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Apple HomePods vs. Bose Smart Soundbar 600: can a pair replace a soundbar?

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Bose Smart Soundbar 600 (left) and Apple Second-gen HomePod.
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends

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Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen is a contributing editor to Digital Trends' Audio/Video section, where he obsesses over the latest wireless…
How to set up a HomePod mini
Apple HomePod mini touch controls

Apple’s HomePod mini is a smart speaker that’s designed as more of a personal assistant and music device than a whole-house speaker hub. This little speaker is ready to work within your entire Apple ecosystem, but you have to set it up properly first.

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Apple AirPods Pro 2 vs. AirPods 3: which should you buy?
Apple AirPods Pro 2 beside an Apple AirPods 3 earbud.

Without putting too much thought into it, when thinking of getting yourself a new pair of wireless earbuds the mind kind of heads straight in the direction of Apple's omnipresent white AirPods -- especially if you're an Apple user. But when deciding on which pair of AirPods is best for you, the main choices are the latest generations of the company's two offerings, the AirPods 3 and the AirPods Pro 2. But which should you choose?

The classic, semi-open designed third-generation AirPods received a major update in 2021 and go for $179 (with MagSafe charging case) and $169 (with the Lightning case). With that update, they got Apple's immersive head-tracking Spatial Audio sound and Adaptive EQ. But the second-generation AirPods Pro feature that secure, in-ear form that many prefer, everything that the AirPods 3 offer, plus active noise cancellation (ANC) with adaptive transparency mode and more. All this, however, will run you $249.

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Apple AirPlay 2 supports 24-bit lossless audio, but you can’t use it
An Apple AirPlay icon hovering above an Apple HomePod speaker.

Apple's wireless platform for audio and video streaming -- AirPlay -- is one of the best ways to play music from an Apple device to a wireless speaker. When at home, on a Wi-Fi network, it outperforms Bluetooth thanks to its wider bandwidth. The conventional wisdom has always been that AirPlay sets a hard limit on audio quality: iPhones and other Apple devices can only transmit lossless CD-quality audio, at 16-bit/44.1kHz, to an AirPlay-enabled speaker, leaving the technology incapable of supporting the higher-res streams now being offered by Apple Music and others.  But it seems that AirPlay can actually do 24-bit audio. Sort of.

The new second-gen HomePod, which Apple released in January, can stream lossless 24-bit/48kHz audio directly from Apple Music, using its own Wi-Fi connection to the internet. This isn't news: Apple added 24-bit lossless playback (via Apple's ALAC codec) to the first-gen HomePod and HomePod mini in 2021, along with Dolby Atmos support.

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