With the Nest Branding starting to take over more and more from Google Home, we now have
a choice of two basic smart speakers from Google; the Nest Mini which usually sells
for around £50 or the Nest Audio at about £90. The two speakers essentially have the exact
same features, apart from you can wall mount the Mini, with the only major difference being
sound quality.
But at nearly twice the price, does the Nest Audio sound twice as good as the Nest Mini,
and which one should you buy for your smart home?
Well in this video we’ll pit the Nest Mini and the Nest Audio against each other in a
side-by-side battle with some rock/pop music, an orchestral piece of music and then finally
a frequency analysis test to see whether the bigger speaker really does give you more bang
for your buck.
Hello and welcome back to Switched on Network, I’m @paulfp and these two smart speakers
are, as I’m sure you’ll already know, the Nest Mini and the Nest Audio. They’re
essentially the same gadget, the only difference being in terms of sound quality and the actual
speaker inside. The Nest Audio contains a 75mm woofer and a 19mm tweeter, whilst the
Nest Mini at just over half the price contains just a single 50mm driver.
If you’re a subscriber to the channel then you’ll probably already be familiar with
how I do these tests and I’ll be using the exact same setup and acoustic chamber as in
my recent video before Christmas comparing the Nest Audio to its predecessor, the Google
Home. With both volumes set to to the same level and Bass/Treble all on 0, I’ll play
the same track on each speaker and switch between them during the song, without telling
you which one you’re listening to - I’ll call them A and B and I’ll reveal which
is which at the end of the video.
First up, I’ll be playing “Penniless” by Venus Demilo, which is from their 2020
EP “Northern Lights”. It starts with vocals on top of some steady kicks on the bass drum,
so watch out for the clarity and how deep and powerful those thuds are. At about the
30 second mark the whole band joins in so we can hear the full range of frequencies
all playing at the same time.
So pop on your headphones, have a listen and comment with which you think sounds better,
and why. Try not to read any other comments first, just listen and then type in what you
think whilst the music is playing!
Thanks again to Venus Demilo for always letting me use their songs in these videos! You can
check them out if you liked the music, all the links are in the video description. So
before we move onto the next test, if you’ve not already commented, press pause now and
comment saying which you preferred - A or B - and why.
Now let’s listen to the difference between the Nest Mini and Nest Audio on some orchestral
music, so just like in the last video here’s Beethhoven’s Symphony Number 5 in C Minor.
So again, before we move onto the frequency analysis test, if you’ve not already commented
with which you preferred on that piece of music, press pause now and comment saying
which you preferred - A or B - and why.
Next up we’ll generate a frequency response graph for each speaker. For an in-depth explanation
of frequency analysis and how this works, take a look at the previous video where I
compared the Nest Audio with the Google Home - I explained it in detail in that video so
I won’t bore those who’ve already seen that, but you can go and watch that if you
haven’t already. In a nutshell, I played a test tone through each of the speakers which
on paper should produce a frequency response graph like this - a straight line indicating
the same volume of sound at all frequencies. No speaker is perfect and you also have to
take into account my microphone and recording equipment, although that’s consistent between
tests. The line on the graph for the Nest Audio looks like this - far from a straight
line, as we were expecting, and with a fairly sizeable drop in volume around 2kHz, a smaller
drop at 5.5kHz and then another couple of smaller drops at 8.5 and 11.5kHz. Other than
that, not too bad a result.
If we now look at the Nest Mini’s graph it looks a lot different from the Audio’s,
and the first thing we notice is the levels are all much lower - which is due to its obvious
lower power and inability to be as loud as the bigger, more powerful Nest Audio. If we
lay the two graphs over each other I wouldn’t say it’s a dead cert winner for the Audio,
although it is a fair bit more consistent throughout the range with smaller variations
in volume as we sweep through those frequencies so I’d say it’s a win overall for the
Nest Audio there. Let me know if you agree in the comments below.
So now it’s time to let you know which speaker was which in the sound tests... I much prefer
the sound of A, which is the Nest Audio and B is the cheaper and smaller Nest Mini. Neither
would be my first choice, or should be anyone’s first choice, for proper music listening but
they both definitely have a place in a modern smart home. The Nest Mini, for example, works
great in my kitchen as a general use device for Google Assistant tasks like setting timers,
controlling things like smart light, sending broadcasts etc. and it’s also great to be
able to listen to music, the radio and podcasts whilst busy in the kitchen.
Clearly the Nest Audio is louder than the Mini, but it’s not just about volume it’s
also a richer, more detailed sound with more power in the low end and with clearer mids
and less tinny highs. The Nest Audio does sound a lot, lot better than the Mini and
mine lives in the dining room so is nice to have some background music on whilst eating
and doing other things. If this bloody pandemic ever ends we might even have friends round
for dinner again one day!
So let me know if you agree with my analysis of the new Nest Audio, what your thoughts
are and if you’ll be buying one! And if you like this sort of technical video, please
give this video a thumbs up so that I know you liked it, and leave a comment below with
what other speakers and tech you’d like to see pitted against each other.
If you haven’t already, please subscribe to the channel and you can now also JOIN and
become a paying member if you’d like to support me in return for some added perks.
That’s completely optional though, you don’t have to join - just subscribing for free and
watching the videos is just fine. You can follow both me and Switched on Network on
Twitter and Instagram, and why not come and hang out in our Facebook group - links for
all that are in the video description.
That’s it for this video. Thanks for watching, and I hope I’ll see you again soon!