I have no experience with Apple HomePod, but now Roon’s new AirPlay 2 support made me have a look at them.
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The audio quality of them - is it comparable to anything good? I read a review telling that it was better than a Sonos Play 5, which I think would be a minimum quality level for me anyway. But how else can the quality be described? I know that there are two models (or more?), and I am speaking about the larger one.
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There is a lot written about stereo pairs of them - how does an individual speaker sound? Is it necessary to buy two to get decent sound? I again compare with the Sonos Play 5 (because I have such one), which was originally marketed as great even for stereo, but still it was possible, and often used, to pair them.
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They have, as I understand it, built-in microphones and Siri - is it possible to switch that stuff off completely, so that they are just speakers?
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I guess that the answer is no, but I am asking anyway, just to be shure - could such a HomePod possibly be grouped in Roon with some Roon Ready devices, making up one combined zone? Would I need to let all the devices use the same protocol, i.e., AirPlay 2, to make that work?
I hope that some of you who know these devices can help me out - I want to replace the Play 5 with something better (because I actually don’t find the sound of it that great), and since it is for the bedroom, I want something that doesn’t play loud but still sounds good and doesn’t take up too much space either. There are many options on the marked, but e.g. one of these HomePod’s, if it can be used on its own, would actually be a quite economical solution.