This is competing against Sonos and similar audio-focused speakers, at least in my mind. Plus, it's not subsidized by advertising.

For comparison with other multiroom network speakers, a Sonos Play:3 is $299. A Play:1 is $199. So depending on how much oomph the HomePod (god. terrible name) has, it may be reasonable: $299+129 = $428

Google Home is also a multiroom speaker. It also works with Chromecast Audio, Vizio sound bars, etc.

How about the privacy differences? They made a big deal about the privacy features of HomePod. That's significant.

What are the privacy advantages of HomePod vs Google/Amazon?

Compared to what? Sonos doesn't have any microphones so by definition this cannot be more private.

My Naim mu-so single speaker was over $1300 and I don't regret the purchase. I also have a Google Home (got it at IO this year) and I can tell you it sounds pretty awful - way too much bass at any volume level. So whether HomePod is worth the price or not really depends on how good it sounds.

You probably know that Naim is in a whole different category - this isn't a speaker for people that know Naim, Dali, KEF and Co. It's for potential Sonos or Bose buyers.

It's an unfortunate trend in my opinion, but it's all about small wireless speakers these days. They sound good enough...for their size, but are nowhere close to being comparable to real speakers. Hell, if this was about sound quality you'd be a lot better off with a pair entry level studio monitors (Yamaha, JBL) or budget bookshelf speakers (Elac, Dali Zensor, ...) and probably have money left.

You can tell the Home to play things on your high-end speaker, though. Or on both for multi-room.

I thought so too, but it turns out mu-so only supports AirPlay, but not also Google Cast, even though it supports Spotify Connect and Tidal. I suspect it might have something to do with it also being sold in Apple stores (pure speculation).

Sonos it seems also doesn't have support for Cast. Not really an issue since I don't have any of their speakers; but they are the most popular brand, so it's going to be an issue for a lot of people expecting to be able to stream to them from a Google Home device.

You can always get a Chromecast Audio; I wonder if high-end speaker manufacturers are just not bothering since users can fix it themselves for $35.

Just plug a Chromecast Audio into it.

You could always plug a chromecast audio into it.

Supposedly it is a very good speaker, so if you compare it to Sonus Play3 or Play5 it is within that range.

I can't imagine this little HomePod scan touch the Play-5 2nd Gen, which is a extraordinary speaker.

We'll see. I'm expecting it to be Play-3 category. There isn't much to separate the Play-1 and Play-3 IMO. Play-5 is a different thing altogether.

Google home is on discount now for $109

And the Echo Dot is $49, frequently on sale for $39. Plus you get to choose your own speakers that will definitely sound better than the HomePod.

Interesting they are trying to sell this for music enthusiasts. It'll only appeal to Apple enthusiasts.

"will definitely sound better than the HomePod" -- hard to make that statement without actually hearing it. The technology behind it looks promising.

Audio enthusiasts tend to already own speakers presumably changing speakers unless its truly phenomenal may not be a feature valuable to audio enthusiasts.

I think that's just marketing bait trying to get to amateurs' ego for them to become self declared audio enthusiasts.

Have you even heard the speaker yet? Pretty hard to critique the audio quality if you haven't heard the audio quality.

Yeah, you can pair an Echo Dot with a nice speaker like a Sonos Play 5, it'll probably sound even better.

Of course, at that point you're paying $549 instead of $349, so that's not really the same thing at all.

The Echo Dot is not really usable on its own as a device to play music because of the poor audio quality. You can have a conversation with Alexa, but that's about it.