blindinglights
Member
FlatpanelsHD has been testing a pair of HomePods specifically as Apple TV audio rather than as music speakers, which is the framing I have wanted someone to take seriously for a while.
The setup is genuinely tempting on paper. Two speakers, no rack, no receiver, no cable run across the room, and the Apple TV handles them as its default output so you are not fighting a separate remote. For a living room where a soundbar plus a sub is a domestic argument waiting to happen, that is a real proposition.
Where I keep getting stuck is the architecture. The HomePods have no input of their own, so every source has to pass through the Apple TV box. Games console, disc player, anything on another HDMI port on the TV - none of that reaches them unless you have a set that will bounce it back out, and now you are back to eARC and lip sync settings, which is exactly the mess the setup was meant to avoid.
The other thing nobody discusses honestly is dialogue. A stereo pair has no centre channel, and once you widen the soundstage far enough to be impressive, voices start floating between the speakers rather than coming from the screen. Some people never notice. Some people cannot stop noticing.
So I would rather hear from people running it than read another measurement. If this is your main TV audio, does everything else in the rack still work, and where did you land on dialogue clarity for films rather than for the two or three Apple showcase demos everyone reaches for?
The setup is genuinely tempting on paper. Two speakers, no rack, no receiver, no cable run across the room, and the Apple TV handles them as its default output so you are not fighting a separate remote. For a living room where a soundbar plus a sub is a domestic argument waiting to happen, that is a real proposition.
Where I keep getting stuck is the architecture. The HomePods have no input of their own, so every source has to pass through the Apple TV box. Games console, disc player, anything on another HDMI port on the TV - none of that reaches them unless you have a set that will bounce it back out, and now you are back to eARC and lip sync settings, which is exactly the mess the setup was meant to avoid.
The other thing nobody discusses honestly is dialogue. A stereo pair has no centre channel, and once you widen the soundstage far enough to be impressive, voices start floating between the speakers rather than coming from the screen. Some people never notice. Some people cannot stop noticing.
So I would rather hear from people running it than read another measurement. If this is your main TV audio, does everything else in the rack still work, and where did you land on dialogue clarity for films rather than for the two or three Apple showcase demos everyone reaches for?
