Using HomePods for home theater audio is pretty great
I expect I’ll have more to say about this before long, but I recently bought a secondhand 1st-gen HomePod from eBay and paired it with my original one. I’ve been using them as my home theater system instead of my old Sonos Beam + 2x Sonos One SL setup.
I wasn’t convinced at first, but now I love it. The HomePods setup has solved my latency issues, provides way more bass, and there are no surround sound hiccups when we rearrange the room for holidays and such. Best of all, the volume control on my Apple TV remote finally works as intended. The Sonos system was so squirrelly when it came to volume adjustment. The only downside is there’s not quite as much “surround” to the sound. But I don’t mind.
All TV audio gets routed through the HomePods via the Apple TV and eARC, and my wife hasn’t noticed anything awry when playing the PlayStation or Switch. So far, so good! (And 1st-gen HomePods are pretty affordable on eBay!)
I haven’t disassembled my Sonos stuff yet, but they might be headed to the For Sale page sooner rather than later.