Comparing the HomePod’s Sound Quality to Its Competition
It will be a while before we see in-depth analyses of the HomePod’s audio capabilities, but iMore’s Serenity Caldwell was impressed by its sound quality in her first impressions of Apple’s new smart speaker. She compared it to the Amazon Echo, Google Home Max, and the Sonos One, and “came away from that test both impressed and shocked by the engineering Apple has put into making this tiny 7-inch speaker a musical powerhouse in your living room.” On the downside, she notes that the HomePod currently lacks stereo pairing, multi-room audio, multi-user support, and native support for services other than Apple Music.
What a terrible article. She doesn't describe the two most important elements of the listening test. She says that the test was "controlled", but not by whom.
And she doesn't say whether it was a blind test: ie whether she knew which speaker she was listening to while making notes about it, or whether that was revealed later. Otherwise, audio testing is just so subject to prejudgement.