How to control sound quality on HomePod 2

There’s no EQ. Settings. You might try moving them around to another surface to recalibrate the sound. Dense wood will provide more bass. Otherwise, you can let Apple know you would like this feature here: Feedback - HomePod - Apple

I was about to comment that all these fixes you have are temporary and/or coincidental but you’ve already figured this out yourself. When HomePod is misbehaving it’s best to restart it, you can do this in the home app or unplug for 10 seconds. Try updating the software to 17.1.

Btw Apple do not read or respond to posts on here. You’re always free to submit feedback but don’t expect a response: Feedback - HomePod - Apple.

I would just strongly suggest not turning off private network on WiFi like bgmeek says because these are professional WiFi hackers screwing up your HomePods.

I had issues and did these things mainly because it’s a struggle with the presence of hackers. I made sure the HomePods were listed correctly under my iCloud. They weren’t and I reinstalled them. Made a new home in the home app and put the HomePods there. Made sure that the “speakers and TV” under HomePod details was set to “only users on same home”. Mostly only ask Siri to play music without touching my iPhone. Lastly I found something else that affects sound quality is going to the home app, pressing pause, then play again.

I think it’s important that you install the HomePods correctly because I have a black mini and a yellow mini and sometimes when I install it pops up two black ones. I think if you check the serial numbers. Also I think it’s important if the hackers don’t know the name of your home. Because all of a sudden lossless wouldn’t stay on. It kept toggling off. So I removed the pods, made a new home, reinstalled them and lossless stays on now.

I change the name of my home in the home app regularly by speedily selecting predictive text randomly to make a long random name. And make sure the option for speakers and TV is only people sharing this home. These things seem to affect performance of my HomePods.

Once you have the setting as only people sharing this home and you change the name of the home, room, group of speakers and each individual speaker…..you need to restart each speaker to finalize. And check under your iCloud in settings for speaker name copaceticness.

There something weird with the Apple Music app. It’s accessible. My HomePods were echoing, skipping, disconnecting when changing from track to track. I deleted the app. Kept the subscription. And the issues went away.

Also….

Don’t include pods in any home summaries in status settings in the home app.

Toggle off home control when locked under the Face ID/passcode section of iPhone settings.

Have a secure passcode.

Hard restart your iPhone until it starts up properly.

I really appreciate the reply Vancouver22! I keep updated and have reinstalled many times. But what I wanted to say is that one can simply turn off Dolby atmos in the home app and the speakers work perfectly. I figure after every update I’ll turn it on and test for a resolution.

But hey Vancouver22, I’m sticking with my HomePod minis because it’s just minor software tweaks that’ll be the fix. And there’s so much to love. Siri. Room filling sound. Wireless Dolby Atmos playback. Awesome looking profile. I’m not jumping ship.

Update 17.2 brings a bit of a fix. Apple Music app now shows the Dolby Atmos logo in now playing screen. Playback sounds better too. I found a solution to sound quality issues by adding Dolby Atmos albums to a playlist and shuffling. But quality still corrupts for me from one track to the next when playing albums straight up.

Update 16.6 seems to bring a fix in the balance of vocals and instruments and sounds. Also maybe security of HomePod and Home app.

I recommend changing the name of the home, the room, and all the fields that say “HomePod”, change those too.

Also….

Check and rid your WiFi of any piggybacking routers.

Set “speakers and tv” in home app to anyone on your network where the app chooses a random password.

And restart HomePods to set