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For perspective, I’ve owned a pair of OG HomePods since launch in early 2018, I have a HomePod Mini, and I have a nice 5.1 home theater speaker system (Paradigm Titans) that I’ve owned for 15+ years. I also have about a dozens pairs of nice headphones from Sennheiser, Grado, Audio Technica, Koss, and a pair of AirPods Max, and AirPods Pro.

Anyways, I think the HomePod’s sound quality is overrated and the HomePod Mini’s SQ is underrated.

Listening to some commentators and reviewers, you’d think HomePods were these world-beating speakers that put everything else to shame and compete with super high end home theater speakers. And similarly, listening to the same commentators, you’d think that a HomePod Mini is a cheap-sounding piece of junk.

I think both of those views are way off.

If we were to grade sound quality from 0 to 10, with 0 being a crappy alarm clock, 10 being a high end pair of B&W, and a $30 assistant from Amazon or Google being around a 3, the way HomePods are described, you’d think an OG HomePod is around a 9/10 and a Mini is a 3.5/10.

I don’t think that’s right at all.

Personally, if super high end speakers are a 10/10, I’d say my Paradigms are a 9/10, my HomePods are a 7.5/10, and my HomePod Mini is a 5.5 or even a 6/10.

Basically, the biggie is overrated and the Mini is underrated. The gap between them isn’t nearly as large as people say. The OG gets much louder and it has far more bass, but I don’t think the bass is all that great. It’s great for something that size (ie. even the OG is quite small for what it is), but in the broader speaker world, even the OG sounds kind of bloated and things kind of mush together. It doesn’t have particularly good instrument separation and often sounds cramped.

tl;dr:

• Crappy alarm clock: 0/10

• Cheap Amazon/Google assistants: 3/10

• HomePod Mini (how some incorrectly treat it): 3.5/10

• HomePod Mini (how it actually sounds): 6/10

• HomePod OG (how it actually sounds): 7.5/10

• HomePod OG (how some incorrectly treat it): 9/10

• A nice set of home theater bookshelf speakers that are still affordable: 9/10

• High end floor standing speakers: 10/10

As an audio enthusiast, I’m personally a lot more impressed by a 0.76 pound $99 HomePod Mini than I am by a 5.5 pound $299 (originally $349) HomePod. I love my pair of OG HomePods and use them every single day as TV speakers, but I think the Mini is underrated and the disparity in SQ between the Mini and OG is nowhere near as big as some people seem to believe.

Just my 2 cents.