애플 홈팟 스펙 (2017.6월 발매) : 아플제품에 가성비가....?

애플답지 않게, 가장 가성비 쩌는 애플 제품. 그 이름은 홈팟

 

1.4 GHz Apple A8 processor : 64비트 시스템 온 칩(SoC)이다. 2014년 9월 9일 선보인 아이폰 6에 탑재.
A8은 TSMC 20 nm 공정으로 제조했고, 20억개의 트랜지스터를 포함하고 있다.  1 GB of LPDDR3 램을 포함

16 GB of storage

802.11ac (MIMO) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0

홈팟은 2014. 9에 출시된 아이폰6 급의 하드웨어가 탑재돼있다. 아이폰 아이패드에는 최신 칩셋을 달고, 2~3년 지나면, 아이패드 미니나, 보급폰 등에 재고를 이용하는 전략.

 

Dimensions:
6.8 inches high (172 mm)
5.6 inches wide (142 mm)

Weight:
5.5 pounds (2.5 kg)

 

The 13.4 software update, released in March 2020, updated the OS from an iOS code base to a tvOS based system.

 

---

히야...좀 엽기적인 아이폰 같은 오디오다. 그런데, 스마트폰 시장이나 카메라 성능과 비교해서, 오디오 시장에서는 온갖 짓을 다 해도 큰 차이가 안난다는 것.... -_-;; 기계적으로는 괴물 스피커다.

홈팟미니의 하드웨어와 비교하면, 체급차이가 많이 난다. 약간이 아니라....많이...

 

중고음 트위터  7개와 각각 연결된 앰프

4인치 우퍼 1개

내부 마이크 7개

스튜디오 수준의 다이나믹 프로세싱 ( a8 칩셋이 소리를 다시 수음하여, 공간을 계산하고 이퀄라이저 역할을 함)

https://youtu.be/ArH41WyUt28

seven horn-loaded tweeter/midranges; one 4" woofer. Amplification: each driver has its own amplifier. Internal microphones: 6 for farfield Siri, 1 low-frequency calibration mike for automatic bass correction. Direct and ambient audio beamforming. Transparent studio-level dynamic processing.

 

[트위터는 소리 왜곡을 막기 위해 구멍을 뚫어 압력을 분산시켰다.] 

본체 아래의 우퍼는 진동을 전달하는 보이스코일 지름을 늘려 출력을 더했고 내부의 부품이 중저음에 영향을 받지 않도록 에폭시 소재로 단단히 고정했다. 내부의 중저음을 수집해 소리를 튜닝하는 별도의 마이크까지 달았다. 

고음을 내는 트위터에도 소리를 최대한 살리기 위한 장치가 숨어 있다. 트위터마다 주위를 둘러싸 출력을 높이는 구조이며 소리가 왜곡되는 것을 막기 위해 구멍을 뚫어 압력을 분산시켰다. 

What HiFI 리뷰 Apple HomePod review

 

Still the best-sounding smart speaker you can buy Tested at £319 / $349

319유로 / 349달러 가격대에서 여전히 최고의 음질을 갖춘 스마트 스피커

By What Hi-Fi? July 13, 2020

 

그렇다면, 2대를 구매해서 스테레오 구성할 시, 약 700$ 대의 미니오디오들과 비교했을 때는 어떨까? 아마도 무선 미니 오디오 포함해서 비교할 기기가 있을까???? 애플tv 에서도 그러더니, 잘 안팔리는 기기들은 애플 제품들도 가성비가 아주 쩐다...

총평 Our Verdict

The best-sounding, most music-oriented smart speaker currently available

현재 구입 가능한 제품 중 최고 음질과 가장 음악 지향적인 스마트 스피커

 

 

장점 For
Compact, solid and stylish (작고 스타일리쉬하다)
Siri and Apple Music works well (시리와 애플뮤직의 조합이 좋다. 잘 작동한다 )
Weighty, authoritative sound 밀도감 있고, 호소력 있는 사운드

단점 AGAINST
Over-reliance on voice control ( 음성 조작으로 너무 치우져있다) --- 그런데, 이 마저도 한국어 지원을 안해서, 영어라는.... -_-;;;
Mid-range a little muddled (중역대가 깔끔하지 못하다)
Very Apple-centric ( 너무 애플 생태계에 집중돼있다. 타 기기들과 사용하기 어렵다는 말 )

That Apple does things in its own sweet time is no new discovery. But even by its own standards, the company arrived late to the wireless speaker party.

But being late is perfectly acceptable if you’re the life and soul when you arrive – and that’s pretty much the story with the HomePod.

Despite some flaws and limitations, the HomePod is the best-sounding smart speaker available – and by quite a margin.

When combined with Siri’s reinvention as your personal DJ/musical guru, it makes for an endlessly entertaining all-in-one system. Assuming you’re already deep in the Apple ecosystem.

Build

 

It comes as no surprise that the HomePod is beautifully made and looks classy. It’s a bit smaller and much heavier than you might imagine – dense in the manner of dark matter.

It’s also a subtly styled device, particularly in the Space Grey finish of our review sample. This is a speaker that, between its cylindrical shape and seamless mesh fabric cover, is designed to blend into, rather than dominate, its surroundings.

Not that it’s without neat touches. That glossy top panel, uniformly black when the speaker is resting, is where Siri appears as a shifting ball of colour. The way it floats within the blackness of the panel is undeniably cool.

When playing music, '+' and '-' symbols appear, giving you touch-points to raise or lower the volume. Tapping the centre of the surface will play/pause, skip track or go back to the previous track, while keeping your finger pressed summons Siri.

But the really impressive stuff is hidden beneath that acoustically transparent mesh. Having started with an entirely clean slate and apparently worked on concepts for years (HomePod development began in 2012), Apple eventually settled on having the tweeters at the bottom and the woofer at the top – the exact opposite of the arrangement found in most traditional speakers.

The tweeters fire outwards and are angled slightly upwards, with the intention of not bouncing sound off the surface upon which the HomePod is placed. By avoiding these reflections, Apple can exert greater control over the treble’s behaviour.

There are seven tweeters in total, evenly spaced around the base of the unit. The woofer is close to the top and fires upwards, reflecting mid and bass frequencies off the bottom of that glossy panel so they are distributed equally around the device. It’s an energetic driver too, capable of moving a full 20mm from peak-to-peak, which is extraordinary excursion for a compact driver in a dinky wireless speaker.

Embedded in the underside of the top panel, shielded from the bassy battering it receives from the woofer below, is Apple’s A8 chip. This is the same chip that first appeared inside the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus back in 2014. That might make it sound rather old, but for a wireless speaker it’s quite the powerhouse.

 

So, what’s all of that processing power used for? There’s Siri, of course – but, perhaps more interestingly, it's employed by the HomePod to analyses the speaker’s surroundings and the music being played to ensure you always hear the HomePod at its best.

The surroundings are only analysed when you use the HomePod for the first time or move it to a new position (there are accelerometers to let it know) and, unlike the implementation of most Sonos speakers, involves no manual measuring on the part of the user. Instead, the HomePod uses the first song you play to listen to itself and adjust the sound accordingly.

If it’s in free space, sound will be dispersed equally around the speaker, but if it’s close to a back wall the HomePod will actively split out some of the more ambient elements of your music and bounce them off the rear surface while projecting the vocals and more direct sounds straight into the room. It’s clever stuff.

Wherever you place the speaker, it is constantly analysing the music you play and dynamically tuning the sound, from bass to treble, to deliver the track as intended. Or, at least, as the HomePod thinks it’s intended.

Sound

 

But it seems the HomePod has a good grasp of the intentions of a track. At no point in our test do we play a single piece of music that sounds anything other than absolutely correct.

That’s not to say we’re talking about a perfect delivery, but the HomePod is great at honing in on and delivering the essence of everything you play through it, from Bach to Band of Horses, Bonobo to Bob Marley, The Notorious B.I.G. to Bullet for My Valentine.

It’s all well and good having a bass driver that can shift some serious air, but keeping it controlled at the same time is a tricky business. The HomePod manages it expertly.

Play Join the Dots by Roots Manuva and Charli 2na and you can revel in bass that’s superbly deep for a little speaker, but it's also tuneful, energetic and punchy, putting to rest any fears the HomePod might be a little too Beats-like in its delivery.

Instead, this is an expressive bottom end – which is essential to getting the most out of the deep brass and deep vocal on the track.

 

At the other end of the frequency range, the expertly judged treble delivers the snap and detail of the high hat without ever sounding bright or aggressive.

Even a track featuring Charli 2na has lots of mid-range action, and the HomePod does a good job of projecting the vocals and horns.

At the most congested points, the HomePod becomes just a little muddled and some rivals (such as the Ultimate Ears Megablast) offer a little more clarity in their organisation. But for scale, authority, drive and excitement, the Apple speaker is just superb.

The HomePod can turn its hand to anything, and is just as happy playing The Road by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (“happy” is the wrong word for this collection, but you get the drift). The centralised, simple, solo piano notes at the start of the title track lack the nuance of true, traditional hi-fi - but there’s more texture here than you would expect from a small, all-in-one speaker.

It does a superb job of upping the ante as each mournful component is added on the way to the tear-jerking crescendo.

 

What's more, you don’t need to pump up the volume in order to get the HomePod singing.

Even at low volumes the core excitement is retained, with more bass weight and punch than rivals can muster when similarly quiet. It’s also capable of going very loud, though, and remains composed, clear and unflustered even at maximum volume.

Apple’s promise of 360-degree sound is, unlike many similar promises made by other brands in the past, also pretty darn accurate. With the HomePod standing in free space, the sound you hear is very consistent regardless of where you are in relation to it.

Yes, there are slight variances as you walk slowly in a circle around it – a small drop in treble, for example, presumably as you step between the beams of two tweeters – but every part of (and person in) a room will get more or less the same excellent audio quality.

Even when the HomePod is placed close to a back wall, the sound around the room is pretty consistent right until you’re essentially standing at a right-angle to it. This is our preferred positioning of the speaker, as the reflection of ambient effects on the surface behind creates a slightly bigger, more spacious and more three-dimensional presentation.

There’s not enough in it for you to be upset should you not have a wall to place the HomePod next to, though.

Should you have the appetite and capital for such a setup, you can now combine two HomePods in a stereo pair, and the performance if you do so is even better than expected.

You of course get a far wider soundstage, with traditional left and right separation, but there’s also excellent panning across the front and impressive central focus for the musical elements that require it – the vocals, for example.

But what’s most impressive is how two paired HomePods continue to use their processing smarts to bounce the more ambient sounds of a track off the wall behind, and the extra spaciousness and three-dimensionality that this lends to the music.

This is a big, open, atmospheric performance – much more so than rival pairs of wireless speakers can manage – and two HomePods working in concert also sound predictably weighty and solid.

The only slight flaw is that the sound isn’t projected into the room quite as effectively as that of some rivals or, in fact, a pair of traditional hi-fi speakers. In the average room it won’t be an issue, but if you sit a long way from the two HomePods you will notice that the lovely spaciousness has come at the cost of a little directness.

Features

 

If you’re an Android fan and have made it this far into the review, well done. But the bad news is the HomePod is not for you. Not only does it not have a standard Bluetooth connection, you can’t even set one up without an iOS device.

On the surface of it that might seem unfair, but we don’t think that anyone who doesn’t already own Apple devices will choose the HomePod as their first. That just wouldn’t make sense.

Assuming you are an Apple user (running at least iOS 11.2.5), setting up the HomePod is an absolute delight. Simply hold your iPhone or iPad close to the speaker’s top panel and it will appear on your screen. Select the room that you’re using it in, enable personal requests and tap once more to transfer your settings, and the HomePod is good to go.

Interestingly, the HomePod doesn’t have a dedicated app on your iOS device. A small number of settings are available via the Home app (which is where you’ll also find any Apple HomeKit smart home devices) and you can skip back and forth through tracks and adjust volume in the Apple Music app - but this is largely a hands-off, voice-controlled user experience, with all the consequent pros and cons.

MORE: Apple Music review

 

The big pro is that Siri is surprisingly good here. Apple clearly tailored it for music in the run up to launch, and in concert with Apple Music’s superior curation engine it makes for rewarding interactions in a musical context.

Say “hey, Siri, play something I’ll like”, and the voice assistant will use its knowledge of your music tastes to select something that you may enjoy, rather than something you already listen to. But if that’s not what you’re in the mood for, say “play something different” and Siri will choose something from a different genre or era, but still within the realms of what you'll probably like.

The result is that you’re regularly surprised and delighted by Siri’s choices, as you might be by the recommendations of a friend who knows the kind of stuff you're into. This really elevates the HomePod experience over that offered by Alexa and Google.

Siri understands context better than rivals, too. So if, for example, you say “play Alison” and get the Elvis Costello track when you wanted Slowdive, following up with “play the other one” will get you to the track you were after.

There’s also nuance to Siri’s knowledge, opening up slightly more complex requests. It understands “post-punk music for a party”, for instance, or “romantic music from the 70s”.

Combined with the many different ways you can issue an instruction or ask a question, these things make for natural and useful interactions with Siri.

It’s also worth noting that a) HomePod does a genuinely impressive job of hearing your instructions over the loudest music, even when you can barely hear your own voice, and b) it's now even better for busy households whereby more than one family member is using the smart speaker because iOS 13 introduced the ability for HomePod to distinguish between different voices and offer a more personalised experience to each user.

MORE: Best wireless speakers 2020

 

The almost complete reliance on Siri does have its drawbacks, though. For example, adding a track to your current queue is something that can only be done using your voice, which means constantly interrupting what you’re already playing.

And there are, of course, occasional stutters and misunderstandings which, even after a long sequence of positive interactions, can shatter the illusion.

Overall, though, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the overall efficacy of Siri, particularly having been largely unimpressed by it in iPhones and iPads over the last few years. It seems Apple's tailoring of its voice assistant to music has made it a more solid and useful performer in the context of a wireless speaker.

 

Siri will do more than control your music: you can control your lights or heating, read out and reply to messages, find cinema tickets, read news headlines and all sorts of other tricks. But the focus is music, and we’re all for that.

But the HomePod is still more limited than many rivals when it comes to playing the content you want. Apple Music is still the only streaming service that Siri can control (as well as podcasts and anything you’ve stored in your iCloud Music Library), and there's no proper integration of the likes of Tidal, Spotify or Qobuz. Standard radio stations are, thankfully, now natively supported, but BBC Sounds is not on board and so playing BBC stations is somewhat fiddly.

We’d love to say that AirPlay 2 gives you the ability to use your iOS device as a controller to direct the HomePod to stream content straight from the internet – which is how Sonos has always worked – but, alas, that’s not the case. Instead, with AirPlay 2 your iOS device acts as a source, which slightly limits sound quality and reduces battery life.

MORE: Apple AirPlay 2 - everything you need to know

 

The update to AirPlay 2 has, though, also brought with it support for multi-room. This works exactly as expected – add each HomePod (or supported speakers from other brands such as Sonos, Naim and B&O) to a specific room and, via Siri commands, you can play the same music everywhere or different tracks in different rooms. We’ve had no issues with synchronisation across speakers during testing.

We noted in the original version of this review that the lack of sleep timers, and the inability to set alarms that wake you up with anything but Apple’s own chimes, make the HomePod a less-than perfect bedroom speaker in its own right. That's another issue that has now been addressed. Finally, the HomePod has a sleep timer, allowing owners to set their HomePod to stop playing music after a set amount of time.

Owners can now seamlessly transfer music playback from an iPhone to the smart speaker, too. HomePod users can 'hand-off' the music/call they're listening to/taking on their iPhone simply by placing it close to a HomePod, and vice versa.

Verdict

The HomePod still isn't perfect, but the addition of multi-room support and, to a slightly lesser extent, stereo pairing has closed two of the biggest gaps in its feature set, and the addition of native radio stations and sleep timers is good news, too.

You still need to be a dedicated Apple user to even consider the HomePod, and Apple Music needs to be your default streaming service for you to get anything like the best out of it.

If that sounds like you, the HomePod is the party-rocking, musical horizon-broadening smart speaker you’ve been waiting for.

 

애플 A8 프로세서, 4인치 우퍼, 7개의 트위터 어레이 빔, 6개의 마이크 어레이 빔, 실시간 우퍼 보정을 위한 저주파수 마이크, 상단 터치 인터페이스, MIMO+블루투스 5.0의 802.11ac WiFi.

 

메시를 벗겨낸 외벽은 의외로 대부분이 막혀 있습니다. 트위터의 앞이 다 막혀 있는데 어떻게 소리가 나올까 싶은 특이한 구조입니다. 그 비밀은 밑에 트위터 어셈블리 사진과 함께 자세히 살펴보겠습니다. 측면에 자그맣게 구멍들이 뚫려 있는 곳은 전부 마이크 어레이 자리입니다. 상단 캡과 우퍼 사이에는 터치 패널, LED 보드, 로직 보드, 그리고 구조물들까지 여러 층들을 겹겹이 쌓아 구성했습니다. 그리고 주요 칩들 주변에는 실드를 착실히 둘렀습니다. A8 칩셋과 낸드플래시, 와이파이 모듈 등이 실장된 메인보드는 정말로 우퍼 유닛 바로 앞에 위치합니다. 우퍼에서 나오는 소리는 우퍼 측면의 그릴을 통해 사방으로 나가는 구조임을 알 수 있습니다.

 

 모든 기판들을 다 들어내고 나면 드디어 트위터 유닛의 구조를 볼 수 있습니다. 트위터 하나하나가 어셈블리로 이루어져 있으며 소리를 하단으로 빼내는 혼 로드 구조입니다. 그래서 드라이버 앞이 다 막혀 있어도 소리가 출력이 가능한 것입니다. 이러한 복잡한 혼 설계를 통해 설계자가 원하는 음량 효율 및 소리 지향성 특성을 얻을 수 있습니다.

 

 

4인치 우퍼와 드라이버

작은 구경으로 묵직한 저음을 내기 위해서 마그넷(자석)의 크기가 상당히 큽니다. 또한 진동판이 큰 폭으로 움직일 수 있도록 주변 에지가 도넛처럼 두툼합니다. 이 홈팟의 4인치 우퍼 유닛에서 진동판이 움직이는 거리는 최대 20mm나 된다고 합니다. 스피커에 대해 잘 아시는 분이라면 드라이빙 폭 20mm가 얼마나 큰 수치인지 아실 겁니다. 
 

실제로 홈팟의 저음 재생 능력은 여러 리뷰에서 상당한 호평을 받고 있습니다. 저런 작은 우퍼로도 20Hz에 이르는 초저음까지 매우 잘 재생해 나는 것으로 알려져 있습니다. 또한 위 측정치에서 나타나듯이 저음뿐 아니라 고음 재생 대역폭도 매우 훌륭합니다.

우퍼를 드러내면 드디어 전원부와 앰프 모듈을 구경할 수 있습니다. 중앙의 전원 모듈을 보면 정말 빽빽하게 설계되어 있습니다. 전원부를 둘러싼 동그란 기판에는 우퍼용 앰프 및 트위터 하나하나마다 할당되는 7개의 추가 앰프들이 빼곡히 달려 있습니다.

 
 
 

 

 

트위터 어셈블리까지 분해하면 실제 드라이버의 모습을 볼 수 있습니다. 보이스 코일 뒤쪽의 네 개의 홀은 드라이버 앞뒤 압력 차이를 없애주는 역할을 합니다. 만약 이런 구조가 없으면 진동판이 움직일 때마다 안과 밖의 압력 차가 달라서 진동판이 원활히 움직일 수 없게 됩니다.

 

 

 

이렇게 한자리에 전부 꺼내놓고 보니 모듈화가 상당히 잘 된 설계임을 알 수 있습니다. 사실 저 큰 통 안에서 대부분의 공간은 우퍼를 위한 것이고, 나머지 공간에 모든 부품들을 욱여넣기 위한 빡빡한 설계가 인상 깊은 분해 사진들이였습니다.

 

요새 유행하는 스마트 스피커들과 외형 비교. 360도의 원통형 디자인이라는 건 모두 같군요. 

 

 

홈팟은 분리되지 않는 전원 케이블이 있습니다. 

 

 

꼬리.

 

 

각종 인증 로고와 모델 넘버 A1639. 마이크 구멍.

 

 

이 메쉬는 소리를 유지하면서 먼지에서 스피커를 보호해 줍니다.

 

 

상단 터치와 LED

 

 

X레이 촬영.

 

 

받침대의 접착제를 녹여 줍시다.

 

 

떼어냅니다.

 

 

Torx 나사가 몇개 보입니다. 가운데의 핀은 홈팟의 테스트/수리용인듯.

 

 

나사를 풀어냅니다.

 

 

그물망이 받침대를 감싸고 있습니다.

 

 

떼어냈습니다만 더 이상 뭘 어떻게 할 수가 없네요.

 

 

잘라낸다.

 

 

홈팟 스피커 본체를 끄집어냈습니다.

 

 

고무 패드 안에 더 많은 Torx 나사가 있습니다.

 

 

어떤 재질로 그물을 짰는지를 알 수 있습니다. 

 

 

 

 

 

커버를 붙인 접착제를 떼어냅니다.

 

 

기판이 보이네요. 차폐된 부품과 리본 케이블을 확인할 수 있습니다.

 

 

빨간색은 Texas Instruments TLC 5971 LED 드라이버

주황색은 Cypress CY8C4245LQI-483 프로그래머블 시스템 온 칩

 

 

반대편엔 다수의 LED가 부착됐습니다.

 

 

다음 기판을 봅시다.

 

 

 

 

빨간색은 애플 A8 APL1011 SoC와 1GB 램

주황색은 도시바 THGBX4G7D2LLDYC 16GB NAND 플래시

노란색은 USI 339S00450 (WiFi / 블루투스 모듈일듯)

청록색은 338S00100-AZ

 

 

톱으로 케이스를 잘라내는 방법 말고는 답이 없습니다.

 

잘라냈습니다.

 

 

스피커 모듈이 딸려나옵니다.

 

 

전원부. 

 

 

전원 모듈 분리

 

 

에폭시로 가득 채워 묵직합니다.

 

 

링 모양의 기판을 분리.

 

 

캐패시터 쪽에는 STMicroelectronics STM32L051C8T7 저전력 ARM MCU가 있습니다.

 

 

 

주황색은 PowlRaudio 98-0431 오디오 앰프

노란색은 4350C Y01742 TWN

청록색은 7개의 Analog Devices SSM35158 오디오 앰프. 각각의 트위터마다 다른 앰프를 쓰는 듯 

 

 

시냅틱스의 Conexant CX20810 ADC 칩이 두개 있습니다.

 

 

우퍼에 달린 마이크는 우퍼에서 출력된 소리를 피드백해 주파수와 볼륨을 조절합니다.

 

 

3개의 마이크로 구성된 2개의 긴 기판.

 

 

트위터에 전원을 공급하는 포트가 있군요.

 

 

트위터 분리

 

 

절개

 

 

트위터 스피커 등장

 

분해 끝. 

 

매우 든든해 내구성이 좋고, 표준 나사를 씁니다. 하지만 부수지 않고선 분리할 수가 없지요.

 

리퍼 비용이 279달러. 여기서 20달러만 보태면 신품을 삽니다. 이렇게 분해하기 힘든 걸 보면 리퍼 가격이 이해가 되네요.

애플 홈팟 분해 사진 - 생활 / 가젯 / 테크 - 기글하드웨어 : https://gigglehd.com/gg/?mid=lifetech&document_srl=2424313