:03:10 ◼   ► And early on in the summer, I decided

00:03:12 ◼   ► I was going to not do the normal Casey thing

00:03:15 ◼   ► of just sitting on the sidelines,

00:03:16 ◼   ► being like, "Yeah, have fun kids, I'll see you later."

00:03:18 ◼   ► And instead, I was going to try to be the cool pool dad

00:03:22 ◼   ► that will get in there and roughhouse

00:03:23 ◼   ► with all the kids and whatnot.

00:03:24 ◼   ► And even though sometimes my back looked like

00:03:28 ◼   ► it had been attacked by a bunch of feral kittens,

00:03:31 ◼   ► because that's effectively what was going on,

00:03:33 ◼   ► generally speaking, I thought being the fun, cool pool dad

00:03:37 ◼   ► was enjoyable.

00:03:38 ◼   ► But that doesn't require any sort of coordination at all,

00:03:42 ◼   ► unlike being the fun, cool dance dad,

00:03:45 ◼   ► which requires coordination and rhythm,

00:03:46 ◼   ► two things I have none of.

00:03:48 ◼   ► - See, that's the thing, I'm very coordinated

00:03:49 ◼   ► and I have really good rhythm,

00:03:51 ◼   ► and yet I still cannot dance to save my life,

00:03:53 ◼   ► 'cause I think it's more of a mindset,

00:03:57 ◼   ► it's more mental, I think,

00:03:58 ◼   ► and whatever the mindset is that requires a person

00:04:01 ◼   ► to be able to let go of their inhibitions

00:04:04 ◼   ► and just dance their hearts out

00:04:07 ◼   ► And I don't have that necessarily,

00:04:10 ◼   ► or I have trouble shifting my brain to that mode.

00:04:13 ◼   ► And no matter how much social lubricant one has,

00:04:16 ◼   ► which of course at an elementary school dance is none,

00:04:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:20 ◼   ► but even if that were there,

00:04:22 ◼   ► in situations where that is available,

00:04:24 ◼   ► that doesn't help me.

00:04:24 ◼   ► I still cannot become a dancer for whatever reason.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So it's just, I can do a lot of things.

00:04:32 ◼   ► That's just not on the list,

00:04:34 ◼   ► and I've learned to live with it.

00:04:36 ◼   ► I've learned to cope with this lack of my personality

00:04:40 ◼   ► that I have here and I try to make up for it

00:04:42 ◼   ► in other ways as best as I can.

00:04:45 ◼   ► - Well, the good news is I don't think you're gonna be

00:04:46 ◼   ► going to too many more dances as your kid gets older.

00:04:49 ◼   ► - I sure hope not.

00:04:51 ◼   ► The good thing is I was able to use my skills

00:04:54 ◼   ► in a much better way.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Last night, my kid brought home, he had a school project.

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

00:05:03 ◼   ► announcements as part of their unit on making

00:05:06 ◼   ► persuasive essays.

00:05:07 ◼   ► So he wrote a script basically,

00:05:10 ◼   ► and it had to be a 90 second recording.

00:05:13 ◼   ► And I'm like, oh man, dude, I got this,

00:05:17 ◼   ► I got your back on this.

00:05:18 ◼   ► So everyone else is gonna show up

00:05:20 ◼   ► with their voice memos thing.

00:05:21 ◼   ► I had him use my good mic 'cause he wanted to,

00:05:23 ◼   ► and I was like, of course you can.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And then he recorded 90 seconds max,

00:05:27 ◼   ► and the take, he was really happy with the take,

00:05:30 ◼   ► but it was like 15 seconds over.

00:05:33 ◼   ► And I was like, well, look, I record three,

00:05:36 ◼   ► two minute segments a week for this show.

00:05:39 ◼   ► I know what you're doing, and trust me,

00:05:41 ◼   ► the easiest thing to do is just rerecord it

00:05:43 ◼   ► and just go a little faster, maybe cut a sentence

00:05:45 ◼   ► out here or there if you can.

00:05:46 ◼   ► - Why don't you use smart speed?

00:05:47 ◼   ► - I thought about that.

00:05:49 ◼   ► But I kind of did, and so he said,

00:05:53 ◼   ► can't you just edit it to be shorter?

00:05:55 ◼   ► And I was like, well, let's try, what the heck,

00:05:58 ◼   ► let's try it.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And so we shortened the silences

00:06:02 ◼   ► and took out one repeated word that was in the middle there.

00:06:06 ◼   ► - Am I good to go 1.1 times?

00:06:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I took out a couple of breaths here and there

00:06:10 ◼   ► that didn't necessarily need to be there to sound natural.

00:06:12 ◼   ► And I showed him, oh, if it cut here,

00:06:14 ◼   ► it doesn't sound natural, if you cut over here, it doesn't.

00:06:16 ◼   ► And 90 second limit, the time clock at the end said 129.996

00:06:21 ◼   ► and we were like, done.

00:06:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:06:25 ◼   ► And of course it sounds amazing,

00:06:26 ◼   ► 'cause he's on my podcast mic, so I'm like,

00:06:29 ◼   ► I can't dance to save my life, but that,

00:06:32 ◼   ► that I can really help you out, son.

00:06:35 ◼   ► - I don't think it's gonna be great on audio quality though.

00:06:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:06:39 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:06:40 ◼   ► - Let's do some follow up,

00:06:41 ◼   ► 'cause we have a lot of audio quality things

00:06:43 ◼   ► to talk about coincidentally.

00:06:44 ◼   ► And we have some HomePod 2 follow up

00:06:46 ◼   ► and a teaser, spoiler even,

00:06:49 ◼   ► Marco has his HomePod 2 review coming later

00:06:51 ◼   ► in the episode after follow up.

00:06:52 ◼   ► But before we get there, we have HomePod 2 follow up.

00:06:54 ◼   ► - This is like when you're watching TV growing up

00:06:56 ◼   ► and it's like, the story you all came here for,

00:06:59 ◼   ► news at 11 and then eventually you get to 11 o'clock and they don't get to it

00:07:02 ◼   ► until like the last 10 seconds of these of the half-hour segment it's after the

00:07:07 ◼   ► next commercial after the next commercial you'll see when we come back

00:07:10 ◼   ► you'll you'll hear all about this crazy thing you wanted to hear about yeah

00:07:13 ◼   ► fortunately I have way more to say about it than those old news shows and we

00:07:17 ◼   ► won't make you wait until 11 29 hopefully not anyway alright so a home

00:07:21 ◼   ► pod 2 series speed tests done on video by Steven Robles who is also known as

00:07:25 ◼   ► bearded teacher. First of all, kudos to this unbelievably handsome gentleman for wearing a

00:07:31 ◼   ► gorgeous shirt during the recording of this video. I am deeply impressed with his choice of wardrobe,

00:07:37 ◼   ► but even with that said, the video was legitimately really good. And so Steven talks through,

00:07:44 ◼   ► somehow he has like 17 different Sonos setups, including the setup that I have in my living room,

00:07:53 ◼   ► with the exception of no rears or he didn't mention those anyway. But he tests that against the Home

00:07:58 ◼   ► Pod 2 stereo pair and makes some very interesting but reasonable conclusions about, you know, what

00:08:06 ◼   ► would you, what would he advise one to buy depending on what you're looking at. You know, if you're

00:08:11 ◼   ► really more of a TV person then you might want to go this route. If you're more of a music person you

00:08:16 ◼   ► might want to go this other route. It was a really good video. I think it was like 15-ish minutes. Yeah,

00:08:21 ◼   ► of 14 minutes 38 seconds and it's worth it.

00:08:23 ◼   ► You should definitely check it out.

00:08:24 ◼   ► - The reason I brought this in here

00:08:25 ◼   ► is because last week I complained that people,

00:08:29 ◼   ► all the YouTube reviews I'd watch,

00:08:30 ◼   ► nobody actually tested how the new system on a chip

00:08:32 ◼   ► affected the response speed of Siri,

00:08:34 ◼   ► which seems like a pretty important part of a product

00:08:36 ◼   ► that mostly hasn't changed,

00:08:37 ◼   ► but one thing that did change in it was the SOC

00:08:39 ◼   ► and the old one was slow, so you should test that.

00:08:43 ◼   ► And then that's how I got to this video.

00:08:44 ◼   ► I said, you know, somebody did test the speed of Siri

00:08:47 ◼   ► on the new home pods and you know who did it?

00:08:49 ◼   ► somebody wearing, as Casey was alluding to before,

00:08:52 ◼   ► an ATP M1 Ultra shirt, 'cause he knows what's up.

00:08:56 ◼   ► - Definitely knows what's up.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Do we want to cover this related Ask ATP

00:09:01 ◼   ► that we were originally gonna cover next week,

00:09:02 ◼   ► but I think it kinda slides nicely right in here.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Is that allowed, Jon, or do I need to wait

00:09:07 ◼   ► until next week for this?

00:09:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I put that there.

00:09:09 ◼   ► - No, I did.

00:09:10 ◼   ► - All right, well anyway, yes,

00:09:11 ◼   ► that was a fine time to cover it.

00:09:12 ◼   ► - All right, so Justin Saussier wrote,

00:09:14 ◼   ► "Would a stereo pair of HomePods

00:09:16 ◼   ► be a better TV setup than a soundbar?

00:09:17 ◼   ► I know Jon will scream true surround sound

00:09:19 ◼   ► and Casey loves the Sonos, but purely comparing

00:09:22 ◼   ► between a soundbar Visio to be specific.

00:09:25 ◼   ► So as you expected, I cannot state enough

00:09:30 ◼   ► how much I adore my Sonos setup,

00:09:32 ◼   ► but I will be the first to tell you

00:09:32 ◼   ► it is heinously expensive.

00:09:34 ◼   ► It is incredible, but it's very expensive.

00:09:37 ◼   ► - Was it more than $600 for the HomePods?

00:09:40 ◼   ► - Oh yes.

00:09:41 ◼   ► - All right, I guess I haven't priced it out,

00:09:43 ◼   ► so I didn't realize.

00:09:44 ◼   ► - Sonos doesn't sell a lot of products

00:09:45 ◼   ► for less than $600.

00:09:47 ◼   ► - I don't know, you're counting it,

00:09:48 ◼   ► - Because you got the sub with it too, right?

00:09:50 ◼   ► - That's correct.

00:09:51 ◼   ► - And the back surrounds too, or no?

00:09:52 ◼   ► - That is also correct.

00:09:54 ◼   ► So, and you're-- - Okay, yeah,

00:09:54 ◼   ► that's gonna be a lot.

00:09:56 ◼   ► - Yes, but that's actually in some ways a perfect segue,

00:09:59 ◼   ► because what I was going to recommend,

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

00:10:02 ◼   ► while I'm looking up the price,

00:10:03 ◼   ► is Sonos sells a set of the Sonos Arc,

00:10:07 ◼   ► which as we record is their most high-end soundbar,

00:10:12 ◼   ► which is what I got, and a Sonos sub,

00:10:15 ◼   ► and there's two different subs.

00:10:17 ◼   ► I got the larger of the two subs, the SubGen 3.

00:10:20 ◼   ► And actually, as we record, coincidentally, it is $200 off.

00:10:24 ◼   ► It is generally listed for $1,648.

00:10:27 ◼   ► It is currently on sale for $1,448.

00:10:30 ◼   ► Now, this sounds phenomenal.

00:10:33 ◼   ► And I don't personally have any experience with HomePods, so

00:10:35 ◼   ► I can't make any sort of claims it sounds better or

00:10:37 ◼   ► worse than HomePods.

00:10:39 ◼   ► But it sounds incredible.

00:10:41 ◼   ► But it's also what, like 2 and 1/2 times the cost, 2 times

00:10:43 ◼   ► the cost, right?

00:10:45 ◼   ► It's two times the cost of two HomePods, so it's not cheap.

00:10:49 ◼   ► I think there's something to be said for if you're doing a lot of home theater viewing,

00:10:55 ◼   ► you might be better off with some sort of soundbar with sub.

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

00:11:05 ◼   ► door at a semi-cheap price and get easily 80% of the way there, even for home theater

00:11:11 ◼   ► stuff, even I can concede that a stereo pair of HomePod 2s might be the better answer.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Jon, correct me on this.

00:11:19 ◼   ► Yeah, so here's the thing.

00:11:20 ◼   ► The problem with soundbars is most of them are bar-shaped, so they're not that big.

00:11:29 ◼   ► The fancier ones have, what is a factor is because that means you can't have speaker

00:11:33 ◼   ► cones that are that big.

00:11:35 ◼   ► It's very difficult to get any decent bass out of a two-inch speaker cone, depending

00:11:39 ◼   ► how short your soundbar is, that may be a limiting factor.

00:11:44 ◼   ► As you get fancier and fancier soundbars, a lot of them put the big cones facing up

00:11:49 ◼   ► or down and they're actually fairly deep if they're not that tall.

00:11:53 ◼   ► The very very fancy soundbars are not small anymore.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Like they're just really big and so you're like "oh you can fit big drivers in there"

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

00:12:03 ◼   ► But for television viewing, with that aside, the main thing that I feel like you would

00:12:09 ◼   ► want in a television viewing system has less to do with sound quality, which you can decide

00:12:15 ◼   ► how much money you want to spend to get whatever sound quality you want, and more to do with

00:12:18 ◼   ► you want all the channels represented.

00:12:20 ◼   ► So if I was spending my money and I was doing a television, I don't think I could ever give

00:12:25 ◼   ► up the center channel, which means you can't just have a stereo pair, right?

00:12:28 ◼   ► You have to have a left and a right and a center.

00:12:31 ◼   ► And then you should probably also have a subwoofer, and then you can consider whether you want

00:12:34 ◼   ► the back surrounds or not, right?

00:12:36 ◼   ► And that is something that home pods can't give you, because you just got the two of

00:12:41 ◼   ► them, and the two of them does not even give you a center channel, right?

00:12:45 ◼   ► And they have plenty of bass or whatever.

00:12:46 ◼   ► Now the thing is, if you have a cruddy soundbar, two home pods will probably sound better,

00:12:51 ◼   ► even despite the fact that the cruddy soundbar has a quote-unquote center channel.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Soundbars are usually about the width of your TV, so you're not going to get that much stereo

00:12:57 ◼   ► separation because how far can the right and left be from each other?

00:13:00 ◼   ► much farther than the width of the soundbar.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And when they do have a center channel, a very cheap soundbar will have a center channel

00:13:06 ◼   ► made of these tiny little speakers that are just...

00:13:09 ◼   ► Right?

00:13:10 ◼   ► And so in that case, you would say, "Oh, two home pods does sound better than this cheap

00:13:14 ◼   ► soundbar."

00:13:15 ◼   ► But the cheap soundbar probably costs less than two home pods.

00:13:17 ◼   ► So it's a little bit of a complicated question, but in general, what I would say is, if you

00:13:21 ◼   ► care about television and movies, don't get a two-channel setup.

00:13:26 ◼   ► Everything now has more channels than that.

00:13:27 ◼   ► You want center, left, and right, and preferably some kind of surround if you can manage it,

00:13:33 ◼   ► right?

00:13:34 ◼   ► And of course, as we know, anything that was shot to be 3D capable, you should also be

00:13:39 ◼   ► viewing on a 3D TV, because just because that capability is there, you need to have that.

00:13:44 ◼   ► It's always better, right?

00:13:45 ◼   ► 3D TV is terrible, but surround sound is good.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Oh, really?

00:13:48 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:13:49 ◼   ► That's interesting.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Why is that?

00:13:51 ◼   ► Because it's good!

00:13:52 ◼   ► Because it sounds good.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Because it's what you have in movie theaters.

00:13:55 ◼   ► People like it, it sounds good, it is not annoying.

00:13:56 ◼   ► it makes the movies and the television shows better.

00:13:59 ◼   ► - And everything about a movie theater experience is better.

00:14:01 ◼   ► So for instance, you have to make your home smell

00:14:03 ◼   ► like stale step on popcorn.

00:14:05 ◼   ► - That's not what we're talking about.

00:14:07 ◼   ► Anyway, and so even just for things that you don't care about

00:14:11 ◼   ► like forget about the word surround,

00:14:12 ◼   ► like I don't wanna hear things behind me,

00:14:14 ◼   ► forget about that.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Just right in front of you sound,

00:14:16 ◼   ► having a center right and left

00:14:18 ◼   ► is better than just having right and left

00:14:20 ◼   ► because the shows are mixed for center right and left.

00:14:22 ◼   ► And they're mixed to be put out that way.

00:14:25 ◼   ► All the sound is coming from the front of you,

00:14:27 ◼   ► no weird bouncing off anything,

00:14:28 ◼   ► but even just in that scenario,

00:14:30 ◼   ► that's how the shows are mixed.

00:14:32 ◼   ► They're usually mixed with also backs around stuff too.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Anyway, so the reason I give all those caveats

00:14:38 ◼   ► about cruddy soundbars is it's not universal.

00:14:40 ◼   ► It's not like you should always get any soundbar

00:14:41 ◼   ► over any pair of hos, because you shouldn't,

00:14:43 ◼   ► because cheap soundbars do not sound good.

00:14:46 ◼   ► They won't have bass, and the home pods do have bass.

00:14:48 ◼   ► A cheap soundbar will barely have any separation,

00:14:51 ◼   ► because the bar is not very long,

00:14:53 ◼   ► And the center channel is probably really credit quality

00:14:57 ◼   ► 'cause those usually aren't upwards or downwards facing,

00:14:59 ◼   ► so they're coming right at you.

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

00:15:02 ◼   ► look for discrete channels.

00:15:04 ◼   ► Now, the obvious, if you're wanting to actually

00:15:07 ◼   ► spend a little bit more money,

00:15:08 ◼   ► KC setup is good if you don't want to spend money

00:15:11 ◼   ► on a receiver or if, like KC, you have an ancient receiver

00:15:13 ◼   ► that can't handle this, because you don't need a receiver

00:15:15 ◼   ► in that Sonos setup, it does all this stuff for you.

00:15:18 ◼   ► But kind of like when you go to sort of the top end of,

00:15:21 ◼   ► used to be max, but these day species,

00:15:23 ◼   ► a modular system where you buy a receiver

00:15:25 ◼   ► and then you buy speakers and then that's all modular

00:15:28 ◼   ► and you can mix and match.

00:15:30 ◼   ► I can pick a receiver based on capabilities,

00:15:31 ◼   ► I can pick speakers of sizes and shapes

00:15:34 ◼   ► and costs to fit my setup,

00:15:36 ◼   ► I can change those speakers over time,

00:15:37 ◼   ► I can swap out the receiver and keep the speakers the same.

00:15:40 ◼   ► A modular system is going to cost more

00:15:41 ◼   ► but it gives you the ultimate flexibility

00:15:43 ◼   ► of deciding exactly how much money you wanna spend

00:15:45 ◼   ► for how big a speaker, for which role,

00:15:47 ◼   ► and any modern receiver has more channels than,

00:15:50 ◼   ► it's enough channels to fill your entire room

00:15:52 ◼   ► depending on where you can put speakers or when you can't.

00:15:55 ◼   ► So that's how I feel about HomePods' TV speakers.

00:15:58 ◼   ► They're probably better than your cheap soundbar,

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

00:16:03 ◼   ► but if it's possible for you to get discrete channels

00:16:07 ◼   ► for your sound, that's what I would suggest.

00:16:10 ◼   ► - I agree with you, but for slightly different reasons,

00:16:13 ◼   ► of course, the functionality of sending the audio

00:16:17 ◼   ► back to the Apple TV via eARC,

00:16:19 ◼   ► and then that wirelessly sending it to the HomePods

00:16:21 ◼   ► over some kind of protocol that's going to introduce,

00:16:25 ◼   ► obviously, a few problems.

00:16:26 ◼   ► Number one is going to be there's

00:16:27 ◼   ► going to be some latency.

00:16:28 ◼   ► And I have not tried this setup yet,

00:16:30 ◼   ► but I've heard the latency is OK.

00:16:33 ◼   ► But it's always going to be there.

00:16:36 ◼   ► It's always going to be a little bit worse than other speakers.

00:16:39 ◼   ► And that might be OK for movies and TV,

00:16:42 ◼   ► because you can adjust delays here and there.

00:16:44 ◼   ► It's not going to be OK for anything

00:16:45 ◼   ► that you need to be low latency in real time,

00:16:47 ◼   ► like, for instance, games.

00:16:48 ◼   ► Like, if you have a game system connected to your TV,

00:16:50 ◼   ► you're not gonna want any additional latency

00:16:52 ◼   ► added by the audio, and so that's gonna be a problem.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Number two, it's just gonna be more complicated

00:16:57 ◼   ► and potentially buggier.

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

00:17:03 ◼   ► is not the main role and selling point

00:17:06 ◼   ► and focus of the HomePod as a product.

00:17:09 ◼   ► And so maybe you can do it,

00:17:10 ◼   ► but if that's really what you're shopping for,

00:17:14 ◼   ► you should probably go a different direction

00:17:16 ◼   ► to something that's actually made more for that purpose,

00:17:18 ◼   ► 'cause your life will probably be simpler and better

00:17:21 ◼   ► and more reliable in the long run.

00:17:22 ◼   ► Like for instance, if you wanted to buy a computer

00:17:25 ◼   ► to primarily play video games on, that can be a Mac.

00:17:29 ◼   ► You can buy a Mac and Macs can run games.

00:17:32 ◼   ► That's a thing that can happen,

00:17:33 ◼   ► but you're better off buying a gaming PC.

00:17:36 ◼   ► So, John, so you can do it with the Mac,

00:17:40 ◼   ► but that's not really what it's made for.

00:17:42 ◼   ► The HomePod is never, that's never gonna be

00:17:45 ◼   ► a main priority for them.

00:17:47 ◼   ► that's never gonna get all the testing in the world,

00:17:50 ◼   ► it's never gonna have all the capability in the world.

00:17:52 ◼   ► Down the road, a software update might break it

00:17:54 ◼   ► in weird ways and maybe your TV speakers

00:17:55 ◼   ► will be broken for a month while they fixed it.

00:17:58 ◼   ► You don't wanna be in that world.

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

00:18:04 ◼   ► get regular TV speakers.

00:18:05 ◼   ► Now, whether that's a soundbar,

00:18:08 ◼   ► which I still hate that entire product category

00:18:11 ◼   ► and term and everything.

00:18:13 ◼   ► See, soundbars,

00:18:16 ◼   ► The same way that when Steve Jobs was first talking about

00:18:21 ◼   ► apps in the app store, and he kind of talked about them

00:18:23 ◼   ► almost like diminutively, like, oh they're just apps,

00:18:27 ◼   ► oh just snack on these apps.

00:18:29 ◼   ► It was like, the way he was speaking about them

00:18:32 ◼   ► didn't show a lot of respect for them,

00:18:35 ◼   ► or reverence to them, it was more just like,

00:18:38 ◼   ► here's these little things that kind of don't matter,

00:18:39 ◼   ► here, snack on them, good luck with that.

00:18:41 ◼   ► That's what soundbars are to the entire

00:18:44 ◼   ► world of home theater audio.

00:18:45 ◼   ► It's like, oh, we just gave you a little soundbar.

00:18:47 ◼   ► Yeah, here, have a soundbar.

00:18:49 ◼   ► - There are high-end soundbars now, believe it or not.

00:18:52 ◼   ► - Yes. - They are very expensive,

00:18:53 ◼   ► and they are actually pretty good.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Like I said, they are actually pretty good

00:18:57 ◼   ► because they're really, really wide,

00:18:58 ◼   ► so you actually get stereo separation, and they're big,

00:19:01 ◼   ► so they have large speaker drivers in them.

00:19:03 ◼   ► So what they are essentially is speakers,

00:19:06 ◼   ► enough of the guts of a receiver to make them work,

00:19:08 ◼   ► all shoved in one thing.

00:19:10 ◼   ► So it's not, most of them, I agree,

00:19:12 ◼   ► most of them are not great, but there are actual ones,

00:19:14 ◼   ► if you spend a ton of money and you have limited space that

00:19:18 ◼   ► are fairly impressive.

00:19:20 ◼   ► Sound bars are the point-and-shoot camera

00:19:23 ◼   ► of the home theater audio world.

00:19:25 ◼   ► So you have the built-in speakers on the TV

00:19:28 ◼   ► that you get for free with no space.

00:19:30 ◼   ► And they do kind of remarkable things

00:19:32 ◼   ► considering the limited space and front-facing grills

00:19:36 ◼   ► and stuff that they tend to be lacking.

00:19:38 ◼   ► So you have the built-in speakers on the TV.

00:19:40 ◼   ► Then you have this huge quality gap.

00:19:42 ◼   ► And then you have a nice speaker system,

00:19:45 ◼   ► whether it's two channel, three channel,

00:19:46 ◼   ► five channel, 19 channel, whatever it is,

00:19:49 ◼   ► you have like, there's that big gap in size, complexity,

00:19:52 ◼   ► cost between TV speakers and then a full blown

00:19:56 ◼   ► separated speaker system with a receiver.

00:19:58 ◼   ► Soundbars try to be in the middle of that,

00:20:00 ◼   ► but they have a very hard time,

00:20:02 ◼   ► most soundbars are not that much better

00:20:06 ◼   ► than the built-in speakers of your TV

00:20:08 ◼   ► and also are way, way worse than a big system.

00:20:13 ◼   ► And so if you can do the big system,

00:20:16 ◼   ► and it doesn't have to be a high-end big system,

00:20:19 ◼   ► it just gets bigger.

00:20:20 ◼   ► You have to have generally some kind of receiver or amp,

00:20:22 ◼   ► and then you have to have,

00:20:24 ◼   ► you have to buy separate speakers, you know?

00:20:25 ◼   ► And even though I'm a two channel or 2.1 person,

00:20:30 ◼   ► I love having a subwoofer and the two speakers,

00:20:33 ◼   ► that's a great system for me.

00:20:34 ◼   ► I know Jon espouses at least having a center channel,

00:20:37 ◼   ► and I can see the reasons for that.

00:20:38 ◼   ► That's kind of, it's kind of a preference thing.

00:20:40 ◼   ► And so I see that both ways.

00:20:42 ◼   ► And again, John was right, you know, with HomePods,

00:20:45 ◼   ► like you can't expand that system,

00:20:47 ◼   ► whereas with anything else you can.

00:20:49 ◼   ► But what everybody will tell you,

00:20:51 ◼   ► all the people who are soundbar apologists,

00:20:53 ◼   ► they'll tell you, oh yeah, get the soundbar, it's okay.

00:20:55 ◼   ► But if you really want the best setup,

00:20:58 ◼   ► also get front, left, and right separate speakers

00:21:01 ◼   ► and rears and a subwoofer.

00:21:03 ◼   ► Well, if you're doing that, then all the soundbar is

00:21:06 ◼   ► is an extraordinarily expensive, crappy center channel with an amp in it.

00:21:10 ◼   ► And you're better off separating out those rules.

00:21:13 ◼   ► I don't think they'll tell you to get bright and left with a soundbar.

00:21:16 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I think you've jumped off the ship at this point.

00:21:20 ◼   ► I mean, I understand the point you're making, but--

00:21:22 ◼   ► and I agree wholeheartedly, by the way, that your average soundbar,

00:21:26 ◼   ► from everything I've experienced, sounds like garbage.

00:21:28 ◼   ► I completely agree.

00:21:29 ◼   ► Although I still think it sounds way better than most TV speakers.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Like, there is a jump between--

00:21:32 ◼   ► It's a pretty low par.

00:21:33 ◼   ► --TV speakers and even the worst soundbar.

00:21:35 ◼   ► That's true.

00:21:36 ◼   ► but that's a very, very low bar.

00:21:37 ◼   ► - Honestly, not for many people.

00:21:39 ◼   ► Like, it turns out, like, I mean, look, obviously,

00:21:42 ◼   ► you know, everyone is picky about different things,

00:21:44 ◼   ► but like, for most people's needs,

00:21:47 ◼   ► a sound bar isn't that much better

00:21:49 ◼   ► than the built-in speakers on most decent TVs.

00:21:52 ◼   ► Now, that's a lot of mosts,

00:21:53 ◼   ► there's a lot of qualifying words there, I know that,

00:21:56 ◼   ► but for the most part, sound bars usually do not pull off

00:22:00 ◼   ► what they purport to pull off.

00:22:02 ◼   ► What they purport is, this is going to be

00:22:04 ◼   ► a relatively smallish, relatively simpleish thing

00:22:08 ◼   ► that's gonna be way better.

00:22:09 ◼   ► And of course they play all the same tricks as HomePods.

00:22:13 ◼   ► Like, oh, you can just have this one thing in the middle

00:22:15 ◼   ► and we'll bounce sound off the walls.

00:22:16 ◼   ► And none of that really works very well.

00:22:18 ◼   ► You can always tell, oh, this is all coming from the middle.

00:22:21 ◼   ► It's not fooling anybody, you can't beat physics.

00:22:23 ◼   ► But what people think they are good at,

00:22:28 ◼   ► they're not that good at.

00:22:29 ◼   ► - I don't know, I think it's one of those things

00:22:32 ◼   ► where if you are willing to spend the money for a,

00:22:35 ◼   ► like Jon has been saying, a properly good soundbar,

00:22:39 ◼   ► then it can be done well.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Although I will say even the ARC,

00:22:43 ◼   ► which is the most fancy soundbar that Sonos makes,

00:22:46 ◼   ► it is pretty tinny without an attachment.

00:22:48 ◼   ► - And it is not, that is not an example

00:22:50 ◼   ► of a high-end soundbar, by the way.

00:22:52 ◼   ► - Okay, well then what would you?

00:22:53 ◼   ► - Like the fancy ones are substantially more expensive

00:22:56 ◼   ► than the Sonos ARC and substantially larger

00:22:59 ◼   ► and usually do come with a subwoofer.

00:23:01 ◼   ► They're not cheating, they just have tons of speaker drivers

00:23:05 ◼   ► widely separated with high quality and the built in guts

00:23:08 ◼   ► to amplify them and make them sound good.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And they have some smarts to make the,

00:23:13 ◼   ► aiming them around the room.

00:23:14 ◼   ► Like the bouncing is never gonna make it sound like

00:23:15 ◼   ► it's coming from behind you, behind you.

00:23:17 ◼   ► But the very best ones sound like they're on the side of you

00:23:20 ◼   ► which is much better than only being in the front.

00:23:22 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

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00:25:27 ◼   ► - Vortech writes with a recommendation

00:25:34 ◼   ► for what happens when you accidentally tap a HomePod

00:25:36 ◼   ► and you're an outlet.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Well, it turns out accessibility is for everyone,

00:25:40 ◼   ► as we know but often forget.

00:25:42 ◼   ► You can go into Touch Accommodations

00:25:45 ◼   ► and then have a Hold Duration.

00:25:47 ◼   ► I presume this is specific to the HomePod.

00:25:49 ◼   ► I don't have a HomePod, so I can't try this out myself.

00:25:51 ◼   ► But anyways, you can set a Hold Duration

00:25:54 ◼   ► for a very small amount of time.

00:25:55 ◼   ► In this screenshot, Vortec had set it for 0.2 seconds,

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

00:26:03 ◼   ► and you can always make it longer if need be.

00:26:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, this is better than nothing,

00:26:09 ◼   ► but if only there was some way,

00:26:12 ◼   ► if we had designed some kind of input device--

00:26:15 ◼   ► - No, it's impossible, can't be done.

00:26:16 ◼   ► - Where you could maybe brush against it or dust it

00:26:20 ◼   ► without actuating an action,

00:26:23 ◼   ► but if you wanted to create the action,

00:26:26 ◼   ► there wouldn't be any kind of weird gesture or delay,

00:26:28 ◼   ► you could just maybe like push it.

00:26:30 ◼   ► I don't know if there's--

00:26:30 ◼   ► - How about we add a camera to look at your eyeballs

00:26:32 ◼   ► to tell if you're looking at the button

00:26:34 ◼   ► and then only if you have like your eye

00:26:36 ◼   ► if it's focused on the button,

00:26:37 ◼   ► then it will activate the button

00:26:38 ◼   ► 'cause that's the only thing I can think of.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Same with car interior design,

00:26:42 ◼   ► is we need to have buttons on the steering wheel.

00:26:44 ◼   ► It's not like people's hands are gonna be

00:26:45 ◼   ► near that area frequently, right?

00:26:47 ◼   ► So we can just make those touch buttons,

00:26:48 ◼   ► I'm sure that'll be fine.

00:26:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I just like, you know, this makes the HomePod

00:26:53 ◼   ► a little bit less annoying to use,

00:26:54 ◼   ► but the fact is like, I actually do use the top tap input

00:26:59 ◼   ► as a quick gesture to play pause or to go next track,

00:27:01 ◼   ► you know, double tap, like, I actually do that

00:27:03 ◼   ► on a regular basis, so I don't want to make the interaction

00:27:06 ◼   ► with it worse or slower or more annoying.

00:27:09 ◼   ► I just want it to ignore accidental input and--

00:27:12 ◼   ► - They'll add force touch sensors to it.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Still not a real button, but it has force touch,

00:27:16 ◼   ► you have to press real hard.

00:27:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like, they're putting all this effort

00:27:19 ◼   ► things like, you know, this would be so much better if it was just a button. You're just making a button,

00:27:24 ◼   ► an actual button that moves up and down. It's even cheaper, like, I don't, it's just,

00:27:28 ◼   ► it's like, it's, what they have now is worse in every way. And it's not, it's not like it's

00:27:33 ◼   ► gonna wear, it's not like it's gonna wear out, like, a mouse button from hundreds of thousands

00:27:37 ◼   ► of clicks either. It's not like you're sitting there hammering the top of the home pod all day

00:27:40 ◼   ► long. It's like, it doesn't even have to be a good button, just put a button on it, geez.

00:27:46 ◼   ► You know, my Sonos speakers, they have buttons that you can press.

00:27:50 ◼   ► I know!

00:27:52 ◼   ► Just saying.

00:27:52 ◼   ► All the touch sensors on the top of the Apple devices, you gotta go for this variation of the frequent internet meme.

00:28:00 ◼   ► Did a cat design this?

00:28:03 ◼   ► Alright, moving along, Sevrere Bjorkvinson—I'm sorry if that's wrong, I'm doing my best here—

00:28:10 ◼   ► points out and reminds us that the Foo Fighters did perform at an Apple event.

00:28:15 ◼   ► It was the iPhone 5 launch event and even provided a YouTube link that we will put in

00:28:20 ◼   ► the show notes.

00:28:21 ◼   ► Good, I'm glad we're all excited about that.

00:28:23 ◼   ► Hey, so Twitter is still a mess, as it turns out.

00:28:27 ◼   ► So on February 2nd, Twitter Dev, which is the Twitter account that represents, I guess,

00:28:34 ◼   ► the developer relations, in so much as such a thing exists.

00:28:38 ◼   ► Anyways, they tweeted on February 2nd, "Starting February 9th, we will no longer support free

00:28:44 ◼   ► access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Over the years, hundreds of millions of people have sent over a trillion tweets with billions

00:28:53 ◼   ► more every week. Twitter data are among the world's most powerful datasets. We're committed

00:28:56 ◼   ► to enabling fast and comprehensive access so you can continue to build with us. We'll

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

00:29:04 ◼   ► haven't arrived, as we record, which is super fun. However, two days later, the chief idiot

00:29:11 ◼   ► in chief wrote, "Responding to feedback, Twitter will enable a light write-only API

00:29:16 ◼   ► for bots providing good content that is free." Well, thank you. That really clarifies things.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Good content. Dare I ask, what is good content, King? I don't, I can't.

00:29:28 ◼   ► I feel like this is one of those things where people focus a lot on his individual words

00:29:34 ◼   ► or the individual details of the policy, but what you need to do is take a step back here

00:29:38 ◼   ► and look at the big picture.

00:29:40 ◼   ► This is an unreliable platform

00:29:42 ◼   ► run by unreliable, erratic leaders.

00:29:46 ◼   ► And so this is not a place to build anything.

00:29:49 ◼   ► And if you already built something there,

00:29:52 ◼   ► this is like one of many recent warning signs

00:29:57 ◼   ► that you should probably look to move

00:29:59 ◼   ► whatever it is you need that for

00:30:01 ◼   ► to move that role somewhere else.

00:30:03 ◼   ► Because this is just a, it's an unreliable platform.

00:30:05 ◼   ► You cannot build on this platform anymore

00:30:07 ◼   ► and if you've already built there,

00:30:10 ◼   ► it's just a matter of time before anything you built there

00:30:12 ◼   ► or invested in there is arbitrarily

00:30:15 ◼   ► and capriciously set on fire.

00:30:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's not like charging for API access

00:30:19 ◼   ► is a bad idea, it's a perfectly good idea.

00:30:20 ◼   ► It's all about the way it's been done

00:30:22 ◼   ► and the sort of lack of understanding

00:30:24 ◼   ► of the sort of value ecosystem

00:30:25 ◼   ► that the API has provided for Twitter.

00:30:27 ◼   ► It's existed for so long, a lot of the value on Twitter

00:30:30 ◼   ► is done by people having fun bots

00:30:33 ◼   ► that make little accounts that you can follow

00:30:35 ◼   ► or post the weather or show pictures of cats,

00:30:37 ◼   ► or I follow one that does a calendar accurate

00:30:42 ◼   ► retelling of snippets of Lord of the Rings.

00:30:44 ◼   ► So like when October happens in the book,

00:30:46 ◼   ► there'll be a tweet on that day in October saying

00:30:49 ◼   ► where the characters are in the story or whatever.

00:30:51 ◼   ► That's all like extremely low volume, silly,

00:30:54 ◼   ► frivolous stuff that's getting by on the free API, right?

00:30:58 ◼   ► And then of course there are bots that abuse it

00:31:01 ◼   ► and do bad things, and then there are things

00:31:03 ◼   ► that are actually using the API thoroughly.

00:31:06 ◼   ► And it's like, this is not the first site to have an API.

00:31:09 ◼   ► Like this is a known thing that's been around for ages

00:31:12 ◼   ► and Twitter has history behind it.

00:31:13 ◼   ► You wanna monetize the API,

00:31:15 ◼   ► you monetize the big ones that you know can pay,

00:31:18 ◼   ► you allow the Lord of the Rings bot to continue to exist

00:31:21 ◼   ► and you have a free tier with low limits

00:31:24 ◼   ► for everybody else to do.

00:31:25 ◼   ► And you come out with that plan, with ample warning,

00:31:29 ◼   ► with a clear explanation of what it's gonna be

00:31:31 ◼   ► and the pricing structure and everything like that,

00:31:33 ◼   ► and of course they didn't do any of that.

00:31:35 ◼   ► And so it's not the fact that they're charging for an API.

00:31:37 ◼   ► It's not the fact that they're killing the whole free API.

00:31:40 ◼   ► It's the fact that they just have no idea

00:31:42 ◼   ► what they're doing, they're just blundering through

00:31:44 ◼   ► like a bull in a china shop.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Just unknowingly destroying value, scaring people away,

00:31:49 ◼   ► frightening developers into saying,

00:31:51 ◼   ► well I don't even wanna deal with that,

00:31:52 ◼   ► so I'm just taking Twitter support out of my app.

00:31:54 ◼   ► All the people who had bots are like,

00:31:56 ◼   ► well, you know, I was already kind of sketchy on this place,

00:31:58 ◼   ► but now it's just like, whatever, I'm just gonna give up,

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

00:32:03 ◼   ► It's just, you know, typical Elon Musk's quitter behavior,

00:32:07 ◼   ► which is even if you are kind of sort of on the right track

00:32:11 ◼   ► for something that might possibly be a good idea,

00:32:13 ◼   ► do it in the worst way possible

00:32:14 ◼   ► to get any benefit you might have.

00:32:16 ◼   ► And by the way, this still does not solve

00:32:19 ◼   ► the giant money problem they have

00:32:21 ◼   ► because charging for the API,

00:32:23 ◼   ► no matter how much they charge,

00:32:24 ◼   ► there's just not enough money at this point

00:32:25 ◼   ► to ring out of Twitter in the next year

00:32:27 ◼   ► to be able to service their debt or whatever.

00:32:29 ◼   ► So, typical comedy of errors going on over there.

00:32:32 ◼   ► - He's a incredible businessman though, let's not forget.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Move to Dawn was killed for unspecified rule violations,

00:32:40 ◼   ► surprise, surprise.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Tibor Martini writes, and this is the creator,

00:32:44 ◼   ► "According to Twitter, the app has violated

00:32:46 ◼   ► "Twitter rules and policies.

00:32:47 ◼   ► "I can't tell much more at the moment

00:32:49 ◼   ► "since the email they mentioned never arrived in my inbox.

00:32:51 ◼   ► "I try to get more information from Twitter,

00:32:53 ◼   ► "but they already mentioned that it may take

00:32:54 ◼   ► "a few days to get back to me."

00:32:55 ◼   ► - It'll take a few days to get back to them.

00:32:58 ◼   ► By the time they get back to them,

00:32:59 ◼   ► the free API will be turned off anyway.

00:33:02 ◼   ► It's like, your app is dead no matter what.

00:33:04 ◼   ► Because that's what people were saying.

00:33:05 ◼   ► Movetodon is that thing that lets you find your followers.

00:33:08 ◼   ► Find people you follow on Twitter,

00:33:09 ◼   ► if they put a Macedon address in their bio

00:33:12 ◼   ► or in their name somewhere, it will find it.

00:33:14 ◼   ► And then it will let you follow them

00:33:16 ◼   ► using your Macedon account.

00:33:17 ◼   ► There's a bunch of tools that are like that.

00:33:18 ◼   ► This was one of the better ones we talked about

00:33:20 ◼   ► on the past in the show.

00:33:21 ◼   ► I think at some point where these things,

00:33:23 ◼   ► they weren't banned.

00:33:24 ◼   ► No, they were doing the thing where they weren't letting you

00:33:26 ◼   ► put Macedon addresses in your address.

00:33:27 ◼   ► It's hard to keep track of all their weird rules.

00:33:29 ◼   ► But anyway, one of the people like,

00:33:33 ◼   ► oh, they killed the API so they could kill

00:33:34 ◼   ► these migration services.

00:33:36 ◼   ► I'm sure they enjoy the fact that these migration services

00:33:38 ◼   ► won't be able to exist on the free API anymore,

00:33:40 ◼   ► but these people could, in theory,

00:33:41 ◼   ► just pay for the API if they wanted to continue this.

00:33:44 ◼   ► It's ascribing to them some master plan.

00:33:48 ◼   ► They're there going, haha, we're gonna do this thing.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Same thing with the bots.

00:33:50 ◼   ► This is to get rid of the bots.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Like, are you kidding?

00:33:52 ◼   ► If there's anything in the world that is going to

00:33:55 ◼   ► do HTML scraping of your website

00:33:57 ◼   ► to get around API limits is spammers, right?

00:33:59 ◼   ► Like, don't worry, they'll be, spammers will be fine.

00:34:02 ◼   ► They don't need your API.

00:34:04 ◼   ► And they'll just find a way to pay for your API

00:34:05 ◼   ► with stolen credit cards anyway.

00:34:07 ◼   ► You'll have fun chasing them around, yeah.

00:34:08 ◼   ► Solving spam is easy.

00:34:09 ◼   ► Just, you know, end the free API.

00:34:11 ◼   ► You'll never have spam again.

00:34:13 ◼   ► I'm sure that'll work great.

00:34:14 ◼   ► But yeah, this thing got suspended, who knows why.

00:34:17 ◼   ► You're not, like Margaret was saying,

00:34:19 ◼   ► you're not dealing with, you know,

00:34:22 ◼   ► I know it's not an individual,

00:34:23 ◼   ► but if you were to personify Twitter,

00:34:25 ◼   ► you're not dealing with an adult here.

00:34:26 ◼   ► You're not dealing with a professional adult.

00:34:28 ◼   ► Things are gonna happen,

00:34:29 ◼   ► and there's not gonna be any explanation,

00:34:31 ◼   ► and there's nothing you can do about it.

00:34:33 ◼   ► It's just like a completely unreliable, flaky other party

00:34:38 ◼   ► that is gonna ban you and not tell you why

00:34:40 ◼   ► and tell you they're gonna tell you

00:34:41 ◼   ► and not ever send you that email.

00:34:43 ◼   ► They're just gonna flake out on you.

00:34:44 ◼   ► Like, the whole company is like that.

00:34:45 ◼   ► So it doesn't take much of interaction like that

00:34:48 ◼   ► to make people think, yeah, screw this.

00:34:51 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't need to deal with this.

00:34:52 ◼   ► I'm just trying to make,

00:34:54 ◼   ► I was trying to make a fun Twitter account

00:34:55 ◼   ► that post pictures of kittens every day,

00:34:56 ◼   ► and I don't need to deal with my thing getting banned

00:34:59 ◼   ► and them telling me they're gonna tell me what I did,

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

00:35:02 ◼   ► but they don't have a communications department

00:35:04 ◼   ► and it's just, whatever.

00:35:06 ◼   ► It just makes people not wanna deal with it.

00:35:09 ◼   ► - For what it's worth, Mastodon Flock,

00:35:12 ◼   ► which is similar to Move to Dawn, is still working.

00:35:14 ◼   ► Also, breaking news via Smythe in the chat,

00:35:17 ◼   ► Paul Haddad of Tapbots just tweeted that,

00:35:21 ◼   ► sometime in the last couple hours,

00:35:23 ◼   ► Twitter dev finally announced some more details.

00:35:25 ◼   ► This is breaking news.

00:35:27 ◼   ► Delay the new rules for four days.

00:35:29 ◼   ► Free bot level of up to 1,500 tweets a month for a single

00:35:33 ◼   ► authenticated user.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And Paul surmises that probably means no read access.

00:35:37 ◼   ► You can only post.

00:35:39 ◼   ► $100 a month for low level of API usage tier.

00:35:42 ◼   ► So $100 a month if you want to post is what we're assuming.

00:35:46 ◼   ► That's not factual, but that's what we're assuming.

00:35:48 ◼   ► And then the premium API, which is the expensive one that

00:35:51 ◼   ► had prices listed goes away in favor of the Enterprise API,

00:35:55 ◼   ► which is the even more expensive one that didn't even

00:35:57 ◼   ► have prices listed.

00:35:58 ◼   ► And Paul continues, before anyone asks,

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

00:36:02 ◼   ► If anything, it is the exact opposite.

00:36:04 ◼   ► Having no read access kind of kills the-- well,

00:36:07 ◼   ► it doesn't entirely kill the-- I don't know.

00:36:10 ◼   ► The move to Don type scraping things kind of

00:36:13 ◼   ► need read access in addition to-- well,

00:36:14 ◼   ► I guess they don't need write access.

00:36:15 ◼   ► But the write only ones is like, oh, you

00:36:17 ◼   ► can contribute content to this black hole,

00:36:18 ◼   ► but you can't actually read from it.

00:36:20 ◼   ► But like for example, our Ask ATP--

00:36:21 ◼   ► - Birdhouse would be okay.

00:36:22 ◼   ► - Our Ask ATP scraper that was looking for the Ask ATP

00:36:26 ◼   ► hashtag and putting it into a Google Sheet,

00:36:28 ◼   ► that just uses read, it doesn't use write at all,

00:36:30 ◼   ► and that thing would still be screwed,

00:36:31 ◼   ► not that we would ever pay for access to that anyway, but.

00:36:34 ◼   ► Yeah, whatever, and this set of rules or whatever,

00:36:37 ◼   ► imagine if you had like an adult come up with a plan

00:36:39 ◼   ► for the API before you started announcing things,

00:36:42 ◼   ► before you started canceling the API

00:36:44 ◼   ► and had like an actual plan and put it together

00:36:46 ◼   ► and rolled it out smoothly with warning ahead of time

00:36:49 ◼   ► and a PR push and marketing, you know,

00:36:51 ◼   ► like a real grown up company,

00:36:53 ◼   ► but that's not the way any of this works.

00:36:54 ◼   ► - Imagine.

00:36:55 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Pushcut,

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00:39:07 ◼   ► - Marco, you've bought one to seven HomePod 2s.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Please tell me-- - I bought two HomePod 2s.

00:39:17 ◼   ► - Please tell me, are they worth the money?

00:39:19 ◼   ► Are they good, are they bad?

00:39:20 ◼   ► Are they better than the ones?

00:39:21 ◼   ► Have they solved all your problems?

00:39:23 ◼   ► What's the situation?

00:39:24 ◼   ► - Actually, before Marco starts,

00:39:25 ◼   ► I have a comment on the picture

00:39:27 ◼   ► that I'm assuming he will make the chapter art

00:39:29 ◼   ► for this little section here.

00:39:31 ◼   ► He posted a bunch of pictures

00:39:32 ◼   ► of your little HomePod testing area

00:39:34 ◼   ► that slowly gained more and more pods.

00:39:38 ◼   ► - That kept multiplying. - Yes.

00:39:39 ◼   ► - See the little baby ones after next to the two parents?

00:39:41 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Now obviously this is not,

00:39:43 ◼   ► He doesn't have an anechoic chamber in his house.

00:39:46 ◼   ► This is not super scientific testing, blah, blah, blah.

00:39:49 ◼   ► Even down to the point of like some people saying,

00:39:50 ◼   ► well, you know, audio devices take a while to break in

00:39:53 ◼   ► and if you just got them today,

00:39:54 ◼   ► like you need a week to break in and it's like, whatever.

00:39:56 ◼   ► But this is not, we're not going super scientific here.

00:39:59 ◼   ► But I will say that even from the very first picture,

00:40:02 ◼   ► when I saw that you had arranged the right and left

00:40:05 ◼   ► old and new home pods and little stereo pairs

00:40:08 ◼   ► next to each other, I mean, I guess you can tell me,

00:40:12 ◼   ► But they're pretty close to each other.

00:40:15 ◼   ► And my recollection is the HomePod 1s at least

00:40:18 ◼   ► did something where they sprayed out sound

00:40:20 ◼   ► and then saw how it bounced back to figure out

00:40:23 ◼   ► how they're supposed to adjust to their environment.

00:40:27 ◼   ► But the environment is weird when you've got HomePod,

00:40:31 ◼   ► the two right ones right next to each other

00:40:34 ◼   ► and the two left ones right next to each other

00:40:35 ◼   ► because it's not an apples to apples comparison

00:40:39 ◼   ► because the environment for both of them is different.

00:40:42 ◼   ► one of the right ones has something to its left

00:40:44 ◼   ► and one of the right ones has something to its right.

00:40:46 ◼   ► - Yes, the reason I arranged them this way,

00:40:47 ◼   ► and you're right on a bunch of things that I'll get to,

00:40:49 ◼   ► but the reason I arranged them this way

00:40:51 ◼   ► is so that each pair would have the same amount

00:40:53 ◼   ► of space between it, because otherwise I figured,

00:40:57 ◼   ► if I had the new ones on the inside

00:40:59 ◼   ► and the old ones on the outside, then it would be unfair.

00:41:01 ◼   ► - No, no, I get it.

00:41:02 ◼   ► You want the stereo distance to be the same.

00:41:04 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:41:05 ◼   ► - But the distance to its neighbor,

00:41:07 ◼   ► and here's the problem.

00:41:08 ◼   ► You can't just, well, why don't you just have two of them

00:41:10 ◼   ► and then swap them out?

00:41:11 ◼   ► You want to be able to do like A/B testing like immediately.

00:41:13 ◼   ► You're not like, oh, let me just lug a bunch of bricks, right?

00:41:15 ◼   ► So it's not ideal.

00:41:17 ◼   ► The second thing is that-- and this is an accurate test

00:41:20 ◼   ► for Marco's environment for sure,

00:41:22 ◼   ► but I always think about this when I see HomePod set up.

00:41:24 ◼   ► You've got him on a counter with like a backsplash, right?

00:41:27 ◼   ► That's not an ideal audio environment, a speaker that

00:41:30 ◼   ► is like inches away from--

00:41:31 ◼   ► Not at all.

00:41:32 ◼   ► --a stone backsplash or whatever.

00:41:35 ◼   ► But that's how they're going to be used in a lot of places.

00:41:37 ◼   ► So it is a representative test for Marco's environment,

00:41:41 ◼   ► but again, it is not an anechoic chamber

00:41:44 ◼   ► where you have this beautiful isolated speaker.

00:41:47 ◼   ► So let's say this is a challenging scenario

00:41:50 ◼   ► for all the little felt covered orbs involved.

00:41:53 ◼   ► And I think also a challenging listening scenario

00:41:55 ◼   ► because you can never know how much of what you're hearing

00:41:57 ◼   ► is a result of the devices

00:41:59 ◼   ► versus a result of the devices

00:42:01 ◼   ► either not adjusting for their environment

00:42:03 ◼   ► or badly adjusting for their environment.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And finally, how much of what you're hearing

00:42:06 ◼   ► is just a result of like, look, the sound,

00:42:08 ◼   ► it's gonna be bouncing off marble

00:42:09 ◼   ► that's two inches behind it.

00:42:10 ◼   ► - Right, and it's not a marble, it's quartz.

00:42:12 ◼   ► We have a marble table, like the little circular marble,

00:42:15 ◼   ► and it's like the biggest pain in the butt.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Oh my God, never get marble anything.

00:42:20 ◼   ► Quartz is so much better.

00:42:22 ◼   ► Anyway, so, and you're right.

00:42:23 ◼   ► So, and I think a huge disclaimer here that all of these,

00:42:28 ◼   ► I think except the HomePod Minis, but all the,

00:42:30 ◼   ► so I have in this test two old HomePods,

00:42:34 ◼   ► two new HomePods, two HomePod minis,

00:42:37 ◼   ► and a fourth gen Amazon Echo.

00:42:40 ◼   ► I only have one 'cause the second one died

00:42:42 ◼   ► after like two seconds 'cause they're garbage.

00:42:45 ◼   ► They're the worst built Amazon thing I've ever had.

00:42:47 ◼   ► Anyway, and I tested them in stereo pairs

00:42:51 ◼   ► and in single configurations,

00:42:54 ◼   ► except for the Echo where I only have one,

00:42:55 ◼   ► so I couldn't test stereo pair of that.

00:42:57 ◼   ► A huge disclaimer here that, again,

00:42:58 ◼   ► besides the HomePod mini, which I think doesn't do this,

00:43:01 ◼   ► all of the other ones, maybe the Echo,

00:43:03 ◼   ► do some kind of sound processing

00:43:06 ◼   ► based on whatever surroundings they sense.

00:43:08 ◼   ► Or like the HomePod for instance has a microphone

00:43:11 ◼   ► inside of it that tweaks the bass response I think.

00:43:14 ◼   ► And it also, it does like you know,

00:43:16 ◼   ► measure reflections and everything.

00:43:18 ◼   ► If you like shake a HomePod while it's playing,

00:43:22 ◼   ► it has accelerometers to detect that it's been moved

00:43:24 ◼   ► and it will kind of like reset itself

00:43:25 ◼   ► and like readapt the sound briefly.

00:43:27 ◼   ► It sounds really weird, try it.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Anyway, with all that said, these are all speakers

00:43:31 ◼   ► that use a lot of software processing.

00:43:34 ◼   ► What I try to do when I'm judging,

00:43:35 ◼   ► like does this sound better than that or whatever,

00:43:38 ◼   ► and how does it sound better,

00:43:40 ◼   ► I also have to consider the fact that

00:43:41 ◼   ► not only are people's environments different,

00:43:43 ◼   ► but the state of the software is going to vary over time.

00:43:47 ◼   ► And so it might be adjusting for something in my room

00:43:49 ◼   ► that somebody else wouldn't have,

00:43:51 ◼   ► and it even might be like that maybe in a software update

00:43:55 ◼   ► they'll tweak the mix slightly over time as well.

00:43:57 ◼   ► So that's a huge disclaimer.

00:43:59 ◼   ► So what I'm really judging here is

00:44:01 ◼   ► to some degree how they sound now,

00:44:03 ◼   ► but also you can tell when you're judging a speaker

00:44:06 ◼   ► or a headphone, you can tell, or a microphone even,

00:44:09 ◼   ► you can tell what you can fix in EQ versus what you can't.

00:44:14 ◼   ► If you look at a frequency response graph,

00:44:17 ◼   ► you'll see these in reviews sometimes

00:44:19 ◼   ► where it'll have like 30 hertz on one side

00:44:22 ◼   ► and like 16,000 or 20,000 hertz on the other side,

00:44:24 ◼   ► it'll show a logarithmic graph,

00:44:25 ◼   ► you'll see a little wavy line,

00:44:27 ◼   ► it's usually, it's supposed to be somewhat flat

00:44:31 ◼   ► In practice, usually you see like a slow hump up

00:44:34 ◼   ► on the base side and left side,

00:44:36 ◼   ► and then all the way on the right

00:44:37 ◼   ► when the high treble frequencies,

00:44:38 ◼   ► he goes zigzag, zigzag, zigzag,

00:44:39 ◼   ► and kind of fall off at the end.

00:44:42 ◼   ► A frequency response graph is the kind of thing

00:44:44 ◼   ► where you can use EQ to tweak things about that

00:44:48 ◼   ► that you don't like a little bit to some extent.

00:44:50 ◼   ► But where EQ doesn't help you

00:44:53 ◼   ► and processing doesn't help you

00:44:54 ◼   ► is in other areas of sound design,

00:44:57 ◼   ► and you'll have to forgive me,

00:44:58 ◼   ► I'm not a speaker or headphone designer,

00:45:00 ◼   ► So I know a little bit about this stuff,

00:45:02 ◼   ► 'cause this is like a world that I'm a big enthusiast about,

00:45:05 ◼   ► but a lot of the science I don't know.

00:45:07 ◼   ► So with that disclaimer in mind,

00:45:09 ◼   ► and I'm sure we'll hear from people

00:45:10 ◼   ► who design speakers in our audience.

00:45:12 ◼   ► So with that being said, so other factors, for instance,

00:45:16 ◼   ► are things like distortion characteristics,

00:45:18 ◼   ► or like weird phase interference issues you can get

00:45:22 ◼   ► with certain designs of, like certain physical designs

00:45:25 ◼   ► of the enclosure the speakers are in,

00:45:27 ◼   ► the drivers, how they're arranged.

00:45:29 ◼   ► There's all these different other factors,

00:45:31 ◼   ► and a lot of those can't be corrected in EQ.

00:45:33 ◼   ► So what I'm judging here, this is a huge preamble I know,

00:45:36 ◼   ► this is almost John level of preamble,

00:45:37 ◼   ► what I'm judging here, I'm trying to listen to like,

00:45:40 ◼   ► what is the speaker capable of,

00:45:42 ◼   ► and then what is it doing now,

00:45:43 ◼   ► as like kind of two separate things.

00:45:45 ◼   ► Because what it's doing now could be adjusted

00:45:47 ◼   ► with software over time,

00:45:48 ◼   ► what it's capable of, for the most part, can't.

00:45:50 ◼   ► - And speaking of these frequency response curves

00:45:52 ◼   ► and phase stuff or whatever,

00:45:54 ◼   ► one of the things that that Dirac Live software

00:45:56 ◼   ► that I've talked about in the past,

00:45:57 ◼   ► like an app that you run on your Mac or PC,

00:45:59 ◼   ► that talks to your receiver, that measures your speakers with stereo, with the microphone

00:46:04 ◼   ► that you put where your head would be, it takes these frequency response curves and

00:46:08 ◼   ► it will level them out with very detailed EQ and everything, and it will also tell you

00:46:13 ◼   ► these speakers are out of phase, there's destructive interference over here, like that's what those

00:46:19 ◼   ► applications do, because you can't really do it by ear, you need sort of equipment to

00:46:22 ◼   ► do it, and if you have your speakers wired the wrong way, if you have your subwoofer

00:46:29 ◼   ► phase switch the wrong way, if your crossover is in the wrong spot, this software will tell

00:46:33 ◼   ► you because you might not know what you're supposed to, I certainly don't, what I'm supposed

00:46:36 ◼   ► to be listening for or I hear this, I know this wrong, but the software will literally

00:46:40 ◼   ► tell you until you get your thing sounding as good as it possibly can with your equipment,

00:46:45 ◼   ► which is actually fairly challenging.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Presumably, HomePods are doing something similar internally, but all they can do is change

00:46:52 ◼   ► the sound that comes out of them.

00:46:54 ◼   ► I don't think they ever demand that you move them.

00:46:56 ◼   ► Like hey, nobody puts HomePod in a corner.

00:46:58 ◼   ► What am I doing?

00:46:59 ◼   ► and a picture frame is blocking me,

00:47:01 ◼   ► but my HomePod is, by the way,

00:47:02 ◼   ► behind a bunch of fractured pictures of my dog,

00:47:04 ◼   ► 'cause I don't care what it sounds like.

00:47:05 ◼   ► And I bet it hates that,

00:47:06 ◼   ► because it's like the worst environment.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Like it's in a corner, it's got glass pictures in front of it.

00:47:12 ◼   ► - Blocked by glass, oh God.

00:47:14 ◼   ► - I'm listening to podcasts on you, HomePod,

00:47:16 ◼   ► and most of the time you do nothing,

00:47:17 ◼   ► and usually you can't even turn off my lights,

00:47:19 ◼   ► so shut up and take it.

00:47:20 ◼   ► But anyway, the D-Rack software does help

00:47:24 ◼   ► with stuff like that, and it is fun to kind of tweak manually

00:47:27 ◼   ► But the HomePod is like, I'll do that all for you.

00:47:29 ◼   ► And presumably it does a passable job.

00:47:31 ◼   ► - And one other quick thing, you know,

00:47:33 ◼   ► John just mentioned like the alleged phenomenon

00:47:36 ◼   ► of break-in periods for headphones or speakers.

00:47:40 ◼   ► This has been pretty widely discredited

00:47:43 ◼   ► as a thing that's real.

00:47:44 ◼   ► What is real is that your perception of the sound adjusts.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Like, so it's not that the speakers are being broken in,

00:47:54 ◼   ► it's that your ears are being broken in,

00:47:55 ◼   ► Like your brain's being broken in.

00:47:57 ◼   ► That's what's actually happening.

00:47:58 ◼   ► And so if there is something about a particular transducer

00:48:02 ◼   ► that is different from what you are used to before that,

00:48:06 ◼   ► over time you get used to that.

00:48:07 ◼   ► You stop hearing it as like,

00:48:09 ◼   ► oh that's weirdly harsh or different.

00:48:11 ◼   ► That just becomes what you think of as normal.

00:48:12 ◼   ► It's almost like the way your eyes

00:48:14 ◼   ► perform automatic white balancing.

00:48:16 ◼   ► You know, it's the same thing for sound.

00:48:17 ◼   ► Your brain's being broken in.

00:48:18 ◼   ► And then finally, how I was A/B testing them.

00:48:22 ◼   ► What you wanna do if you're comparing speakers,

00:48:25 ◼   ► like this, you want to be able to play the same thing

00:48:28 ◼   ► on all of them and to be able to switch between them

00:48:30 ◼   ► as quickly as possible.

00:48:32 ◼   ► If you have to unplug stuff, start something,

00:48:34 ◼   ► or start something, it becomes much harder.

00:48:37 ◼   ► If the difference between them is more than a couple

00:48:39 ◼   ► of seconds, it becomes much harder to remember

00:48:42 ◼   ► how that sounded and try to compare.

00:48:44 ◼   ► You can't rely on memory for much here.

00:48:47 ◼   ► You have to be, it has to be quick,

00:48:49 ◼   ► being able to transition between them quickly.

00:48:51 ◼   ► That's how you can really tell the differences.

00:48:52 ◼   ► And when you can do that, the differences become

00:48:55 ◼   ► very apparent.

00:48:56 ◼   ► So the way I do this, I use AirPlay,

00:48:58 ◼   ► and I play to all of them at the same time,

00:49:01 ◼   ► and as a group in the AirPlay selector,

00:49:04 ◼   ► and then you drop down the AirPlay selector

00:49:06 ◼   ► so you get individual volume sliders for each speaker,

00:49:08 ◼   ► and I just would drag to zero the ones I wasn't listening to

00:49:11 ◼   ► and drag up the one that I was testing,

00:49:13 ◼   ► and then quickly swap that, drag that one down,

00:49:15 ◼   ► drag this one up.

00:49:16 ◼   ► - Did you do the thing where you drag all the sliders down

00:49:19 ◼   ► except for one pair and then shake that pair

00:49:22 ◼   ► and then drag all the sliders down except for another pair

00:49:24 ◼   ► and then shake that pair, because what you want them to do

00:49:26 ◼   ► is to adjust to their acoustic environment

00:49:28 ◼   ► when other speakers aren't playing in their face,

00:49:31 ◼   ► you know what I mean?

00:49:32 ◼   ► - I did not do that, I probably should have done that,

00:49:33 ◼   ► but I didn't.

00:49:35 ◼   ► But again, I think, again, I want to not lean too heavily

00:49:39 ◼   ► on the specifics of whatever the adaptive EQ processing

00:49:43 ◼   ► is doing at that moment.

00:49:45 ◼   ► Because again, that can change,

00:49:46 ◼   ► that changes a lot with environment.

00:49:48 ◼   ► - But that's gonna change the sound of the speakers, too.

00:49:50 ◼   ► - Trust me, it doesn't change sound like this.

00:49:52 ◼   ► - All right, well then.

00:49:54 ◼   ► So my opening, so first let me cover the, you know,

00:49:57 ◼   ► the non-sound aspects first.

00:49:59 ◼   ► Aesthetics, physical design, the new HomePod compared

00:50:02 ◼   ► to the old one is very similar overall looking.

00:50:05 ◼   ► You would only notice the differences if you saw them

00:50:07 ◼   ► side by side for the most part because it still looks like

00:50:10 ◼   ► approximately the same size cylinder, it has the same

00:50:14 ◼   ► material on the outside, at least the white ones,

00:50:16 ◼   ► I don't have the black ones to compare.

00:50:17 ◼   ► - Is it skinny or is that just an optical illusion

00:50:19 ◼   ► because the top disk is bigger?

00:50:21 ◼   ► - I think it just, if you look at the measurements,

00:50:23 ◼   ► they're very similar, like it's slightly shorter,

00:50:25 ◼   ► it might be a little bit fatter,

00:50:26 ◼   ► but it just, it looks like the same kind of object.

00:50:29 ◼   ► You could change them out and the less observant

00:50:32 ◼   ► or less caring members of your household wouldn't notice,

00:50:34 ◼   ► until you touch the top.

00:50:36 ◼   ► The biggest difference you'll notice is that the top screen,

00:50:39 ◼   ► the quote screen, the top LED color visualizer thing,

00:50:43 ◼   ► now goes all the way to the edge and is bigger.

00:50:46 ◼   ► It is also kind of, it's inset instead of being convex,

00:50:48 ◼   ► but that honestly doesn't matter in practice.

00:50:51 ◼   ► maybe it'll collect dust a little bit differently,

00:50:53 ◼   ► but otherwise, as you tap it to dust it off,

00:50:56 ◼   ► you'll blast your Foo Fighters at night again.

00:50:57 ◼   ► But anyway, with the previous one,

00:50:59 ◼   ► when it was totally not playing anything,

00:51:02 ◼   ► like just sitting there idle or off,

00:51:04 ◼   ► you wouldn't see the plus and minus

00:51:06 ◼   ► that indicated the volume buttons.

00:51:07 ◼   ► They were themselves individually lit

00:51:10 ◼   ► little white LED things that would turn off,

00:51:12 ◼   ► so it would just look like a flat white surface.

00:51:15 ◼   ► The new one, the plus and minus

00:51:16 ◼   ► are permanently etched in there,

00:51:18 ◼   ► so they're just like, they're drawn on the top,

00:51:20 ◼   ► so you can always see the plus and minus.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Some people saw this as a downgrade,

00:51:23 ◼   ► I see this as a positive thing

00:51:24 ◼   ► because if you nudge your HomePod on the counter

00:51:27 ◼   ► as you're working on your kitchen counter accidentally

00:51:29 ◼   ► and you wanna reset it and make sure it's aligned correctly,

00:51:32 ◼   ► you can just look at the plus and minus, it's always there,

00:51:34 ◼   ► and you can say, oh, now it's straight, okay.

00:51:37 ◼   ► So that to me is an improvement.

00:51:39 ◼   ► The wider color panel of the LEDs on top,

00:51:43 ◼   ► I don't think it's an improvement.

00:51:44 ◼   ► When it's just playing,

00:51:46 ◼   ► it does the same thing as a HomePod Mini.

00:51:48 ◼   ► If you have a HomePod Mini, it's that same pattern.

00:51:50 ◼   ► So when it's just playing, it's showing this kind of like

00:51:53 ◼   ► soft white glow from the middle, and that's fine.

00:51:56 ◼   ► When Siri is processing, it's attempting to do that kind of

00:52:00 ◼   ► Siri like multicolor pulsing logo thing,

00:52:03 ◼   ► and it does it across the whole service,

00:52:05 ◼   ► and this is now a pretty big service,

00:52:07 ◼   ► and so it kind of looks garish,

00:52:10 ◼   ► and I don't think this panel needed to,

00:52:11 ◼   ► I don't think the LEDs needed to go all the way to the edge

00:52:13 ◼   ► the way they do now, and if they were looking to cut cost

00:52:16 ◼   ► somewhere, I don't know why they didn't cut cost there,

00:52:18 ◼   ► because that seems to serve no real purpose,

00:52:23 ◼   ► except looking garish during serial requests

00:52:25 ◼   ► and showing this weird rainbow light show

00:52:27 ◼   ► at a scale that I don't think it was designed for.

00:52:31 ◼   ► It looks better on the smaller ones,

00:52:32 ◼   ► but it doesn't look good on the big size.

00:52:34 ◼   ► - It's interesting that this is like a thing

00:52:36 ◼   ► that Apple hasn't done in ages

00:52:39 ◼   ► and didn't really do that much before,

00:52:41 ◼   ► which is have lights on their devices

00:52:44 ◼   ► try to imbue some kind of personality.

00:52:47 ◼   ► We'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

00:52:53 ◼   ► screens

00:52:54 ◼   ► In general if Apple wants to do something to him to imbue a device with dynamic personality

00:53:00 ◼   ► They use a screen and still on all the home pods

00:53:03 ◼   ► No screens and I can't recall the last time I saw them say, okay

00:53:06 ◼   ► We're not gonna have a screen

00:53:08 ◼   ► But what we want to do what they want to do is like when if you hold down like the power button on your phone

00:53:12 ◼   ► You see that Siri colored blob thing

00:53:14 ◼   ► This is like well if we could we'd show the Siri colored blob things

00:53:18 ◼   ► That's our branding for Siri when you're interacting with it, whatever that colored blob thing that waves around a cool little animation

00:53:23 ◼   ► Why don't we show that well, we can't we don't have a screen

00:53:25 ◼   ► Well, can we show like a really blurry version of that with just a bunch of RGB LEDs under like a translucent frosted surface

00:53:32 ◼   ► It's like we could but it's but I feel like that doesn't accomplish

00:53:36 ◼   ► The branding because it's like it's it reminds you of the branding

00:53:41 ◼   ► But it's like the branding is trapped underneath cloudy glass and you can't really see it and the second thing is

00:53:46 ◼   ► Like what value does that add does it look does it look good does it put on a laser light show does it does it?

00:53:53 ◼   ► Indicate something to you from a distance any more than like just a single LED would or something like that

00:53:57 ◼   ► It's a strange gesture to spend that much time and space on a thing that isn't a screen

00:54:03 ◼   ► And I'm not particularly against it like I mean I don't mind it on mine or whatever

00:54:08 ◼   ► It just reminds me of an older Apple that wanted to put

00:54:13 ◼   ► these type of sort of, I don't know,

00:54:15 ◼   ► like a appearance personality, dynamic appearance

00:54:18 ◼   ► personality into their hardware that is not a screen.

00:54:22 ◼   ► And we keep waiting for a HomePod-like device

00:54:25 ◼   ► with a screen on it, but it's not this one.

00:54:26 ◼   ► - To some extent, I actually don't mind it not being

00:54:29 ◼   ► a screen just because in most contexts where you'd put

00:54:32 ◼   ► these things, you don't really have a lot of visibility

00:54:34 ◼   ► onto that top surface anyway.

00:54:36 ◼   ► Like it's not like, you can't see it from across the room.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Having the screen face, the ceiling is not great, yeah.

00:54:41 ◼   ► - Right, so anyway, so that's the physical stuff aside,

00:54:44 ◼   ► I did replace the power cords with nice shorter ones now,

00:54:47 ◼   ► they came in today and I'm super happy about that,

00:54:49 ◼   ► that's nice, but anyway, so onto the sound,

00:54:52 ◼   ► this is what everybody wants to know, does it sound,

00:54:54 ◼   ► but frankly, all the reviews are like,

00:54:59 ◼   ► yeah, it sounds pretty much the same.

00:55:01 ◼   ► It doesn't, it does not sound pretty much the same,

00:55:03 ◼   ► it sounds surprisingly different,

00:55:05 ◼   ► much more different than I thought it would.

00:55:07 ◼   ► I'm gonna start easily the bass.

00:55:09 ◼   ► It is lighter, the bass is lighter.

00:55:12 ◼   ► However, there are asterisks on this.

00:55:15 ◼   ► In general, the new ones have less bass

00:55:18 ◼   ► at medium to high volume,

00:55:19 ◼   ► and they have actually a lower maximum volume.

00:55:24 ◼   ► The old ones go louder.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Now this is all relative.

00:55:28 ◼   ► These are still really impressive for their size,

00:55:31 ◼   ► and anything else that's anywhere near their size,

00:55:34 ◼   ► You know, when you compare them to other multi hundred dollar premium, you know,

00:55:39 ◼   ► smart speakers or self powered speakers,

00:55:41 ◼   ► usually what people compare these to are much larger than them because things,

00:55:45 ◼   ► the things that cost $300 are usually much larger than them.

00:55:48 ◼   ► But in this size class, they do shockingly well at base and volume.

00:55:53 ◼   ► If you have a large room, again, going back to the home theater thing,

00:55:57 ◼   ► it might not be enough. That being said, for their size, still great,

00:56:01 ◼   ► Still plenty of bass, but it is definitely a reduction

00:56:04 ◼   ► in bass strength from before.

00:56:06 ◼   ► That's at medium to high volumes.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Now, at lower volumes, it seems like there's

00:56:11 ◼   ► plenty of bass there.

00:56:12 ◼   ► And what I think they are doing-- a lot of people

00:56:14 ◼   ► don't realize this, but in any kind of speaker that

00:56:16 ◼   ► has some kind of processing going on that isn't just

00:56:20 ◼   ► like an amp connected to some wired speakers

00:56:22 ◼   ► that you turn the knob and it gets louder,

00:56:24 ◼   ► in most other modern powered speakers that

00:56:27 ◼   ► have their own kind of DSP stuff built in,

00:56:30 ◼   ► many of them will actually dynamically ramp the bass down

00:56:34 ◼   ► as the volume goes up.

00:56:35 ◼   ► And there are multiple reasons for this,

00:56:37 ◼   ► but the two key ones are, number one,

00:56:41 ◼   ► it sounds really nice to have relatively strong bass

00:56:45 ◼   ► when it's turned down lower.

00:56:47 ◼   ► It sounds like a more premium, nice, rich experience.

00:56:51 ◼   ► But if you take that exact same amount of bass

00:56:54 ◼   ► that's down low, and you'll see this in Bose products,

00:56:56 ◼   ► like this is a common thing,

00:56:57 ◼   ► or like any of the fancy power speaker brands,

00:57:01 ◼   ► B&O, B&W, some of us might even do this

00:57:04 ◼   ► in some of their power stuff.

00:57:05 ◼   ► I'm not positive on that,

00:57:06 ◼   ► but anything that does processing on the sound,

00:57:09 ◼   ► at low volumes, the bass will be proportionally

00:57:12 ◼   ► much more strong than if you turn it up a lot,

00:57:16 ◼   ► it would sound ridiculous if the bass was that strong

00:57:18 ◼   ► at the high volume, so they actually ramp it down.

00:57:21 ◼   ► Part of that is because again, it sounds better that way,

00:57:23 ◼   ► makes it sound better at lower volumes

00:57:25 ◼   ► without having the negatives of very loud bass,

00:57:28 ◼   ► of like, when you turn it up, you wouldn't want it to like,

00:57:30 ◼   ► you know, be really boomy and like vibrate things

00:57:32 ◼   ► in your house or, you know, anger at your neighbors

00:57:35 ◼   ► or whatever else.

00:57:36 ◼   ► I think it's doing that to a pretty strong degree.

00:57:39 ◼   ► I haven't measured that, I didn't have time

00:57:40 ◼   ► or equipment, frankly, to measure that,

00:57:43 ◼   ► but it sounds like it's doing dynamic bass roll off

00:57:45 ◼   ► as the volume goes up.

00:57:46 ◼   ► And I think for a product of this category,

00:57:48 ◼   ► that's the right choice.

00:57:49 ◼   ► The other reason somebody might not wanna have bass

00:57:52 ◼   ► that strong at high volumes is,

00:57:54 ◼   ► it takes a very powerful amp to deliver high volume bass.

00:57:58 ◼   ► I think in a lot of these products,

00:58:00 ◼   ► the amp just is not spec'd for that much power.

00:58:02 ◼   ► The old HomePod had a custom designed main woofer amp.

00:58:07 ◼   ► I tried to look at the specs for it,

00:58:09 ◼   ► nobody really has them

00:58:10 ◼   ► 'cause it's a custom designed chip from this company.

00:58:12 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, no one has figured out yet

00:58:15 ◼   ► what the chip is in the new HomePod,

00:58:17 ◼   ► so I couldn't find any information to compare,

00:58:19 ◼   ► like does the bass amp actually have less wattage

00:58:23 ◼   ► or less power potential in the new one.

00:58:26 ◼   ► I would speculate that it probably does.

00:58:28 ◼   ► - And by the way, this is why if you have

00:58:29 ◼   ► a individual component set up and you have a receiver

00:58:32 ◼   ► that puts out however many watts per channel,

00:58:34 ◼   ► the subwoofer that you buy will plug into the wall

00:58:37 ◼   ► because it has its own amplifier.

00:58:39 ◼   ► - Yes, powered subwoofers are the way to go.

00:58:42 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause it doesn't like,

00:58:44 ◼   ► two things in receivers, one, no matter how much power

00:58:46 ◼   ► per channel they say in the receiver,

00:58:48 ◼   ► it's like whatever, 150 watts per channel,

00:58:50 ◼   ► still it's a hangover of historical things.

00:58:53 ◼   ► That number you see, like 150 watts,

00:58:55 ◼   ► that's for two channels.

00:58:57 ◼   ► They don't, if you put seven speakers,

00:58:59 ◼   ► you don't get 150 watts on all seven of the speakers.

00:59:03 ◼   ► The math doesn't add up real fast,

00:59:04 ◼   ► but for historical reasons,

00:59:06 ◼   ► because stereo receivers used to just be like that,

00:59:08 ◼   ► that is still the standard.

00:59:10 ◼   ► And not only that,

00:59:11 ◼   ► but the manufacturer won't even tell you

00:59:13 ◼   ► how many watts you get if you hook up seven speakers.

00:59:15 ◼   ► And then yes, the point one for the subwoofer,

00:59:18 ◼   ► that's a powered subwoofer.

00:59:19 ◼   ► That plugs into a different outlet in a wall.

00:59:21 ◼   ► It's got its own amplifier.

00:59:22 ◼   ► The other thing to consider, by saying it has less bass,

00:59:26 ◼   ► that even could be, again, this could be software.

00:59:29 ◼   ► It has an internal microphone to measure the bass response

00:59:32 ◼   ► and any kind of resonances and stuff.

00:59:34 ◼   ► It might just be throttling its own bass

00:59:37 ◼   ► to prevent vibration and stuff.

00:59:38 ◼   ► So there's all sorts of things that go into this.

00:59:40 ◼   ► So in short, it sounds, compared to the old one,

00:59:43 ◼   ► it sounds like there's less bass at high volume,

00:59:46 ◼   ► but at low volume it sounds about the same

00:59:48 ◼   ► and might even have more.

00:59:49 ◼   ► It sounds very pleasant on the bass

00:59:52 ◼   ► at moderate to low volumes, I'll tell you that for sure.

00:59:55 ◼   ► So anyway, that's the bass.

00:59:57 ◼   ► The mid-range and the treble.

01:00:00 ◼   ► This is now, we're moving into the tweeters.

01:00:02 ◼   ► And by the way, this is one of the biggest reasons

01:00:04 ◼   ► why the HomePod Mini, which only has one speaker cone

01:00:08 ◼   ► in there, it uses a quote passive radiator design

01:00:11 ◼   ► for the bass, I'm not entirely sure what those do,

01:00:15 ◼   ► but the Mini effectively is one speaker cone in there,

01:00:18 ◼   ► like one driver.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And the HomePod, as we know, has the one big

01:00:23 ◼   ► four inch woofer that faces, I think, up from the middle,

01:00:26 ◼   ► and then it has formerly seven, now five,

01:00:29 ◼   ► tweeters around the bottom.

01:00:31 ◼   ► And the whole reason for this is to separate these out,

01:00:35 ◼   ► if you want something to be able to produce bass,

01:00:38 ◼   ► you need a pretty large speaker cone

01:00:41 ◼   ► that moves in big waves forward and back.

01:00:44 ◼   ► That's how you make good bass.

01:00:46 ◼   ► but a very large speaker cone has a lot of mass to move,

01:00:50 ◼   ► and if you want to make something that produces

01:00:52 ◼   ► very good high frequency sounds, like in the treble range,

01:00:55 ◼   ► you actually want as little mass moving as possible,

01:00:58 ◼   ► because you want it to be vibrating really small,

01:01:00 ◼   ► really fast, and so it's kind of impossible

01:01:03 ◼   ► to physically design the same speaker cone,

01:01:05 ◼   ► like one speaker cone, that does really good bass

01:01:07 ◼   ► and really good treble.

01:01:09 ◼   ► That's why when you have nicer speakers,

01:01:11 ◼   ► they tend to have more drivers,

01:01:13 ◼   ► and they cover different size classes basically.

01:01:16 ◼   ► You might have a few woofers or one big woofer

01:01:18 ◼   ► and usually you have like maybe a mid-range driver,

01:01:21 ◼   ► maybe a little tiny tweeter,

01:01:22 ◼   ► or you'll have just a woofer and a tweeter,

01:01:24 ◼   ► but that's why there's a separator.

01:01:25 ◼   ► And so you might think that when you go from

01:01:28 ◼   ► the old HomePod with the seven tweeters

01:01:30 ◼   ► to the new HomePod with five,

01:01:31 ◼   ► you might think this would hurt its treble performance

01:01:34 ◼   ► in some meaningful way.

01:01:36 ◼   ► And I can tell you that the treble and the mid-range

01:01:40 ◼   ► sound way better on the new one.

01:01:44 ◼   ► It is the opposite of what you think it would be.

01:01:47 ◼   ► The new one, treble and mid-range sound awesome.

01:01:51 ◼   ► I am a huge snob for these things.

01:01:55 ◼   ► I don't care that much about bass.

01:01:57 ◼   ► I care a lot about mid-range and a little bit about treble.

01:02:00 ◼   ► I care about vocals sounding smooth,

01:02:03 ◼   ► guitars sounding smooth, and having them be present,

01:02:07 ◼   ► having them be right there hitting you in the face

01:02:09 ◼   ► in the middle of the mix.

01:02:10 ◼   ► Oftentimes what cheap, crappy speakers and headphones

01:02:12 ◼   ► will do is they'll have kind of a weak response

01:02:15 ◼   ► in that kind of mid-range vocals and guitars

01:02:17 ◼   ► and pianos kind of area.

01:02:19 ◼   ► It almost gets pushed back in the mix

01:02:21 ◼   ► so you don't hear it too much.

01:02:22 ◼   ► You know, they'll like crank up the response

01:02:24 ◼   ► for the bass and treble so that it kind of,

01:02:26 ◼   ► you know, kind of masks the crappy, distorted,

01:02:30 ◼   ► you know, harsh mid-range they have in the middle there.

01:02:33 ◼   ► And I don't like that.

01:02:34 ◼   ► I wanna hear really clear, crisp vocals

01:02:37 ◼   ► and really strong, smooth guitars.

01:02:40 ◼   ► That's what I want in my music.

01:02:41 ◼   ► That's my favorite part of the music.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Very, very few speakers or headphones

01:02:46 ◼   ► are able to deliver that very well.

01:02:48 ◼   ► The whole reason I love my KEF or KEF,

01:02:51 ◼   ► I don't know what it is,

01:02:52 ◼   ► that series of the Q150, the Q350,

01:02:55 ◼   ► they have the best mid-range I've ever heard in a speaker.

01:02:58 ◼   ► The whole reason I love my ridiculously old,

01:03:02 ◼   ► super high-needs, HiFiMan HE6 headphones

01:03:06 ◼   ► is because they have the best mid-range

01:03:08 ◼   ► I've ever heard in headphones.

01:03:09 ◼   ► These new full-size home pods have really great mid-range.

01:03:14 ◼   ► Smoothness, detail, lack of harshness,

01:03:18 ◼   ► lack of distortion in the mid-range.

01:03:20 ◼   ► It's amazing in these new home pods.

01:03:23 ◼   ► And so this makes vocals sound better.

01:03:25 ◼   ► Pianos, guitars, like the kind of, you know,

01:03:28 ◼   ► the main like middle of the frequency range.

01:03:30 ◼   ► Those all sound really great.

01:03:33 ◼   ► What I'm trying to get away from,

01:03:34 ◼   ► Like when I talk about mid-range distortion,

01:03:36 ◼   ► what this kind of sounds like is,

01:03:38 ◼   ► you know those bands came out like in the early 2000s

01:03:41 ◼   ► where it sounds kind of like they're talking through a phone

01:03:44 ◼   ► as they're singing like, rar, I can't even do it.

01:03:48 ◼   ► It's like, is it The Strokes, The Killers, whatever?

01:03:51 ◼   ► Those kind of bands, and they did it intentionally,

01:03:54 ◼   ► you know, that that was part of their style,

01:03:55 ◼   ► but it sounds like kind of a crunchy filter on the vocals

01:04:00 ◼   ► or it's kind of like you're talking through an old telephone.

01:04:03 ◼   ► that kind of sound effect.

01:04:05 ◼   ► Crappy mid-range on speakers and headphones

01:04:08 ◼   ► makes all vocals sound a little bit like that.

01:04:11 ◼   ► It's like a little bit of distortion in the mid-range

01:04:13 ◼   ► that does not sound good.

01:04:15 ◼   ► And the opposite of that is when things sound clear.

01:04:18 ◼   ► It just sounds like someone's there

01:04:19 ◼   ► singing in the room with you.

01:04:21 ◼   ► In audio terms, people talk about,

01:04:22 ◼   ► they use the word transparency.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And what you want, and unfortunately,

01:04:26 ◼   ► this is kind of a, it's a tricky term

01:04:29 ◼   ► 'cause everyone's definition of transparent

01:04:31 ◼   ► is different in audio, but the idea of transparency is

01:04:35 ◼   ► you don't notice the speaker, you don't notice the headphone,

01:04:38 ◼   ► it just sounds like the music is there in the room.

01:04:40 ◼   ► It isn't imparting a bunch of, you know,

01:04:42 ◼   ► filters or effects or noticeable artifacts on the music,

01:04:46 ◼   ► it is just, it sounds natural.

01:04:49 ◼   ► That's how these sound in the mid-range and the treble

01:04:52 ◼   ► way more than the old ones.

01:04:54 ◼   ► And the old ones sounded great overall,

01:04:56 ◼   ► but when you do a side-by-side comparison,

01:04:57 ◼   ► it's no contest, mid-range and treble are way,

01:05:01 ◼   ► way nicer and clearer and better on the new ones.

01:05:04 ◼   ► Frankly, I'm blown away.

01:05:06 ◼   ► I'm so happy with how good these are in that area.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Again, if you compare these,

01:05:11 ◼   ► put on whatever track you like,

01:05:12 ◼   ► but if you really wanna hear the kind of differences,

01:05:14 ◼   ► put on a track that has like a singer with a piano

01:05:17 ◼   ► or something, or like a singer with a guitar,

01:05:18 ◼   ► like one of those, you know, there's not a ton going on,

01:05:21 ◼   ► you can just hear that, and you will hear,

01:05:23 ◼   ► there's a pretty substantial difference between the two.

01:05:26 ◼   ► And so whatever they did to reduce from seven tweeters

01:05:29 ◼   ► to five, I can tell you not only is not a downgrade,

01:05:32 ◼   ► it's a massive upgrade.

01:05:34 ◼   ► Just overall, the new HomePod in those ranges,

01:05:38 ◼   ► and even frankly in the base,

01:05:39 ◼   ► it just sounds way better overall.

01:05:42 ◼   ► - What they might have done is bought five

01:05:44 ◼   ► slightly more expensive tweeters instead of seven

01:05:46 ◼   ► slightly less expensive tweeters.

01:05:47 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:05:48 ◼   ► Spend a similar amount of money,

01:05:49 ◼   ► but get a higher quality thing.

01:05:52 ◼   ► And speaking of the way you're describing about

01:05:54 ◼   ► sort of the transparency of the mid-range stuff.

01:05:56 ◼   ► I watched a review recently.

01:05:57 ◼   ► They were reviewing receivers, believe it or not.

01:06:01 ◼   ► Like, you know, they had a set of speakers

01:06:03 ◼   ► that was the same through all the tests,

01:06:04 ◼   ► but they were saying, with a given set of speakers

01:06:07 ◼   ► that we think are these fancy high-end speakers, whatever,

01:06:09 ◼   ► that the receivers were imparting a,

01:06:12 ◼   ► some receivers would impart a personality

01:06:15 ◼   ► on things like vocals in the mid-range or whatever,

01:06:17 ◼   ► and they described it by brand,

01:06:18 ◼   ► that these, some particular brands,

01:06:20 ◼   ► like I think it was like, Marantz,

01:06:22 ◼   ► some other fancy expensive one had a more rounded sound

01:06:26 ◼   ► and they said like NAD was 100% neutral right in the middle

01:06:29 ◼   ► and didn't impart any personality on the sound whatsoever

01:06:32 ◼   ► and then they had the other one was like,

01:06:34 ◼   ► like Sony or Yamaha that was more of a,

01:06:37 ◼   ► more of a sharp or sparkly sound.

01:06:40 ◼   ► If you had to, I know these words are so bad

01:06:41 ◼   ► 'cause if you watch a lot of--

01:06:43 ◼   ► - I would caution that there is a lot of placebo effect

01:06:46 ◼   ► in a lot of those kind of judgments.

01:06:47 ◼   ► - Well, but I know what they're talking about.

01:06:49 ◼   ► As someone who's not an audiophile,

01:06:51 ◼   ► You like ever I think is everyone has heard something where the what you talked about even with podcasting of a sibilance

01:06:58 ◼   ► But with the treble is too sharp, right?

01:07:00 ◼   ► The the that is just too kind of spiky in your ears and then the more rounded one like Casey would like on vinyl where?

01:07:07 ◼   ► All the edges are cut off of everything that sounds like someone singing through a sock, but people

01:07:11 ◼   ► Sharp edges, right

01:07:17 ◼   ► It smooths off all the sharp edges.

01:07:18 ◼   ► And then neutral.

01:07:20 ◼   ► Lots of people have bad things to say about audio devices

01:07:23 ◼   ► that are like, if you use something to measure it,

01:07:27 ◼   ► like I'm gonna objectively measure the frequency response.

01:07:29 ◼   ► Wow, look at this frequency response.

01:07:30 ◼   ► It's just, it's exactly, almost exactly level.

01:07:33 ◼   ► It's extremely neutral.

01:07:34 ◼   ► It doesn't impart anything.

01:07:35 ◼   ► It's just perfectly clean,

01:07:37 ◼   ► and you hear things through that, and people go,

01:07:39 ◼   ► "Yeah, I don't like how much that sounds."

01:07:41 ◼   ► It sounds better on one of the ones that is less neutral,

01:07:43 ◼   ► that does more to the sound

01:07:45 ◼   ► instead of just having like a completely flat frequency response but instead accentuates

01:07:50 ◼   ► whatever part of the sound that they like.

01:07:52 ◼   ► In your case you like the mids and the highs, some people might like it accentuated in the

01:07:56 ◼   ► bass.

01:07:57 ◼   ► That's not a neutral profile, whether it's done with EQ or done with processing or done

01:08:02 ◼   ► as part of the nature of the set of drivers they have.

01:08:06 ◼   ► The difficulty with audio equipment is that it's not something that you can measure scientifically

01:08:12 ◼   ► and say this one has the flattest frequent response,

01:08:14 ◼   ► therefore it's the best, or it has least distortion,

01:08:17 ◼   ► flattest frequency response,

01:08:18 ◼   ► like it's all scientifically accurate,

01:08:19 ◼   ► and then you'll put it next to something

01:08:21 ◼   ► that just has way more bass than is in the original recording

01:08:24 ◼   ► and people will like that better if they like bass.

01:08:26 ◼   ► And in your case, I feel like if you get the mids

01:08:29 ◼   ► and the treble accentuated more than some people might like it,

01:08:33 ◼   ► that's exactly what you want out of it.

01:08:35 ◼   ► So that's why audio reviews are so difficult,

01:08:37 ◼   ► and that's why they come up with all these different words for it.

01:08:40 ◼   ► And even in the receiver view, they weren't saying

01:08:41 ◼   ► that one of those that spectrum was worse or better,

01:08:44 ◼   ► they're saying it depends on what you want.

01:08:46 ◼   ► And the example they gave was the NAD one,

01:08:48 ◼   ► which is super expensive, extremely neutral thing

01:08:50 ◼   ► or whatever, is that some people hate that.

01:08:52 ◼   ► Some people think it sounds quote unquote dead

01:08:54 ◼   ► and they'd rather have one of the other brands

01:08:56 ◼   ► that imparts more quote unquote personality on the sound,

01:09:00 ◼   ► depending on what personality they want in the sound,

01:09:03 ◼   ► depending on what part of the sound

01:09:04 ◼   ► is important for them to hear.

01:09:06 ◼   ► And honestly, for people our age and older,

01:09:08 ◼   ► depending on what frequencies they can still hear.

01:09:10 ◼   ► - Right.

01:09:11 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:09:12 ◼   ► - And they're decrepit old age.

01:09:13 ◼   ► That's why very often young children

01:09:15 ◼   ► have very different ideas about what sounds good

01:09:17 ◼   ► and what doesn't when it comes to music.

01:09:19 ◼   ► - Setting aside whether amps really make that big

01:09:22 ◼   ► of a noticeable difference on the sound quality,

01:09:24 ◼   ► which I question honestly,

01:09:26 ◼   ► in my experience they really don't, but--

01:09:29 ◼   ► - The receivers aren't acting as amplifiers here,

01:09:31 ◼   ► that's because the receivers are doing processing.

01:09:33 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, right.

01:09:34 ◼   ► - Everything is doing processing now,

01:09:35 ◼   ► so that's what they're saying,

01:09:37 ◼   ► that the processing that these things are putting,

01:09:39 ◼   ► It's not just straight up, it's not like an analog amplifier

01:09:41 ◼   ► where they're measuring it that way.

01:09:42 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:09:43 ◼   ► But like, and it's funny, there's a long time ago,

01:09:45 ◼   ► decades ago, I think, the Harman Audio Company

01:09:48 ◼   ► developed this thing called the Harman Curve,

01:09:49 ◼   ► and this is through some kind of scientific

01:09:52 ◼   ► or survey-based method, whatever it was,

01:09:55 ◼   ► they'd advise like, what people actually want

01:09:58 ◼   ► out of an ideal frequency response is not flat.

01:10:01 ◼   ► It's not like perfectly even reproducing of all frequencies.

01:10:03 ◼   ► It's a certain curve that people find most desirable,

01:10:06 ◼   ► and they publish this as the Harman Curve,

01:10:09 ◼   ► and over the last many decades,

01:10:12 ◼   ► the manufacturers of audio gear

01:10:14 ◼   ► have been slowly trying to make their stuff

01:10:16 ◼   ► more closely match the Harmon Curve.

01:10:18 ◼   ► And this kills me because I don't like the Harmon Curve.

01:10:23 ◼   ► I find it sounds really boring.

01:10:25 ◼   ► - And it's not that the Harmon Curve is arbitrary,

01:10:28 ◼   ► but it is subjective, right?

01:10:30 ◼   ► It's not completely arbitrary,

01:10:31 ◼   ► 'cause I'm sure they did ask people

01:10:33 ◼   ► what they thought sounded better.

01:10:34 ◼   ► But people are different.

01:10:35 ◼   ► First of all, people's physical hearing is different,

01:10:37 ◼   ► but second of all, people's taste is different.

01:10:38 ◼   ► So targeting a matching of any particular curve exactly is,

01:10:43 ◼   ► unless you know what your curve is

01:10:46 ◼   ► and your name is Mr. Harmon or Mrs. Harmon,

01:10:48 ◼   ► you don't know, that's why you have to sort of

01:10:52 ◼   ► adjust the thing to your liking

01:10:54 ◼   ► and listen to things against each other

01:10:56 ◼   ► to decide which one actually sounds better to you.

01:10:58 ◼   ► But there is some scientific basis,

01:11:00 ◼   ► like the things you mentioned, distortion or like that,

01:11:03 ◼   ► for example, if you look at a curve and it just drops off

01:11:05 ◼   ► before you even get close to the low frequencies,

01:11:07 ◼   ► you know that's not gonna have any bass,

01:11:08 ◼   ► or if it goes off a cliff before it gets to the highs,

01:11:10 ◼   ► that's gonna suck too.

01:11:12 ◼   ► So there is a room for a scientific assessment

01:11:15 ◼   ► of the sounds that can and can't be reproduced

01:11:18 ◼   ► by a sound system, or sounds that can and can't be

01:11:20 ◼   ► reproduced by a sound system without massive distortion

01:11:23 ◼   ► that destroys it.

01:11:24 ◼   ► But once you start getting into the details,

01:11:26 ◼   ► okay, now I'm making a decision.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Do I want the Harman curve?

01:11:30 ◼   ► Do I want something different than the Harman curve?

01:11:32 ◼   ► What you want is whatever frequency response

01:11:35 ◼   ► is desirable for you, you want to be able to hear that

01:11:38 ◼   ► without distortion of the volumes you wanna listen.

01:11:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:11:41 ◼   ► And frankly, I have looked at so many

01:11:44 ◼   ► frequency response graphs trying to figure out,

01:11:46 ◼   ► like before I wanna buy a pair of headphones,

01:11:48 ◼   ► trying to figure out like, is this what I want?

01:11:49 ◼   ► Is this gonna sound good to me?

01:11:51 ◼   ► And it's so rare that my expectations

01:11:55 ◼   ► from the frequency response graph have matched

01:11:57 ◼   ► how happy I am with the actual thing when I get it.

01:12:00 ◼   ► All these other factors are at play,

01:12:01 ◼   ► so you really need to like kinda try this stuff out yourself.

01:12:04 ◼   ► it's really hard to get much out of a frequency response

01:12:06 ◼   ► graph that could tell you, am I going to like this or not,

01:12:09 ◼   ► or is this good or not?

01:12:10 ◼   ► - Do you look at the frequency response graph

01:12:12 ◼   ► from the Dave2D YouTube video,

01:12:14 ◼   ► which we'll put in the show notes?

01:12:16 ◼   ► - I do.

01:12:17 ◼   ► - It's hard to see in that when we put it in the show notes,

01:12:18 ◼   ► but if you look at the actual video,

01:12:19 ◼   ► and you just look at HomePod one versus two?

01:12:22 ◼   ► - Yes, and I see that, and it's funny,

01:12:25 ◼   ► so his conclusion, I like Dave2D, he's good,

01:12:28 ◼   ► but his conclusion here was kinda like,

01:12:30 ◼   ► oh yeah, they sound about the same,

01:12:31 ◼   ► but if you look at this frequency response graph,

01:12:33 ◼   ► there are gaps of like five, eight decibels

01:12:37 ◼   ► like between some of the, like those are big gaps.

01:12:40 ◼   ► - Like look right in the middle,

01:12:41 ◼   ► look right in the mid range, the HomePod is an orange

01:12:44 ◼   ► and there's a huge dip in the mid range there

01:12:47 ◼   ► and then a little bit past the mid range,

01:12:48 ◼   ► past one kilohertz, there's a huge spike on the new HomePod,

01:12:51 ◼   ► that to me is a big difference

01:12:53 ◼   ► because that's kind of the area you're talking about,

01:12:54 ◼   ► isn't it, kind of the mid range, the middle of that graph

01:12:57 ◼   ► and the HomePod one has a big divot cut out of it

01:13:00 ◼   ► and the HomePod two is level and then has a big spike

01:13:03 ◼   ► at the higher frequencies,

01:13:04 ◼   ► and that is obviously the Marco spike.

01:13:06 ◼   ► That's the part that you like.

01:13:08 ◼   ► - And then as you get into the treble range,

01:13:09 ◼   ► above the 10K, you start seeing,

01:13:12 ◼   ► there's like a 10 decibel gap in frequency ranges

01:13:15 ◼   ► that are still audible.

01:13:16 ◼   ► So you can see what I'm talking about in this graph.

01:13:19 ◼   ► It's not gonna tell you exactly how the thing sounds.

01:13:22 ◼   ► You gotta hear it for yourself.

01:13:23 ◼   ► But Apple, in recent years,

01:13:25 ◼   ► especially with the AirPods, and in my case,

01:13:28 ◼   ► I don't have any real experience with the regular AirPods

01:13:31 ◼   ► 'cause they wouldn't really fit me,

01:13:32 ◼   ► but the AirPod Pros in particular.

01:13:34 ◼   ► And also even the AirPod Max,

01:13:36 ◼   ► which I wish those were comfortable on me

01:13:38 ◼   ► 'cause they sound really good.

01:13:39 ◼   ► But Apple has really mastered a certain frequency mix

01:13:44 ◼   ► that sounds really, really good,

01:13:47 ◼   ► but yet not offensive to pretty much anybody.

01:13:50 ◼   ► It's a great kind of all-arounder.

01:13:53 ◼   ► It's not the Harman curve,

01:13:55 ◼   ► but it probably isn't too far from it, if I had to guess.

01:13:58 ◼   ► I don't have it in front of me,

01:13:59 ◼   ► but because what Apple, like Apple's recent

01:14:03 ◼   ► high end speaker designs, again, AirPods Pro,

01:14:05 ◼   ► AirPods Max, HomePod, they all, they sound really good.

01:14:10 ◼   ► Even like their built in speakers

01:14:11 ◼   ► on a lot of their computers now,

01:14:12 ◼   ► like you know, the built in speakers on the studio display

01:14:15 ◼   ► or on like some of the laptops,

01:14:16 ◼   ► like you know, obviously within the realm

01:14:18 ◼   ► of what you can do in those size, you know,

01:14:20 ◼   ► classifications and you know, the space you have

01:14:22 ◼   ► in the enclosures and stuff and the budget,

01:14:24 ◼   ► they do surprisingly well.

01:14:25 ◼   ► Like Apple's really good at making stuff

01:14:27 ◼   ► that sounds pretty good to pretty much everybody.

01:14:30 ◼   ► And this is not Beats.

01:14:34 ◼   ► Beats had a much more personality in their sound,

01:14:38 ◼   ► that was much more bass heavy.

01:14:39 ◼   ► They would frequently withdraw the mid-rings,

01:14:42 ◼   ► you'd hear boom, boom.

01:14:44 ◼   ► And sometimes I wish they would add EQs

01:14:47 ◼   ► to some of their products, but in this case,

01:14:50 ◼   ► with the exception of how much bass you want,

01:14:52 ◼   ► and there is a setting that you can say reduce bass,

01:14:54 ◼   ► which as far as I can tell, I tried it out,

01:14:56 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, it seems to just be like

01:14:59 ◼   ► a high pass filter, but like it just lets

01:15:00 ◼   ► the running frequency above maybe like 100 hertz

01:15:02 ◼   ► or something like that, like it cuts out

01:15:04 ◼   ► all of the bass below that, so you really don't want that

01:15:07 ◼   ► unless you're in like a situation like maybe

01:15:09 ◼   ► if you're in an apartment with thin walls

01:15:10 ◼   ► or if you know, the sound travels through the floor

01:15:12 ◼   ► and you wanna be able to watch movies with it,

01:15:14 ◼   ► you know that's a different story,

01:15:15 ◼   ► but for most listening, I wouldn't recommend

01:15:17 ◼   ► using that setting if you can help it.

01:15:19 ◼   ► But that's the only setting they have

01:15:21 ◼   ► to control the audio of this product.

01:15:22 ◼   ► And I wish there was maybe a little more control

01:15:25 ◼   ► over the bass, because I would ask for a little bit more

01:15:27 ◼   ► out of it sometimes.

01:15:29 ◼   ► Some people would ask for a little bit less,

01:15:30 ◼   ► and that seems to be the main holdup.

01:15:32 ◼   ► But again, for the most part, they've made a product here

01:15:34 ◼   ► that sounds really great, and really great

01:15:38 ◼   ► to pretty much everybody, I think.

01:15:39 ◼   ► Now, a few more details on the sound before I move on.

01:15:41 ◼   ► What I would describe it most is transparent.

01:15:44 ◼   ► You really don't notice the speaker.

01:15:47 ◼   ► Music just sounds good.

01:15:48 ◼   ► You do get, in a stereo pair,

01:15:51 ◼   ► you do get the larger sound stage,

01:15:53 ◼   ► And what that, that's a term of art in the audio world.

01:15:56 ◼   ► Basically means like, how big does the sound source

01:16:00 ◼   ► sound like it is?

01:16:01 ◼   ► Like, does it sound like you're hearing music

01:16:03 ◼   ► from a huge wide area?

01:16:05 ◼   ► Or is it something that's all coming out

01:16:06 ◼   ► of like one little point, you know?

01:16:08 ◼   ► And when you have a stereo pair,

01:16:11 ◼   ► physics are helping you a lot.

01:16:12 ◼   ► This is why sound bars suck.

01:16:14 ◼   ► This is why individual speakers

01:16:15 ◼   ► are not as good as stereo pairs.

01:16:16 ◼   ► What the hell, Siri?

01:16:19 ◼   ► My watch keys, I don't know.

01:16:22 ◼   ► Why is my watch?

01:16:23 ◼   ► Oh, 'cause I'm moving my hand while talking,

01:16:24 ◼   ► 'cause I'm Italian.

01:16:25 ◼   ► All right. (laughs)

01:16:27 ◼   ► Anyway, the soundstage on these,

01:16:29 ◼   ► like how big the sound space sounds,

01:16:33 ◼   ► even on just one, even when comparing single speakers,

01:16:37 ◼   ► the new HomePod soundstage is much wider,

01:16:41 ◼   ► much larger than the old one.

01:16:43 ◼   ► And when you hear the stereo pair,

01:16:45 ◼   ► again, it's not as big of a difference

01:16:47 ◼   ► as when comparing individuals,

01:16:48 ◼   ► 'cause stereo, again, it's helping with physics there,

01:16:50 ◼   ► but you get a larger soundstage.

01:16:53 ◼   ► It sounds airier, it sounds like there's,

01:16:55 ◼   ► it's coming from a larger space.

01:16:57 ◼   ► That's a very good thing.

01:16:59 ◼   ► I did one comparison, 'cause people have often asked,

01:17:01 ◼   ► like if they already have a HomePod Mini,

01:17:03 ◼   ► or if they have two HomePod Minis,

01:17:05 ◼   ► 'cause they're, I mean, they're so inexpensive.

01:17:07 ◼   ► And then people have often asked, like, what's better,

01:17:10 ◼   ► a single large HomePod, or a stereo pair of HomePod Minis?

01:17:15 ◼   ► I did that test.

01:17:16 ◼   ► The single large HomePod I would still prefer in most cases,

01:17:19 ◼   ► just because the soundstage is actually

01:17:22 ◼   ► not that much worse than two HomePod Minis and the rest of the audio just sounds so much

01:17:28 ◼   ► better.

01:17:29 ◼   ► The vocals, the mid rings, it just sounds so much better on the big one.

01:17:33 ◼   ► So I would say compared to two Minis a single large HomePod is better for most people's

01:17:39 ◼   ► uses.

01:17:40 ◼   ► When compared to the HomePod Mini in a stereo pair, stereo pair versus stereo pair, again

01:17:46 ◼   ► the HomePod Mini is a very small speaker.

01:17:48 ◼   ► It's very, very small.

01:17:50 ◼   ► And again, there's only one driver in there.

01:17:51 ◼   ► And it's a third the price, you know, about a third to a quarter the size.

01:17:56 ◼   ► So it's this is not a fair comparison and it shows the HomePod mini is a great product

01:18:01 ◼   ► for its price and size.

01:18:04 ◼   ► But the large HomePod totally destroys it in audio quality.

01:18:08 ◼   ► And that's again, that's just the nature of this difference here.

01:18:11 ◼   ► Like that's that's a big difference in physicality there.

01:18:13 ◼   ► The big HomePods have much larger soundstage, much better treble response, much better bass

01:18:19 ◼   ► response, much smoother and better mid-range.

01:18:23 ◼   ► The HomePod Mini has the problem I was talking about before where the vocals and guitars

01:18:27 ◼   ► are kind of withdrawn, they're kind of pushed back in the mix.

01:18:31 ◼   ► It just isn't doing a good job of reproducing those.

01:18:33 ◼   ► So the full-size HomePods are a large step above the Minis.

01:18:38 ◼   ► People often ask about how the HomePods compare

01:18:41 ◼   ► to just speakers, regular bookshelf-sized speakers

01:18:45 ◼   ► or countertop or desktop monitors,

01:18:48 ◼   ► whatever size speakers you think are similar to HomePods,

01:18:51 ◼   ► which by the way, their HomePods are way smaller

01:18:53 ◼   ► than most bookshelf speakers,

01:18:54 ◼   ► but anyway, that's beside the point.

01:18:56 ◼   ► How they compare to bookshelf speakers,

01:18:57 ◼   ► and I would say I have heard better bookshelf speakers

01:19:01 ◼   ► than the HomePods.

01:19:02 ◼   ► I just said my KEF Q150s are better sounding in most ways.

01:19:08 ◼   ► They also have way less bass.

01:19:10 ◼   ► I need a subwoofer with them.

01:19:11 ◼   ► I don't need a subwoofer with the HomePods

01:19:12 ◼   ► for the most part.

01:19:13 ◼   ► And they're way bigger, like way bigger.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Comparing it to bookshelf speakers is not super useful

01:19:20 ◼   ► 'cause they're just so much smaller

01:19:22 ◼   ► and don't need to be amplified and everything else.

01:19:23 ◼   ► But then also, where the HomePods really shine

01:19:27 ◼   ► is a situation like where I have them

01:19:28 ◼   ► where they're on my kitchen counter.

01:19:30 ◼   ► Well, I'm oftentimes not working in front of them.

01:19:34 ◼   ► I'm often working next to them, off to the side.

01:19:37 ◼   ► The HomePod Minis do an okay job of kind of off-axis

01:19:41 ◼   ► listening when you're not right in front of them

01:19:42 ◼   ► when you're off to one side,

01:19:44 ◼   ► but the full-size HomePods do a really great job of it.

01:19:46 ◼   ► They sound really good even when you aren't

01:19:49 ◼   ► directly in front of them.

01:19:50 ◼   ► So if you're in a situation like this

01:19:51 ◼   ► where you have them somewhere where you will often

01:19:53 ◼   ► not be right in front of them,

01:19:54 ◼   ► if you'll be off to one side,

01:19:56 ◼   ► the HomePods, the full-size ones,

01:19:58 ◼   ► are I think possibly the best products

01:20:01 ◼   ► I've ever heard in this category.

01:20:02 ◼   ► They are amazing for that,

01:20:05 ◼   ► and they destroy almost all of the competition

01:20:07 ◼   ► people usually would compare them to,

01:20:09 ◼   ► they destroy them in off-axis listening.

01:20:11 ◼   ► They're so much better for that.

01:20:13 ◼   ► It doesn't sound like you're listening to a crappy,

01:20:16 ◼   ► treble-reduced side version of the sound,

01:20:18 ◼   ► you just hear the music, and it's not as good

01:20:20 ◼   ► as standing in front of them, but it's still really good.

01:20:23 ◼   ► - They're radially symmetrical, that's why.

01:20:25 ◼   ► Like, they are not directional.

01:20:27 ◼   ► Like, regular speakers have their speaker cones

01:20:29 ◼   ► facing a single direction.

01:20:31 ◼   ► That's not true of the HomePods.

01:20:33 ◼   ► There is no front or back, like the base one is pointing either directly up or down, I

01:20:44 ◼   ► forget which, and then the five that are surrounded, they're equally spaced in a circle.

01:20:49 ◼   ► That's the whole point of this device, that's why the HomePod is round.

01:20:54 ◼   ► There is no wrong place to put it, and so it should be exactly the same no matter where

01:20:59 ◼   ► you are, plus or minus the fact that you have it up against the backsplash or there's a

01:21:03 ◼   ► mixer in the way or you know what, obviously physical obstructions are going to cause it,

01:21:07 ◼   ► but that's why these speakers are like, "Look, just put it wherever you're in your house."

01:21:10 ◼   ► And that whole thing of like it's saying, "Oh, I'm going to play sound and figure out

01:21:13 ◼   ► how to adjust myself," half of that is figuring out which one of my tweeters is blocked by

01:21:18 ◼   ► a wall and I should maybe not send super amount of sound into that one tweeter because it's

01:21:22 ◼   ► pointless because it's going to be bouncing all over the place.

01:21:24 ◼   ► So, you know, when you compare HomePods to,

01:21:28 ◼   ► you know, again, anything else, say the Sonos One,

01:21:31 ◼   ► which is a common comparison,

01:21:33 ◼   ► which I find massively overrated,

01:21:35 ◼   ► the Sonos One is a totally fine, small, cheap speaker.

01:21:39 ◼   ► It sounds closer to the HomePod Mini

01:21:41 ◼   ► than the full-size HomePod.

01:21:43 ◼   ► Price-wise, it's kind of right in the middle,

01:21:45 ◼   ► and so I respect that.

01:21:46 ◼   ► It isn't $300, it's about $200, so, you know, that's fine,

01:21:51 ◼   ► but it's also as big as a HomePod.

01:21:53 ◼   ► And I think if you're gonna have that amount,

01:21:55 ◼   ► that size on a countertop with the Sonos One,

01:22:00 ◼   ► I think unless you want the Sonos ecosystem

01:22:02 ◼   ► for other reasons, I think the full size HomePod