Tiny Tech Tips: Which Of The New, 'Hi-Fi' Smart Speakers Sounds The Best?
As the audio engineer for the Tiny Desk concert series, of course I obsess over how our concerts are experienced — so when I watch someone pull up a session on their smartphone, laptop or tablet, with those tiny and tinny speakers, my heart sinks a little. I'm thrilled people love these concerts as much as we love making them, but they sound so much better when played on a decent sound system, or on headphones. Sure, the concerts sound OK on a mono phone speaker, but you'd be amazed by what you're missing once you've heard the audio mix on a device that can actually reproduce the low and high ends of the frequency spectrum, where all the chest-thumping bass and shimmering cymbals live.
Thankfully, audio snobs need not look on in horror (as much) anymore: great-sounding, relatively affordable smart speakers are popping up everywhere. They're all convenient for barking questions at, like "What's the weather on Friday," or, "How many grams in a pound?" (454, as it turns out.) These are decidedly not the hockey-puck shaped smart devices — with no bottom end, muffled highs and a jarring mid-range — currently littering the homes of family and friends. After spending a bunch of time listening to each one, I frankly couldn't choose a clear favorite — I just know they all sound better than what most people have in their homes.
In addition to my own assessments, I asked a group of NPR audio engineers and producers to participate in a Pepsi Challenge, to help distinguish the sound between four of the latest offerings from Sonos, Apple, Google and Amazon.
I should note that it's possible to link any two of these units together to
