I’ve got 2 HomePod minis hooked up to my Apple tv (the latest versio) and they are soooooo good, except … I often find them either too quiet or too loud.
And I don’t know enough about sound to know what to do.
I’m considering buying two HomePods to replace the minis, because I think the bigger speakers may make richer sound that is easier to hear.
I’ve got 54 year old ears and very minor hearing loss, appropriate to my age.
I’d love some advice. It’s one of those little things that would make me very happy of it were fixed.
Thanks, @SpivR. I didn’t know about dialogue boost. I’ll have to check that out on my system.
@Clarke_Ching, I can attest that Sonos sound is very, very good. And while it isn’t cheap, it also doesn’t have to break the bank. I have the Beam (1st gen). The current 2nd gen goes for $499 when it’s not on sale, so it actually comes in at less than two HomePods.
I believe the latest updates to Homepods added some kind of dialog boost feature as well if you’re using two. I can attest to the new big HomePods being amazing. I don’t feel the need for anything else.
I’m in agreement with SpivR on SONOS being a better sound option. The pro’s and con’s depend on what you are willing to deal with.
I had 2 OG HomePods (paired in Stereo) in our bedroom and felt they were a bit too Bass heavy. Tried a pair of HomePod minis (again in Stereo) but felt the audio was not as clear and weaker. Tried a few soundbars but they didn’t work for us. Moved my SONOS PlayBar as a test and while the sound was fantastic, we couldn’t adjust the volume with the AppleTV remote. Went back to the OG HomePods after finding the Bass Reduction feature.
My PlayBar, Sub and pair of Play:3 speakers run my Media Room and I could not be happier. I was using the Logitech Harmony One remote to control everything. Unfortunately it was discontinued and the battery replacement I performed did not go well.
If you have buy the HomePods… consider giving the SONOS a trial run first.
I haven’t been able to afford a Sonos soundbar, but I’d echo those who say give Sonos speakers a listen alongside or before you opt for Homepods. the sound is so good and my small Sonos speakers have been rock solid with airplay.
I get great spatial audio from Apple Music by using my Dolby ATMOS LG soundbar, subwoofer and rear speakers with an Apple TV 4K (1st gen). It’s a relatively cheap upgrade to add an Apple TV to an existing Dolby Atmos set up. The much more expensive Sonos soundbars play Apple Music directly, but I’m quite happy to use the Apple TV.
Here’s what I did: I purchased 2 big homepods from apple, plugged them in etc, and they’re now all boxed up again waiting for a courier to pick them up and return them to apple.
They made things worse.
My wife didn’t notice any improvement, or degradation, but they really messed with my ears. It was like the sound was bouncing around inside my head, dad-dancing, in a very bad way. I tried moving the homepods to see if that improved things, and I stuck with them for a couple of days and things never got better.
And then I remembered my old soundbar - a fairly basic bose model. It had stopped working a couple of years ago following an apple tv upgrade. I wondered … was it possible that the bug that had stopped it working been fixed?
I plugged it back in, and it turns out it had.
And - as per the comments above - the simple soundbar is sooooooooo much better than both pairs of homepods and homepod minis.
But things still arent’ perfect, so I’m using the refund from apple to buy a very nice Sonos soundbar. I bought it from sonos directly, and they have a 100 day return policy when bought directly from them (which is very clever, because I wouldn’t have purchased it otherwise).
It hasn’t arrived yet … but when it does, I’ll add a followup note.
(Thanks for all the advice, really appreciate it.)
A final update … I’ve returned the big homepods, and then I returned the sonos, because the sound on my new LG C3 is (to my ears) spectacular, so I don’t need a soundbar or external speakers.