Apple HomePod 2nd Generation
I F'in LOVE the OG HomePods. The sound quality absolutely slaps for the money/size/convenience. I've got one for music in the kitchen and it fills the room like a setup 3x as large. The bass response even at low volumes is remarkable, and clarity through the whole volume range is near perfection. Many of my guests have sourced their own OGs after hearing it. I've got another hooked up to my Apple TV (mono) that replaced a 3.1 setup that cost 3x as much and <i>somehow</i> didn't sound as good.<p>I can't relate at all to the bike-shedding of Siri complaints. It's like we're experiencing totally different products. Does anyone actually <i>want</i> to use smart speaker features beyond simple cooking timers and controlling music? These features work great. I thought we'd already determined (4 years ago) that voice/audio was a poor user interface even with google/Alexa? I always felt this was a remarkable speaker that got unfairly panned in reviews for performance on silly and contrived smart-assistant use cases.<p>Despite the fact that I love these speakers and could care less about Siri, this release has me a little disappointed. I don't see much stated improvement. Kind of seems like a processor bump type release, which is not what I expected in V2 after so many years.