It's not as large as some 2020 deals but this is the first sale I've seen for the original HomePod since it was discontinued.
I noticed the Mini is also $139 ($10 off RRP) at Officeworks as well currently.
Apple Homepod $419 ($50 off RRP) @ Officeworks
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Yeah I snagged one at Good Guys for $300 during that period - wish I had bought a second one now, but assumed it was a permanent aggressive price drop.
How do you find the sound quality? Thinking of getting one to be my daily driver to replace my bose soundlink mini.
it's really good. i too got it during the TGG deal,, regret not getting a couple for the stereo and backup.
apple doesn't seem to want to refresh this speaker and seems to prefer to push the higher margin (imo) mini .
@slowmo: The problem with the Homepod is the same problem they have with the Airpods Max; When you push into the high end territory, suddenly you’re competing with the companies that don’t give two shits about price, but push their products to the limit of quality. Very few people would opt for a Homepod when a Sonos is in the same ballpark.
@TheRealCJ: true, however it's definitely not for my use-case or anyone with similar use-case.
i have a dedicated sound bar for the TV. the homepod is really just for music and siri/homekit. So the homepod is really the only high end home audio sound solution available from apple.
a sonos is never mentioned or considered because there's no homekit/siri/apple music integration.
Quality is magnificent - room filling and absolutely terrific. I wish I had bought 2, especially with the new home theatre-related Apple TV features in the new OS updates.\
EDIT: Lack of bluetooth may annoy you re: daily driver. Only Airplay.
the sound quality is really good when you have a pair. Definitely beat Sonos Beam soundbar. (if you managed to get a pair during the TGG deal last year, the price is the same as one Sonos Beam)
@airly: If you are using for tv primarily, a set of actual speakers will be cheaper and sound infinitely better.
@onlinepred: that might be the case, but for $500 (I paid $250 each after GC) the pair of HomePod definitely do a good job and I am happy with that. The auto-tuned feature is also working well, I moved the pair between rooms before, for the small room, you could tell the echo is close to minimal.
@airly: Yea the echo is only due to the nature of the 360 degree speaker, which isn't designed for TV audio. With regular speakers you wouldn't have any issue like that.
$80 more gets you actual studio bookshelf speakers though
I used to have a Soundlink Mini on my desk at work. Homepod Mini kills it, in part because of the 360-degree sound. The larger Homepod is ideal for ambient music, especially in a stereo pair - with room calibration and beam-forming the standout features. At home I have Homepods on top of my home theatre mains. When I just want music, I use Siri to cue the Homepods. For TV viewing, my 3.1/5.1 setup is far superior. The 4-inch subwoofer in the Homepod is not well suited to LFE. I reckon a contributor to the poor sales of the Homepod was the demo setup in Apple stores. You really need to hear speakers in rooms sized to your home.
They were, but the price was raised again when the HomePod mini was announced.
Bought four at $230-260 using in pairs in my lounge room fantastic speakers but this price is a bit much
I’ve got six homepods and the sound is amazing. The work that went into making them such a brilliant speaker has been overlooked. If you use Apple products, these are brilliant. Two of them will produce better sound than any similarly priced stereo in my opinion.
It’s a pity they weren’t seen as being an amazing speaker rather than an expensive digital assistant.
My mate has two hooked up to his TV, and it does not sound anywhere near as good as my Edifier S3000pro which you can get usually for less than $600. Not even close! The average imaging alone made me constantly notice the sound when listening to the homepods, in a bad way.
The average imaging alone made me constantly notice the sound when listening to the homepods, in a bad way.
What does that mean?
It's how your brain can relate a sound to a physical position. Often voices or sounds would sound like they are physically on the speakers, which they were not supposed to be. A good example is dialogue which often happens from the TV screen as a position, the homepods did not make it sound like there was a centre speaker.
I can't comment on how it compare to your Edifier S3000pro, whether the pair of HomePod sound good on not, it is definitely subjective, but also it is highly depend on the setup.
- does it pair with Apple TV HD or 4K?
- does it has the latest software installed on both the Apple TV and HomePod?
- what is the source of video that the Apple TV is playing, is it DTS or Dobly Atmos?
- what software does it used to play the video, if streaming the content, does he/she has the highest paid plan that would give him/her the highest quality sound?The list of variable that could impact the result are so long that it is not funny.
I personally don't have the issue because I looked into all these, and I usually play the same video to compare the speakers (HomePods vs Sonos Beam) and see whether a particular setup would let me hear sound that I haven't heard before. It did happen to me that HomePods could produce sounds that Sonos Beam can't.
(I realised that because my son love a dolphin documentary on Disney+, and we watched it more than 10 times, and the HomePods actually able to play the deep sea eerie sounds that was non-existence when we were using Sonos Beam)You honestly can't even compare. If you just want two small speakrs to replace a cheapo soundbar (or sonos beam which the homepods ARE better), then yea, but compared to actual speakers, the homepods just sound like bluetooth speakers.
The edifier runs from my TV and Apple TV via PCM.
sound quality is very good
but it's not perfect. after a year sick and tired of playing with apple tv output to homepod, pretty much daily.
youtube can crash and revert to TV audio with this not as often as above.
sometimes you need to reboot everything to get it going.
just too much fiddling overall in my experience. (and i only use it with 1 apple tv, nothing else)at $419 its too much
Given the HomePods communicated with Apple TV via Airplay2 (e.g. Wifi), maybe worth looking into your Wifi or power source setup at home. I have the HomePods pair with Apple TV 4K (first gen) for a year without one single connection issue.
thanks for sharing this.
ive got two time capsules 6th gen in a two bedroom apartment so wifi pretty much covers everything, one at each end.
there's no wifi issues or power issues with anything else, laptops, ipads, apple tvs, iphones, computersmaybe the homepod is bipolar and doesnt know which access point to use
I only have one HomePod from when they first released it.
Is it worth getting another one or would the mini work just as well if paired with the bigger version for stereo sound?
I think it is worth to get one, if you need one immediately.
However this HomePod is now discontinued by Apple, which mean if you have a pair, and one of them is broken (for whatever reason), you either buy a second hand or get Apple to fix it (which will cost you close to RRP).If you could wait (I think you can since you haven't got a pair yet), you should wait for either Apple TV could support a pair of HomePod mini (apparently by end of the year) or the rumour that Apple will release a new product combined Apple TV and HomePod (but it is just a rumour)
You can’t configure a HomePod mini and a HomePod as a stereo pair. You need two of the same type of HomePod.
HomePod minis are not nearly as loud as Homepods, I have a stereo pair of minis in the same room as a HomePod and I have to set the minis at double the volume.
Better off getting 2 Google nest audio speakers. They’re only $98 at office works at the moment. Can be paired in stereo mode, and more versatile than Apple homepods.
If you really want good stereo, just buy an Echo Dot ($19 recently) and connect it to your choice of amplifier and speakers. You probably already have those.
The black one seems to be sold out, at least when I select QLD it shows as "Not available online".
$399 at Officeworks now.
They really wanna get rid of them don’t they? Closer to $300 I’ll bite.
Are all space grey sold out across Australia now?
from what i can find out online, Space Grey sold out worldwide and only some remaining stocks left in Australia in white. People selling them on eBay well above the retail price too.
I thought these dropped to ~$300 permanently last year? They should should heaps cheaper but appear to going up in price since they were discontinued.