The tech giant from Mountain View, California, launched a Max version of its first smart speaker one year after the first release of the Google Home Max Charcoal.
The Google Household Max, in contrast to the Nest Mini, is “built for sound, inside and out.” The Nest Mini was made primarily for asking queries of the assistant and operating household appliances.
It’s thick and substantial at the base, yet clear and well-balanced everywhere. Its voice is clearer and louder than we anticipated.
Let’s check out what it has to offer you.
Google Home Max Charcoal — What Is It?
The search giant has your back when it comes to elementary smart-assistant and home-control functions with the Google Home and Google Home Mini.
The Google Home Max Charcoal, then, is a different kind of animal, intended to replace all of your other speakers.
Rather than simply becoming another speaker to compete with Amazon’s expanding Echo family, this is distinctly an Apple HomePod product.
The Home Max is a formidable speaker with its robust sound, adaptable form factor, and seamless interaction with Google Assistant. However, not everyone will be able to afford the sky-high price and sub-Sonos multi-room capacity.
Design
The face of the Google Home Max is made out of high-quality material, and its soft-touch plastic shell comes in two different colors (Chalk and Charcoal).
The Google Home Max Charcoal is significantly larger, measuring 337 x 190 x 154 mm. At 5.3 kilograms, it’s not exactly a featherweight.
This is where the Home Max most closely resembles the Sonos Play:5.
Because of its size, the Home Max is best suited for spacious living quarters. The HomePod and Sonos One, being smaller, are far less cumbersome to set up.
Google includes a magnetic rubber pad that attaches to the bottom or side of the Home Max so that it may be placed in portrait orientation. Although this will help you save some room, there is a significant drawback.
switching to portrait mode disables stereo mode, so your audio will be narrower than usual.
When the speaker is moved, it glides across the rubber pad and is often forgotten. Once you’ve decided where to put the Google Home Max Charcoal, you should proceed with caution.
A capacitive touch bar with volume controls and play/pause buttons sit above the device. Even though it would have been nice to have a track-skip button or the ability to double-tap to skip songs, at least the essentials are there.
If you prefer a hardwired connection to your Home Max, you’ll find a USB-C port on the back of the device. In addition to Bluetooth, there is a 3.5mm audio input for connecting external devices like record players.
Specs
The interior components, including two 4.5in high-excursion woofers and two 0.7in bespoke tweeters, are primarily responsible for the Home Max’s size. With that setup, it can provide true stereo sound.
There are a total of six microphones built inside the Google Home Max, two on the top, two on the side (or top when used in portrait mode), and two concealed behind the fabric front.
Microphones are also utilized for Google’s Smart Sound feature; this feature automatically adjusts the Home Max’s equalizer settings based on its location and the acoustics of the area.
While Google’s Home Max may have debuted first, the technology is also present in Apple’s HomePod.
Accuracy of Sound
Performance is what really matters, not the specs. The majority of this is attractive in design.
The Google Home Max Charcoal can deliver if you want to crank up the volume. Unlike the HomePod, it can fill a room with ear-splitting volume. The Home Max is an excellent option if you need to fill a sizable room.
However, when turned up to maximum volume, the Home Max might sound a bit grating. The harmony between the low, middle, and high frequencies is a touch-off. Although not disastrous, the Home Max lacks the grace and delicacy of the HomePod.
Volume Quality
At smaller volumes, the contest becomes more intense. The Home Max’s booming bass helps songs really take off. Bass-heavy music, like “This Too Shall Pass” by OK Go, has a physical effect on the listener.
There is a refined air and careful attention to detail. If you listen to a slower song, like Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt,” you can hear the twang of the guitar strings and the sliding of his fingers across the fretboard.
Although the Home Max’s stereo separation isn’t quite as strong as that of separate left and right speakers, it’s still serviceable. The introductory guitar riff of the Foo Fighters’ song “Enough Space” swerves from left to right.
However, the Google Home Max Charcoal is still very much a pointing device in general. Just stick it in the corner of the room and you’ll be able to pinpoint the source of any noise. Unlike the HomePod, there isn’t true 360-degree audio.
The audio is well balanced by Smart Sound, yet it can be overwhelmed by extremes. If you’re experiencing bass distortion in a large space, try moving to a smaller one.
As I moved the Home Max from room to room, it learned my preferences and performed admirably, albeit Smart Sound does have its limitations.
Installation and Google Assistant
It’s simple to set up. The Google Home Max Charcoal should be discovered immediately once plugged in and the Google Home app launched. It only takes a few taps to add it to your local network at home. When everything is hooked up, the speaker is ready to play. If you have more than one Google account, you may use the Voice Match settings to make all of your Google Home devices work together.
It’s hardly necessary to reiterate how great Google Assistant is, as I cover it in greater detail in my comprehensive guide. You don’t need to be precise when asking Google to play a song, album, or playlist, unlike with Siri and Alexa. Instead, Google will attempt to infer your intent. When I said, “OK Google, play my test playlist from Spotify,” it listened to the exact playlist I’d named “testing” and played it.
Google Assistant is rapidly closing the gap with Alexa in terms of product compatibility for use in the home.
The Nest Thermostat and Philips Hue light bulbs, among other popular items, are both compatible. With the introduction of Google Home, it is now possible to control several devices with a single voice command, such as “OK Google, turn on the lights.” Google will be able to deduce what bulbs you’re referring to.
Multi-Room
It’s possible to set up a multi-room system, but it’s a bit of a pain. In order to use many speakers at once, you’ll need to establish a group in the Google Home app and add the speakers you’d like to use. When compared to Sonos or even the Apple HomePod, this method of grouping and ungrouping is clumsy.
While the combination of numerous Google Case speakers does improve sound quality, the limitations of Google’s ecosystem become apparent when trying to play various songs in different rooms. Your account is tied to a single location. Sonos solves this problem by allowing a single Spotify account to be used to stream music to multiple speakers.
Pairing In Stereo
If you find that you need more than one Google Home Max, why not get two? The idea of two Home Max’s working together is pretty mind-blowing, but it’s also pretty pricey, so I haven’t tried it out yet.
Finding a suitable location for a pair of Home Max speakers can be challenging for many people. It’s more convenient and economical to use two HomePods instead of one.
The HomePod sounds even better when used in stereo.
Wrapping Up
The Google Home Max Charcoal sounds fantastic but Siri isn’t as capable as the Google Assistant. However, there is more to life than the sum of its parts. The House Max is an excellent addition to your house if you’re already invested in the Google ecosystem and don’t often have many people listening to music from different sources at the same time.
Google Assistant is head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to answering broad categories of inquiries, providing directions, and searching for nearby businesses. Local calls made with it are also free. The one drawback is that G Suite calendars are still inaccessible to Google Assistant.
