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Freewheelin_jack

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 5, 2016
24
20
My sofa is in the corner of the room. I have a HomePod and Sonos Playbar on a cabinet opposite. The HomePod bass is too much and, for some tracks, totally boomy and overwhelming. The same tracks played through the Playbar also have the boomy bass, although to a lesser extent. However, when the Playbar is tuned using Trueplay the boomy bass goes away. Result. The HomePod never even seems to try to tune to the same extent. A win for Sonos I think.
 

pup

macrumors 6502a
Dec 31, 2009
501
490
The HomePod can only adjust for room modes that it can detect from where it sits, whereas Trueplay can detect modes throughout the room since it takes measurements from your phone rather than the speaker. That's why you have to wave your phone around the room while it's taking measurements. So when it comes to boomy bass, the HomePod can't really measure the intensity of any room modes unless it happens to be placed right in the middle of one. I'm sure it can make some adjustment, but nothing accurate.

This is where it would help, too, if Apple would give you individual tone controls for HomePods, but no. You're only choice is to change the EQ settings for iTunes/Music, but that changes the tone for every speaker in the house as well as headphones.
 
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DarwinOSX

macrumors 68000
Nov 3, 2009
1,637
185
My sofa is in the corner of the room. I have a HomePod and Sonos Playbar on a cabinet opposite. The HomePod bass is too much and, for some tracks, totally boomy and overwhelming. The same tracks played through the Playbar also have the boomy bass, although to a lesser extent. However, when the Playbar is tuned using Trueplay the boomy bass goes away. Result. The HomePod never even seems to try to tune to the same extent. A win for Sonos I think.

That doesn't have anything to do with the tuning it's because the HomePod is too bass heavy no matter the circumstances and has no eq. I do find that two HomePods handle the bass better than one though and would blow away a Playbar. I have a bunch of Homepods and Sonos by the way.
 

DarwinOSX

macrumors 68000
Nov 3, 2009
1,637
185
The HomePod can only adjust for room modes that it can detect from where it sits, whereas Trueplay can detect modes throughout the room since it takes measurements from your phone rather than the speaker. That's why you have to wave your phone around the room while it's taking measurements. So when it comes to boomy bass, the HomePod can't really measure the intensity of any room modes unless it happens to be placed right in the middle of one. I'm sure it can make some adjustment, but nothing accurate.

This is where it would help, too, if Apple would give you individual tone controls for HomePods, but no. You're only choice is to change the EQ settings for iTunes/Music, but that changes the tone for every speaker in the house as well as headphones.

That's not how it works. HomePod may be stationary but it actually accurately maps the room whereas Trueplay only does it from a set of predefined rules and the room measurements which is not as effective. The Move does the same. You should read up on how the HomePods maps the room.
Agree on no EQ sort of except that no eq in iTunes or anything else will affect HomePod. it did when it was first released but hasn't for some time now.
 
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MiamiC70

Suspended
Oct 16, 2011
416
156
Sonos In Huge Financial Trouble

There. That’s better.

Apple releases new ATV4K with input / output ports, Dolby Atmos 5.1 Hompod support and speaker management EQ functionality in tvOS.
Sonos files for bankruptcy...

That is probably more accurate.
 
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