How Kamran Got His Groove Back
After mentally charting through all the stuff I wanted to write in this post, it appears that I’ve arrived at an intrinsic truth about music that wasn’t so obvious (to me) before.
“At a fundamental level, music you like, transcends physical barriers and those of time and space. It remains enjoyable, regardless of the source of audio or the might of the speaker.”
Jon Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer” was just as enjoyable to me on a cassette tape, then on a CD, and now on an MP3 file. I have listened to this song on a cassette boombox, on a Kenwood Compact Disc home stereo system, and over the last 15 years, MP3 versions on my home computer, car audio system, (wired and wireless) headphones connected to my iPhone, and now on Apple’s HomePod.
The source and speaker have continued to evolve over the past thirty years since the single was released, but it still gives me an immense pleasure-every time I hear it. I can rinse and repeat this example for various personal favorites in multiple genres including (but not limited to) Pop/Rock, Motown, Ghazals, Pakistani Pop, Bollywood hits, etc. If that’s not an eclectic taste, I don’t know what is.
The first speaker I remember owning was a battery-powered cassette boombox (with detachable speakers) during my high-school years. It used to be perched on a skateboard that I never skated on-its sole purpose to give elevation to the speakers and proximity to my bed. Proximity to my bed sounds weird, but it was of paramount importance since it allowed me to rewind, fast forward, and or switch tape sides without completely leaving the comfort of the bed. You could also categorize that as the height of laziness.
During college, I bought my first CD/Cassette Home Stereo system from Kenwood. The sound quality went up due to both the source (CD) and higher quality speakers. That lasted me a few years until it broke and I put it out to pasture.
It took me over a decade to execute my next deliberate sound system purchase. Why, you ask? I think it’s worth taking a tangential break over.
A passive listener to music-I didn’t go out of my way to discover new genres and or purchase new hit singles. I was also very deliberate in taking long gaps to listen to music that I did like. This may sound weird, but I always hated the limitation on Cassettes and (to a certain extent) on CDs of knowing ‘what song was coming next’. Long gaps increased the probability of me not remembering what was coming down the pike and thus basking in the joy and delight of the “surprise factor”. There was also a minor annoyance of buying an entire album just to hear the one or two singles I liked. This frustration eventually led to one or two mixtapes and perhaps one mix CD that I burned from my PC but it was such a chore to compile said mixes, that I quickly gave up any future compilations. I wasn’t that motivated.
Enter MP3s. They absolutely rocked my music consumption. Not only could I “easily obtain” and store hundreds of songs that I liked, I could easily play them on ‘shuffle’ not knowing what song was about to play next. That’s how it was meant to be-marginal degradation in quality be damned.
Instead of opting for the ubiquitous iPod at the time, I bought a portable media player (that played both video and audio files) and stored most of my songs on it. With the auxiliary out port, I could enjoy music on my headphones or in my car.
At the time, I was also commuting an hour each way for work and songs weren’t cutting it. They did absolutely nothing to dampen the frustration of being stuck in endless traffic. So, I decided to give audiobooks a go and my world has never been the same. I distinctly remember on quite a few occasions, arriving home after driving for over an hour and staying in my car for a few extra minutes to finish my chapter.
There’s a reason why my twitter and medium profile labels me as an audiobook addict.
Suddenly, music took a backseat (figuratively speaking, the faux third row seat only fit for small kids). The reason was simple. I mainly consumed audio in my car, and it was a competition between music and audiobooks, with the latter winning 9 times out of 10.
Oh, but it gets better…
See, being a tech geek, I also got into podcasts much earlier then my social circle. I subscribe to half a dozen podcasts and now, I’ve started my very own. Anyways, I digress. Now the competition was three fold:
Music vs. Audiobooks vs. Podcasts
Guess who lost?
After a decade-long gap, I bought my next sound device, a Vizio Sound bar plus standalone woofer. Even without a proper 5.1 surround sound system, the Sound bar was night and day compared to the crappy audio quality I was used to from my TV’s built-in speakers. Music consumption on the sound bar remained an afterthought.
Last year, there arose the first pangs of FOMO-getting back on the music scene before it was too late. My 12 year hiatus from music had left me a bit off balance. In the Hashmi household, my kids had effectively become my new source of music discovery. That and the odd single I happened to Shazam at a random store in the mall. I had even lost my music collection two years ago due to a hard drive failure and hadn’t even bothered to recover the data.
I needed to get my groove back. I needed to play the game again but I had to change the paradigm first. I started tinkering with Spotify and made a couple of playlists. I started to make a concerted effort to control my audiobook and podcast habit and started listening to songs where it was more opportunistic such as when taking a shower or as background music while working via my AirPods. By the way, I can’t remember if I mentioned this in my iPhone X review, but it’s the best sounding iPhone yet. Its small stereo speakers get really loud and music is enjoyable even over the sound of a running shower.
I also made an effort to listen to music on Spotify’s Mac OS app, while working on my iMac at home. However, this was still a stopgap measure. I needed to up the ante.
Taking a queue from my sound bar purchase, I knew I had to get an above average speaker to really start appreciating the nuances of recorded music, be it the guitar, the vocals, the bass, or the percussion. My first choice was the fabulously reviewed Sonos Play 5, which I used for a week before returning it. While it is an excellent speaker that uses Wi-Fi vs. bluetooth to deliver hi-res audio, I didn’t care too much about the primary method to select and control audio, which was through the dedicated Sonos app.
Well, there was another reason.
My favorite consumer electronics company had announced that they were stepping into the speaker business with the launch of the HomePod, which was billed as good as (if not better) than Sonos and more favorably priced compared to the Play 5. So, I decided to stick it out. I had faith that Cupertino was going to get this right.
I didn’t exactly pull the trigger at launch compared to the iPhone X but decided to do a deeper dive into the the review cycle first. While some reviews criticized how Siri wasn’t smart enough to compete with the likes of Alexa or Google Home, or how it didn’t support AirPlay 2 at launch, they all pretty much conceded it was an excellent speaker. Fast Company did a series of articles testing the HomePod with professional audio testing tools and found that the results were in line with what Apple had claimed.
- The HomePod automates spacial compensation. Here’s what Apple claims:
‘Place HomePod anywhere in the room. It automatically analyzes the acoustics, adjusts the sound based on the speaker’s location, and separates the music into direct and ambient sound. Direct sound is beamed to the middle of the room, while ambient sound is diffused into left and right channels and bounced off the wall. So your music sounds amazing, wherever you are in the room.’
Fast Company concluded that this claim was true. The HomePod is essentially doing automatically, what is generally considered a very time consuming process, conducted by audiophiles, using special equipment.
2. The HomePod provides high-fidelity music. Here’s what Apple claims:
‘HomePod features a large, Apple-designed woofer for deep, clean bass, a custom array of seven beam-forming tweeters that provide pure high frequency acoustics with incredible directional control and powerful technologies built right in to preserve the richness and intent of the original recordings.’
Again, Fast Company concluded that given the size (and price) of the speaker, this claim is more or less true as well with the HomePod faithfully reproducing sounds that aren’t biased to either high or low frequencies (it’s flat).
For more details on how Apple achieves this magic, please read Fast Company’s Review 1 and Review 2.
Two weeks ago, I traded in some old electronics, partially funding the cost of one space grey Homepod from my local Best Buy. I wasn’t surprised by how small (and yet heavy) it was as I was already prepped from the early reviews. I’m also not going to talk about build quality (it’s Apple we are talking about), but I do want to say that it felt (for lack of a better word) ‘substantial’.
Setup was ridiculously easy. Even though I was at my in-laws’ when I opened the box, fully prepared to enter their wi-fi password, I only had to bring my iPhone X near to the HomePod and it transferred all of my settings. Basically, in less than 10 seconds I was ready to rock and roll (no pun intended).
If organs could make ‘Dua’ (prayers) for their owners, my ears have been blessing me ever since I told Siri to play a song on the HomePod.
While not an audiophile, I appreciate good sounding music and this speaker sounds absolutely incredible for its size. The rich bass I’m hearing has no business coming out of this speaker. How’s Apple doing it? The answer can partially be explained by Apple’s smart use of computational audio.
To be clear, the Smartness factor is not so much in how Siri compares to Amazon’s Alexa (I own three echo dots) or Google’s Home, but how Apple is using its A8 System on a Chip (SoC) to dynamically compensate for spatial limitations to produce immersive sound, no matter where it’s placed in the room (or where you are placed)-to continuously analyze music milliseconds before it plays to tune low frequencies on the fly and thus producing smooth, distortion free music.
Based on my research (and I could be wrong), Apple is using beamforming technology to not only direct high-fidelity audio (intelligently) to different parts of the room, but also using the same tech in the HomePod’s six-microphone array to pick up your voice without missing a beat. The latter cannot be understated since voice commands are the primary driver of user interaction with the HomePod. It’s absolutely mind-blowing how Siri is able to pick out your voice at normal conversational volume (you never have to shout). So, even when the speaker is belting out songs at a 100% volume and the person in the same room may not be able to hear you, Siri will. I’m just gobsmacked how well this works and shows how Siri performs on a completely different plane on the HomePod as compared to your iPhone. Speaking of Siri, she’s also smart enough to decipher for which device the command is intended. So, when you say “Hey Siri-Stop’, even though your iPhone’s Siri may light up, both Siri’s duke it out over bluetooth, and Siri on the HomePod responds/executes your command.
Even though I had toyed around with the freemium version of Spotify, I subscribed to Apple Music without missing a beat and quickly recreated my playlists. It’s very liberating to have access to arguably the largest music collection (45 million songs) in the world and to play said music through a simple voice command. Whether it’s random singles, albums, or custom playlists, Siri on the HomePod executes well. That said, Siri does struggle with recognizing Bollywood/Pakistani songs and I often find myself manually searching it on Apple Music on my phone and Air Playing it (custom playlists are your friend). I’ve also purposely strayed outside my comfort zone and actively discovering new music and or pushing the limits of the HomePod with songs recommended by audiophiles to test home audio gear. So far, the HomePod has passed with flying colors. Such is the clarity that if I close my eyes, I imagine the singer/band jamming right in my living room.
You have to hear it to believe it.
Such is my preoccupation with it that even though I’m a self-professed TV buff, apart from watching one episode of ‘The Grand Tour’ on my Apple TV 4K, I really haven’t watched TV in two weeks. Any possible opportunity is optimized for discovering new tracks and re-enjoying old favorites. I even a watched a cricket match with the TV volume muted and the HomePod blasting away.
Speaking of Apple TV, I was interested in gauging how the HomePod stacks up against my current Home Theater setup. Connecting the HomePod is very easy. Just press and hold on the play/pause button for 2–3 seconds and you can choose multiple audio outputs. In the image below, the default option “Apple TV” routes sound through the Sound bar, my Air Pods giving me flexibility to listen without disturbing anyone. While the HomePod has a clearer sound, it’s not head and shoulders above the sound bar with its standalone woofer and considerably higher volume. I’m really looking forward to testing stereo sound when AirPlay 2 comes out.
One feature that blew me away was the ability to add songs to my Apple Music Playlists on the fly by just asking Siri on the HomePod. I made a short YouTube video to demonstrate what I’m referring to — see how MJ’s ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ pops up at the bottom of the screen (within 2 seconds of my request). Please explain — how is this indistinguishable from magic?
The HomePod isn’t perfect. If you want stereo pairing or if multi-room audio is a big deal (and you can’t wait), then there are some high-quality alternatives such as Sonos or Definitive Technology. Both sound excellent, if a bit pricey. If having a decent sounding voice assistant with hundreds of third party integrations (including the ability to set multiple reminders or create calendar appointments) is high on the priority list (and you can’t wait), then opt for an Amazon Echo or a Google Home Max. Both are world class-at least in the integrations department.
Siri, as its exists on the HomePod today, is a voice assistant with limitations (and baggage) but it is primed to do its core job like it’s nobody’s business. It can hear you no matter how loud it gets. It can seamlessly tap in to a 45 million music directory. It dynamically adapts the sound to the room, so you’re always in the path of sweet sounding music. It continuously computes and faithfully reproduces sound that the composers in the recording studio only dreamed of. Oh, and at a sub-$500 price point, it’s music nirvana for the masses.
