The Apple HomePod has been discontinued: Tucker Bowe and Will Price talk with Nick Caruso about what it got right and what it got wrong during its short, three-year run.
What the now-discontinued Apple HomePod got right and what it got wrong during its short, three-year run.
Mentioned in this episode:
$100 Smart Speakers: Which Is Best?
The Best Multi-Room Wireless Speakers of 2021
The Complete Sonos Buying Guide
How to Use a Pair of HomePod Minis As Computer Speakers
Apple's HomePods Make a Sneaky Good Surround Sound System
More Gear Patrol Smart Home Coverage
Headlines
Rapper and Entrepreneur Travis Scott Launches Cacti, an Agave-Flavored Spiked Seltzer
Crocs x Justin Bieber collection launched and promptly sold out
Gucci’s New Sneakers are $12 (But They Only Exist Digitally)
Kind Of Obsessed
Nick:
This is the Gear Patrol Podcast. In this episode, the Apple HomePod smart speaker has been discontinued. Tucker Beau and Will Price weigh in on what made the HomePod great and why it failed after just three years. Thanks for joining us. I'm glad you're here. Let's get started.
Will, you're back in Brooklyn. Did you know Will's back in Brooklyn?
Tucker:
I did. Will and I actually are teammates in a FIFA online team and he's a good center attacking mid and sometimes striker. I am a...
Will:
We'll get into that. That'll be the crux of this conversation, I think.
Nick:
Honestly, I don't want to talk about that at all. That was enough for me. I'm glad you guys are friends outside of work though.
Will:
I wouldn't say that.
Nick:
You ready?
Will:
Let's go.
Nick:
Okay, good. All right. Hey. Hey, hey, hey, hey everybody out there in podcast land, I am Nick Caruso and you are listening to the Gear Patrol Podcast. Every week I'll be here having conversations with a rotating roster of guests to talk about products and product culture. Bunch of pros I've got here. Will, you're already clicking on a keyboard.
Will:
I'm sorry, yeah.
Nick:
[crosstalk 00:01:23] introduction.
Tucker:
Are you gear spotting the audio in this clip?
Nick:
So yeah, if you can't tell, I'm joined today by a couple of my colleagues. Tucker Beau, Tucker is our senior staff writer covering technology. Tucker, you told me that you've been watching a lot of the Food Network show Beat Bobby Flay.
Tucker:
You know, it's one of those things that you just, once you discover it, you can't go back.
Nick:
And Will Price is also with us. Will is our assistant editor. He's in charge of our home and drinks content.
Will:
What's up.
Nick:
What's up. And you also yesterday tried to convince me to watch the movie Greenland with Gerard Butler.
Will:
Yeah, I'm just going to just leave it at that. Watch Greenland. It's on Amazon. Just watch it.
Nick:
There's a 100% chance that I'm going to do that. Guys, we're here to talk about a specific product's untimely demise. There was news this week that after a few years, Apple is discontinuing its HomePod smart speaker. It's not the HomePod mini, so no one panicked too much. I lust after the HomePod mini. I don't have one and I want a bunch of them. But the HomePod is known as a truly wonderful high quality speaker. It's had tepid sales though, for a few reasons. One of the reasons is price. It debuted at $350 and it was quickly knocked to $300 after people weren't buying it. But there are many other reasons too. We'll get into those shortly, but first Tucker, as our tech guy, you've spent a lot of time with the HomePod.
Tucker:
It's true. Yeah, it's true. Actually, it's interesting. It's one of those products that was at GP when it launched in early 2018 and I guess I am here during its unfortunate demise. Yeah, and I just got-
Nick:
The whole lifecycle.
Tucker:
... yeah, I just had a pair of them, the review units, in my house over the holiday break because Apple just rolled out the Dolby Atmos update to the big HomePod that just got discontinued. If you have it connected to an Apple TV+ and configured it as a home theater system. So they just rolled out a recent update to it and yeah, it's a sad but not unexpected.
Nick:
Right. So the HomePod came out of the gate swinging with all sorts of really cool tech. Can you speak a minute about why it was such a big deal when it came out?
Tucker:
Yeah. The HomePod was a big deal when it came out because you've got to remember that this was 2018, when Alexa and Google Assistant... I have the Google Assistant in my room right now. I don't want her to go off. They had been around for a couple of years already and so this was Apple's first smart speaker. So it came into a crowded field already, but it distinguished itself by being yes, more expensive, yes, being Siri, but also just a superior sounding speaker. That was really the hill that it ultimately died on.
Or I shouldn't say that, because it wasn't really the reason why the HomePod died. It had a lot of other shortcomings. But it was this beautifully designed speaker that even the HomePod mini is an incredible looking speaker, in my opinion, for the $99 compared to the Echo and the Nest.
Nick:
Right. I want to get into the design in a second, but specifically I want to speak about the 360 degree sound. That's kind of a hallmark of this specific speaker, is that right?
Tucker:
I think it was a hallmark of all smart speakers when they first launched. People thought that smart speakers were going to... People were going to put smart speakers in the center of the room, not up against a wall. That's why the UE Boom, those portable Bluetooth speakers, are all 360 degrees, because people just think they're going to take them anywhere. People want to listen to sound and it makes sense for a portable speaker, but it doesn't really make sense for a home speaker. But I mean, again, Apple was, they use computational audio, so they can adjust the sound for the room that they're in. So the 360 degrees isn't a problem for the HomePod, because it could adjust itself and tune itself for the room.
Nick:
But isn't that also one of the failings of the thing? So Will, this is something I wanted to ask you as our home representative. The design of the HomePod, the shape and the textures I think are quite beautiful, which I'll ask you to weigh in on. But also specifically, it's a wired speaker, it's not a wireless speaker. So if you're putting it in the middle of a room to try to take advantage of its 360 sound, you've got a cord you're going to be tripping over or have to hide. So can you sort of weigh in on the look and feel there?
Will:
Yeah. I mean, I think few people would claim that it's not aesthetically pleasing. For me, it's a confusion of use cases and strengths of the product, so explaining the HomePod's extremely strong audio bona fides compared to its competitors. Unless you're comparing it to the also forlorn Google Home Max, which I think was discontinued even before this.
Nick:
That's a knowledge drop by Will Price.
Will:
There you go. I have a Google Home Max, so I was sad to know that I'd be alone, at least for the foreseeable future. But it sounds great. It sounds great, okay, I want to listen to music or I want to watch Dunkirk or whatever, something with great sound. But if I want to do either of those things-
Nick:
Greenland.
Will:
Sorry, the theme, Greenland. Also not a bad example, but those things don't necessarily lead to me wanting to put the speaker on my kitchen counter or island in the center of the room or what have you. They want me to go sit in a more classic surround sound set up, around a television or in a room to listen to some music and think about my decisions or something.
Nick:
Right. It's kind of a purposeful design, right? You have to have the intent to sit and listen in a specific way.
Will:
Yeah. And like what Tucker said, I think how the HomePod can adjust how it's putting out sound for the room is actually pretty incredible. At least I think it is, maybe it's not as novel as it is for me, but it sounds amazing. For the price I could get the Alexa Dot or what have you for $40 or $50, or when it's on Prime Day, it'll probably be $20. And then a pair of decent but not great surround sound speakers to put around in the corners of my room or wherever, whatever my set up, and kind of get the same setup, but maybe a little more specific to my living space.
Nick:
I'm going to funnel all of that into one point, which is the cost of this thing, which was a big issue. When it came out a few years ago, it was $350. Two months later, Apple started cutting orders to supply and then they cut its price down to $300, where it remained, and we saw deals all the time. So Tucker, you said, let me see. There's a quote here from a piece you wrote on...
Tucker:
He's got the receipts.
Nick:
... I've got it all, if it pleases the court. You were talking about cheaper alternatives and you said the trade-off, compared to speakers from Amazon or maybe Sonos or whatever, is sound quality. But it turns out most people don't prioritize that. So what do they prioritize? Is it cost? Is it portability?
Tucker:
Let me say it like this. The HomePod has, the reasons why it failed, I narrowed it down to three things. And the first two are kind of forgivable and that's Siri, which is not the smartest virtual assistant, but I think people can forgive that because Apple values privacy. Then we have the price element. And it is a more expensive smart speaker. But we've seen just in the last two or three months with the AirPods Max that people, especially people who have iPhones and people who love Apple products, are willing to spend more over the odds to get a product that looks beautiful and sounds great.
But really the third reason why the HomePod failed is it has a series of shortcomings and roadblocks. There are a number of things, but the biggest thing right there is that it's tied directly to Apple Music and Apple music is great, but there are a lot of other good music streaming services. But if you don't subscribe to Apple Music, there's literally no reason or very little reason to get a HomePod. So if you're a Spotify subscriber, you subscribe to Amazon Music or any other service, that is a deal breaker right there.
Nick:
Yeah, for sure. I want to jump in and get Will in on this, because that is a super good point. Will, I'm going to put you on the spot. Tucker and I just found out yesterday you converted to an iPhone, but until recently you've been an Android user.
Will:
I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to be ridiculed. I was an avid Android user for a very long time.
Nick:
Well, we're going to let all of our listeners ridicule you, but what does that... So you've got the Google speaker, right?
Will:
Yes.
Nick:
So as an Android user, what is that experience, being confronted with a product that is super good, but that you really can't use?
Will:
That's a good question. Are you, you're talking about using the Android with the HomePod, if I had a HomePod at the time?
Nick:
Yeah. You couldn't take full advantage of what the HomePod offered.
Will:
I was thinking about this beforehand a little bit. The iPhone when it came out created among many, many, many other things a platform to fill out and personalize email apps, note taking apps, sleep trackers, whatever you need. People filled out the marketplace for apps and every iPhone was different, every iPhone was uniquely yours. For me, the most fundamental issue is linked to your question and to what Tucker was saying is that the HomePod is linked to Apple's Smart Home ecosystem. And because it's not just linked, it's a semi-walled garden. You can't get out of it very easily. And the Apple smart home ecosystem is objectively a mouse to Google and Amazon's mammoth, their-
Nick:
In terms of what?
Will:
So if I'm taking my example of the personalization of apps on an iPhone then I would say, I'm just going to throw out a number, there are probably 5-10 times more products available for the Amazon and Google smart home ecosystems than there are for the Apple Smart Home ecosystems. There's a lot of reasons for that. And one of them Tucker mentioned, this is kind of a big pro for a lot of HomeKit users, is that Apple prioritizes privacy far more than those other two companies. But at the end of the day, people want more things, more ways to personalize it for their home. It's not just price, but price is a big part of it and I think that, in the end, is what have been the "off with the head" moment for the HomePod.
Nick:
So it's sort of a question of versatility, to really boil it down.
Tucker:
Yeah. It's interesting that you talk about this closed garden because it's so true, but it's also like, Apple builds products so that they work well with other Apple products. But that leads to a shortcoming for the HomePod and the HomePod mini, is that sometimes Apple has just made some questionable decisions in terms of how they work with other products. In terms of the HomePod mini, for example, you'd think that you could get two and stereo pair them and they'd make great Macbook speakers, right? You'd think so, but it's actually really, really difficult to designate them as the output of your Mac computer if you have two. There's a workaround, but you have to open the Music app and go to utilities and you can't just airplay to a stereo pair of HomePods or HomePods mini.
Nick:
You wrote a guide for that [crosstalk 00:13:21].
Tucker:
Yeah, there is a workaround, but it's not easy and it's frustrating. You'd think that they'd be good at it. I had two HomePods with an Apple TV 4K as a kind of home theater system. And it works great when you're watching music or watching TV shows or whatever on your Apple TV. But a lot of people consume media, they have an Xbox or they have a Nintendo Switch or they have a cable box and they have an AV receiver. And if you're listening or you're watching any show on any other device other than Apple TV, they don't work.
It's hard to recommend the HomePod as a computer speaker and it's hard to recommend them as kind of a home theater speaker.
Will:
Well said.
Tucker:
And this discontinuation of the HomePod, it's interesting, because Apple is expected to launch a new model of their Apple TV 4K and I don't know what this means for the future of, or Apple's view on the home theater system. Because they just rolled out, I mentioned before, that Dolby Atmos update for the HomePod, the larger HomePod if you have an Apple TV 4K and now they're not going to use the HomePod. I don't know what their vision is for...
Nick:
What does it say about Apple as a brand? Is this HomePod just indicative of a larger trend?
Tucker:
Yeah. Like I said in the beginning, it's a shame because it's a beautiful product and it sounds great and people would be willing to buy it if it just worked, if Apple was just a little more open. If this thing worked with other music streaming services like Spotify or Amazon Music, it would be amazing. You can airplay from an iPhone to a HomePod or HomePod mini if you have Spotify, but you can't use voice commands. That's what I say when it's not compatible, you can't ask Siri to play something.
Nick:
So it's just kind of a stubborn device. You really want it to work for a lot of stuff but you can't.
Will:
The amount of times we've said "work around" and "hack", it proves that it's a well-made machine, but it's not really very thoughtful as far as how people are actually going to use it.
Tucker:
Apple clearly wants to have people invest in their bundle. They have all these new streaming services, Apple Fitness+, Apple TV+, Apple Music. They want people to buy into this ecosystem of streaming services and they have a bundle too, called Apple One. They want people to buy into it, and that's kind of the reason for them to say, "Hey, get the HomePod and if you have an Apple Music subscription, it works great." You see the popularity of the AirPods Max, their new noise canceling headphones, they're selling like hotcakes. It's a product that's very similar to the HomePod in that it's premium and it plays very good music and it's open, because it's not limited to wifi. Even if Apple was to put a line-in connection or have Bluetooth built into the HomePod, it would make it a way more versatile product, but it's frustrating in that it's very limiting.
Nick:
Sure. So there are still some HomePods available. Should you buy one?
Tucker:
Again, it's hard to recommend. Apple is still going to support them for their foreseeable years, but I mean, there might [crosstalk 00:16:36]-
Nick:
But with software updates and they've got the Dolby Atmos thing now, which is cool.
Tucker:
Yeah. I mean, there could be a time in the next three or four years that Apple doesn't support them. So it's a difficult product to recommend. We've talked a little bit about the HomePod mini and that's a great little thing for $99, but that again also has limitations.
Will:
I was just thinking about once this thing does sell through in four or five years' time or whatever it is, if there's this dead stock Apple HomePod market where the HomePod $300 speaker everybody complained about was too expensive is now $1000 or whatever. Who knows, but I have a pretty good feeling that the vintage Apple or what have you people will have this sitting in the corner of your house as an "if you know, you know" flex.
Tucker:
Right. Under glass.
Nick:
Yeah, because they just have a speaker, with the cord, there has to be a hole in the glass for the cord. Can I put you guys on the spot with, is Sonos king of the segment now?
Tucker:
Well, I mean, it's totally different. If you want to get a really good sounding speaker, I have a Play:5 here and it's just a way more versatile product. It obviously doesn't have a built-in voice assistant. They've actually changed the name, it's now just a Sonos Five. How much is a Play:5?
Nick:
$400, I think.
Will:
$400, $500.
Nick:
Will, the home guy, coming out with the techs recs.
Will:
That was going to be my recommendation and this guy's just absolutely dunked on me.
Tucker:
Yeah. I don't know. I think, yeah, it seems like with smart speakers, most of the big manufacturers have come to the $99 price point. Even Amazon, they have the Echo Studio, which is a good sounding, more expensive speaker that can do kind of more surround sound stuff. But it's also a pretty ugly speaker for being really honest.
Nick:
There are tons of them. I mean, there are also other smart speakers that are just aesthetically pleasing and work pretty well. The IKEA SYMFONISK is one that always captured my quirky attention. A lot of options. I'd be curious to hear from listeners about what they're using. Do you have a HomePod? Are you disappointed about this? Are you excited to put yours under glass in a few years and impress Will Price? I'll say this again at the end, but we've got an email address. You can hit us up, podcast@carepatrol.com or you can find us online on social media and hit us up with your comments, concerns, questions, corrections. Guys, we've got to move on. Any final thoughts, Tucker? I feel like I'm opening a flood gate just asking you a question like that. Do you have any final thoughts?
Tucker:
Just an addendum. Apple released three months ago the HomePod supports or Hey, Siri commands with Pandora. So in addition to if you're an Apple Music subscriber or you're a Pandora subscriber.
Nick:
Boo.
Tucker:
Yeah. So just to get that in there so people don't yell at me.
Will:
I'm just going to say, when you're thinking about a smart speaker or speakers that could be smart, just think about where you actually want to put this thing, what do you want it for. You can get really, really nice audio quality out of speakers, have them hooked up to one of the many, many, many smart home devices so you can control them with your voice. They don't have to be natively voice controlled.
Nick:
That's a good point. You're talking like getting a speaker system set up and hooking it up to a Google Home Mini.
Will:
Whatever.
Nick:
A lot of options there. We could go on, but we're going to leave people mostly satisfied and we're going to move on to the next segment. This is headlines. We've got a few headlines. The way this works for our listeners is that just before recording time this morning, I shared a few links with Tucker and Will with the explicit purpose of ambushing them with questions that they are unaware of. So three headlines. The first: Cacti. Rapper Travis Scott, who we're all familiar with, has launched his latest co-brand adventure. He's done McDonald's meals. He's done Nike collaborations. I mean, he's just a master of this space. Cacti is a hard seltzer. Seltzer? Seltzer. Got to put the T in there. Hard Seltzer. Specs are 7% ABV. They've got added agave syrup. It is not fermented agave so it's not a sparkling tequila, but it's flavored with agave. It comes in three flavors. It's made by Anheuser-Busch. It's the latest in a long line of sparkling-
Will:
Things.
Nick:
... beverages. Sparkling things. Will, I know you like sparkling tequila.
Will:
I don't want to go too deep into this but I just want everyone to know that sparkling tequila is one of the best and most refreshing things. I'm in love. You have to wait until it's warm. Right now, I think it's 31 outside in Brooklyn. But just to be clear, Cacti is the name of the brand, it's not made necessarily with cacti. I'm sure there were other brands who started before last year, but last year we saw a few brands kind of pop up in this area of making tequila seltzers or agave seltzers. If you look up Drink Volley is one, or Onda, O N D A, is another one. They're both excellent. They're both not super affordable and can be kind of tricky to find, as is the case with most startups in the alcohol space. But it's interesting to see Travis Scott do this.
Nick:
A 12 pack is going to cost $20 and be widely distributed. So this is [crosstalk 00:22:07].
Will:
That's one quarter of the cost of the other products in this space. Now with that said, like you mentioned, it's made with agave syrup, it's not made with proper blue agave tequila or fermented agave. So that is a quarter cut, but we'll see.
Nick:
We'll see. We'll see. If anybody listening tries Cacti, please holler. Tucker, do you like hard seltzer and what is your favorite?
Tucker:
Yes. I like hard seltzer. CVS outside my New York City apartment had only sold the Truly. So I think that's the only ones that I've tried.
Nick:
The second headline is more of an event than a news item per se. The National Sleep Foundation which is an organization that is, and I quote, "dedicated to improving health and wellbeing through sleep education and advocacy" has named this week Sleep Awareness Week. It also coincides with daylight savings, which we're all suffering from. We know sleep health has become a huge topic so from the tech standpoint, from the home standpoint or whatever, I want your hottest product tip for a good night's sleep.
Tucker:
Well, this seems like a good plug for, just this week, Google announced the Nest Hub 2, the second generation. And the big thing with that, it's got built in sensors that can actually track your sleep without you having to wear anything. It has a sensor [crosstalk 00:23:27]-
Will:
He's only saying this because there's a Google product in his room with him.
Nick:
With a gun to his head, right?
Will:
Yeah.
Tucker:
... can track your sleep by measuring your movement and your breathing while you sleep. It launches, I think, next month. If you're someone who doesn't like to wear a smartwatch or a Fitbit or any kind of fitness tracker while you sleep. And you just want smart display [inaudible 00:23:49].
Nick:
Tucker, why are you leaning into your microphone? Like you're telling us a secret?
Tucker:
Getting into the podcasting spirit, you know, I feel like I am Howard Stern or Don Imus or some of these.
Nick:
Don Imus?
Will:
I feel like you're passing us illicit information or something. I'm just going to go and move on from this conversation. I'm realizing as I put it in front of the camera on our web call that not everyone and probably no one will see this video, but I have this little device called a LectroFan, that's without an E on the front, LectroFan. It's not even fancy. It's a couple of decade old white noise, brown noise, pink noise, whatever, all the different colors of noise, as well as various fan noises generator. It's very small. Fits on a nightstand table. It's 20-
Nick:
Super loud.
Will:
... it can be very loud. You can obviously adjust the volume. It's a feature. It's a great product. I'm sure you could make it smart and plug it into things but I appreciate that I just lean over and click it when I go to sleep and it helps me get away quickly.
Nick:
Particularly good for city living, though I prefer complete silence in my room. I find those noise machines absolutely psychotic. Like I'll turn on a woodchipper or something in my room and try to snooze, it's [crosstalk 00:25:11].
Tucker:
Fun fact, I actually sleep with, I say, "Alexa, play rain sounds." And so through the night, there's just rain sounds.
Nick:
Tucker, you're being creepy again. You don't have to lean in.
Will:
I want to make sure you hear me because it's important.
Nick:
I feel like he's telling me a secret. Tell the podcast [crosstalk 00:25:26].
Will:
It's like an NPR.
Nick:
It's like an NPR podcast.
Tucker:
Sometimes I do wind sounds too.
Nick:
Okay. Good. Third story is actually two headlines, but they're very related. A little longer context. The first is a new collaboration between Crocs, the foam shoes, and Justin Bieber, the former child star who won't go away. Yeah, you're right. That was harsh. I'm sorry. So this collab already sold out in a flash and it's actually between Crocs and the Bieb's fashion brand, Drew House. They're lavender Crocs with these Drew House characters all over them. You guys still with me?
Tucker:
I'm with you. I'm just letting you talk.
Nick:
Okay, great. That's my fantasy. The second headline is about virtual sneakers being sold by Gucci. For $9 to $12, you can purchase virtual sneakers. They're available in the Gucci app. They're designed by Gucci creative director, Alessandro Michele, and essentially they're haute couture shoes that the app will superimpose on the owner's foot using augmented reality. Okay. So that's the context. My question to you is very simple and you have to choose one of them, which do you choose and why?
Will:
It's the Crocs. It's the Crocs, 100% because the Crocs is, one, ideal cooking shoe. Briefly on the Crocs. Everything that becomes sort of-
Nick:
Pandora's Crocs.
Will:
... everything that becomes fun, that everyone makes fun of collectively, we're like, "Ha ha, stupid." It eventually becomes cool again. Guy Fieri. That's all I'm going to say. He's cool again, right?
Nick:
Guy Fieri rocks.
Will:
But there was a while when he was universally despised. For some reason, he's always seemed like a really pretty standup guy. But anyways, the Crocs, 100%. Dog walking shoe, cooking shoe, much better than an AR shoe.
Nick:
Tucker.
Tucker:
Yeah. I have to disagree. I mean, I never worn Crocs. I will never Crocs. And the fact that these kind of digital shoes are a potential investment. They have potential resale value, I can actually make maybe a profit on them versus Crocs, where I would never wear it.
Nick:
You ever heard of stocks, Tucker? It's the place where you go to a store, you buy shoes and then you sell them for $50 more to someone, some 17 year old with their parents' credit card buys it and then you make some money.
Tucker:
Well, there goes any possibility of Stocked sponsoring this podcast.
Will:
It's a great website, I use it all the time.
Nick:
It's a fantastic marketplace. Okay. That's headlines. Impressed. I'm impressed by your candor and your opinions, your hot takes. The last segment we have here we're calling Kind of Obsessed. Kind of Obsessed is an editorial franchise we have on gearpatrol.com. Our guests share a product they're currently obsessing over, whether it's new to them, whether it's on their wishlist or whether it's something they're testing for work or they've had forever. Will, we'll start with you.
Will:
Yeah. So part of my job is drinking, which sounds nice. And sometimes it is. There's a lot of bad stuff that's sent my way to try and see what's what. Recently-
Nick:
That's for another episode.
Will:
... the worst stuff that I've ever, yeah, let's just absolutely dumpster a bunch of companies. So there's a liquor store in New York called Astor Wine and Spirits, excellent store. And the people who work there are very knowledgeable. They'd recommended me something called Clairin Casimir, them and a popular spirits reviewer named T8ke, by the way. T 8 K E, as everyone has to have a cool name on the internet. Clairin Casimir, I'm saying that wrong for one, but it's a Haitian rum. It is so funky, I honestly cannot even... So I tried to write down some notes so people could get an idea, but I don't want to be the guy with tasting notes. And I also don't think I could really put it into a sentence, what it tastes like.
Nick:
It's literally your job to do that.
Will:
What I would tell everyone to do is, it's $35-ish. You can find it at, if there's nicer liquor stores around you, they might have some. Just throw it in a glass and just sip it neat, like you would a whiskey. Basically it'll show you why rum is a quickly rising category. It's absolutely mind blowing, it's made by... Actually, I'm not going to get into the weeds, I just want people to try it. Other than me, so I can talk about it with other people.
Nick:
Right. Everybody, you can tweet at Will. Tucker, what are you obsessing over?
Tucker:
I bought my first turntable, which is kind of a big thing.
Nick:
Really.
Tucker:
I bought a Pro-Ject T1 turntable and I have a Schiit Audio Mani, which is a phono preamp. Schiit Audio is a-
Nick:
It's a brand.
Tucker:
... yeah, it's a California audio company that makes some really good direct to consumer audio products. But then I have it lined into a Sonos Five. So I've been playing around with that, of buying some records and...
Nick:
Do you mind telling us how much that specific turntable costs?
Tucker:
The turntable is $300 or $350. The Schiit Audio Mani is $100. And then the Play:5 is, what is that, $400 or $500?
Nick:
Will, do you miss the days when we were in the office and Tucker would just play his music over the speakers for everybody? The speakers he was testing?
Will:
Do you see these huge ear headphones I'm wearing? No one on the podcast or who's listening can see them, but they're sort of specifically bought and designed to block everything out for that reason.
Nick:
Specifically Tucker.
Will:
Just to be clear, most of the time it wasn't Tucker's music. It was just the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings, which is a charming thing for 15 to 20 minutes. But after a few hours, it does sort of weigh [crosstalk 00:31:21].
Nick:
A few hours every day, five days a week for years. Okay, cool. This episode of the Gear Patrol Podcast is officially over. Huge thanks to Will Price and Tucker Beau for taking the time today to chat. You, listeners, can find links to everything we've talked about today in the show notes in your podcast service of choice, and make sure you're subscribed there so you don't miss a weekly installment of the pod.
While you're at it, we'd appreciate you rating the pod, too. Those five star reviews help people find us and help more people join in on the conversation. Also, leave us a review. Tell me what you think, what you want to hear more of in the future. And if you are kind of obsessed with a product and you want to tell us about it, you can email us and email us any other questions, comments, concerns at podcast@gearpatrol.com. You'll have a chance to be mentioned on the show if you submit a Kind of Obsessed. Tucker, Will, thanks again. I miss you guys. I miss seeing you, and it's nice to hang out with you in my apartment. And to you, our listeners, thanks for joining me. I hope you're well, and until next time, take care.
Tucker:
Bye everyone.
Will:
Party on.
Nick:
Thanks guys.