“Apple’s HomePod is a late arrival to the smart-speaker market, though the company has rarely put much store by first-mover advantage,” Paul Dempsey writes for Engineering & Technology Magazine. “It is also a typical Cupertino product in that it is premium-priced (£319 in the UK and $349 in the US).”
“By either measure, Apple does not seem to be convinced by the use model competitors are promoting where consumers scatter multiple assistants around the home (remembering also that both Echo and Home can be augmented with hockey-puck-sized sister units),” Dempsey writes. “Apple is seeking to reward buyers with an array of innovative features. Most target audiophiles.”
“The speaker array comprises one four-inch high-excursion, upward-firing woofer and a seven-tweeter array, quite a set-up given the 172mm x 142mm dimensions. Various physical enhancing techniques, including venting to reduce pressure and thereby distortion from the tweeters, are used,” Dempsey writes. “Even the exterior mesh has a custom design.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Sorry, not impressed.
This is what a real speaker teardown looks like:
http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/Speakers/Home_Audio/Nautilus/technologies.html
Initial reaction style over substance.
While those speakers are interesting looking and probably sound good (I’ve not heard them), you are comparing a $60,000 speaker set to a $349 speaker. That’s not really a good comparison.
The MDN take is an empty box as i type this