First Hands-On Experience of New HomePod Reveals 'Exquisite' Audio Quality - MacRumors

The archetypal hands-on acquisition with the caller second-generation HomePod has offered caller details connected the latest astute speaker's prime and show compared to the archetypal HomePod from respective years ago.

TechRadar's Lance Ulanoff had the accidental to perceive to the caller HomePod during a listening league by Apple for members of the media and shared his thoughts astir the HomePod's prime and performance.

According to Ulanoff, the caller HomePod handles the separation of vocals, instruments, and tracks with "excellent" precision erstwhile listening to songs similar "Everybody" by Ingrid Michaelson. "What I noticed instantly is, from a azygous HomePod 2, the fantabulous separation of acoustic instruments and her voice. I could intelligibly prime retired a tambourine, guitar, and drum kit arsenic chiseled elements successful the air," Ulanoff said.

One situation often faced by emblematic speakers is that the louder the volume, the much distorted the audio tin become. Ulanoff said adjacent astatine arsenic precocious arsenic 90% volume, the caller HomePod delivers "aural clarity" with nary distortion. According to Ulanoff, the caller HomePod has a sensor built into its plan that tin measurement the interior somesthesia of the strategy and, if nether perfect conditions, tin "crank up the powerfulness adjacent further."

Like the archetypal HomePod, the caller exemplary has spatial awareness, but with amended show acknowledgment to precocious computational audio and improved hardware, similar the S7 chip. With spatial audio, the caller HomePod, either unsocial oregon successful a stereo pair, tin connection an immersive 360-degree listening experience.

One of the absorbing things astir the caller HomePod 2 is its spatial awareness. As I listened to euphony from a azygous and past stereo brace of HomePod 2 devices, I noticed however the sounds often didn't look to beryllium coming straight from the HomePods (thanks Spatial Audio!). Some were coming from the left, others from the right, and immoderate (usually, but not always, vocals) from dormant center. The astir absorbing sounds though, were the ones that astir seemed to lavation implicit me; they were bouncing disconnected the backmost partition (maybe a ft distant from the HomePod 2) and past rising and, I'm guessing here, bouncing from the walls to the ceiling to my ears.

Ulanoff called a stereo brace of caller HomePods "impressive," adding that definite songs felt arsenic if they were "coming from down and successful beforehand of me. The dependable signifier was truthful wide and heavy that it didn't substance wherever I stood successful the room," Ulanoff concluded. It's worthy noting that first-generation HomePods can't beryllium utilized successful a stereo brace with the newer model, according to Apple.

Internals of the caller second-generation HomePod

Visually, the caller HomePod looks similar the archetypal astute speaker, with a larger backlit interaction interface and a somewhat shorter design. Internally, the caller exemplary has 2 less tweeters and microphones than the archetypal HomePod, which was apt a cost-cutting decision. The tweeters and microphones are "tilted up to debar immoderate audio being distorted by reflections from immoderate aboveground the talker is sitting on," according to Ulanoff.

Like the archetypal HomePod, the caller talker tin rapidly analyse its placement successful a country to set the audio accordingly successful conscionable 20 seconds, acknowledgment to a operation of the 4 microphones and the S7 chip. An accelerometer is besides built-in to observe question and readjust its country analysis.

The caller HomePod comes astir 2 years aft Apple discontinued its archetypal astute speaker. The first-generation HomePod failed to beryllium the marketplace occurrence Apple was hoping for, due to the fact that of its precocious $349 terms astatine motorboat and constricted integration with third-party services. We'll get a person look astatine the caller HomePod erstwhile media reviews are published successful the days starring up to its motorboat connected Friday, February 3.