Apple people tend to be Apple biased. Some seem to operate like it is their job to help Apple get every possible nickel out of their fellow consumers. So everything not branded Apple is bad and only Apple things are good.
To embrace HomePods for this purpose dooms a buyer to 2-channel stereo at best. Modern home theater tends to revolve around 7.1 (7 speakers spread around you + 1 subwoofer) with some arguing for 11.1, 11.2 and others "getting by" with "a minimum" of 5.1 (that's 5 separate speakers positioned around you plus a subwoofer). The ATMOS game adds speakers above (ceiling). There is NO way to fake those kinds of setups with 2 speakers. It doesn't matter if they are claimed to be ATMOS or Dolby Digital X.Y or ATMOS Magical Liquid Retina Mach 4 Ultra on the box... and don't be fooled by marketing terms like immersive, spatial, etc. 2 speakers are 2 speakers. If all sound is coming from only 2 locations- you have a stereo setup at best.
HPs sound very good. If one can be happy with stereo-only, that may be a way to go. However, if one wants really great Home Theater sound, IMO- the minimum is 5.1 setup (front left, center, right, rear left & right + subwoofer), likely powered by a good (ideally great) receiver.
Soundbars play the same (marketing) game of claiming to be up to ATMOS in one container. No way. To get real Atmos, you need physical speakers to be all around you. Yes, technical trickery can seem to fake real speakers all around but you will definitely notice the difference when in a real ATMOS setup vs. any ATMOS soundbar setup. No soundbar delivers true ATMOS or even true surround sound. It's all technical trickery at best or just outright marketing puffery at worst.
Part of the magic of good surround is getting some physical distance between front left, center & right too. There are some soundbars that will let a left & right speaker part detach from the soundbar so they can be spread out a little further. Why do they bother with that unless there is some real audio benefit to separation? In that answer, you begin a case for truly separate left + center + right speakers, even in OPs "small room."
If you want true surround, you need physical speakers in surrounding positions. You are not surrounded with sound if the speaker(s) is in front of you.
Look to the professional setups as ultimate verification. Go to the cinema and look around at their speaker setup. You will find NO professional theater with one or two HPs down front. There will be speakers down front, to your left & right, behind you and 1 or 2+ big subs somewhere around there too. If HPs were just as good, I'm sure all revenue-pinched theaters would have long-since abandoned the many speaker setups for 2 HPs.
The bashing of all things not branded Apple is typical. I'm an Apple everything guy myself but I can assure anyone interested that Sonos Arc sounds VERY good as a soundbar. If one does the research, it is typically rated the BEST soundbar available. So if OP absolutely wants to go soundbar vs. left + center + right (which I have myself in my own home theater setup), I stand by the suggestion of saving up a little more for ARC and then perhaps adding the surrounding speakers and sub over time... something easily done with the Sonos system but impossible with HP.
I know we Apple people really, REALLY want HPs to be a great Home Theater option too... but it was never intended to be that (thus no surround sound software support at all from Apple). There is no HP Soundbar or Center HP speaker. There is no HP Subwoofer. There's not even rumors that any of those are coming. "We" seem to be imagining 2 or 3 full-size HPs out front and 2 minis behind us as a 5.1 sound setup but HP software has no support for that even if we buy the 5 speakers and lay them out like that... nor are there any rumors about that.
Sonos is not the only game in town either. But OP wants a home theater setup and Apple doesn't offer one. Plenty of other players DO offer at least 5.1 options. IMO, OP will be much better served to look elsewhere... UNLESS simple stereo covers 100% of his HT audio aspirations. He says "streaming music is secondary" and that- IMO- is the primary use of HPs.
Ok, so I'll bite on this, since I was downplaying the Sonos in favor of Homepods.
Look, I agree on all points here to an extent. Technically your post is spot on. There's no way that 2 speakers will magically become 11.2. Physical spacing between stereo speakers is a must, yes. Sonos has a better ecosystem for home theater specifically. But here's
my deal...
1) Personally, I don't want
more speakers anymore. Back in the day (before HDMI), I had a mid-range Yamaha receiver and wired Boston L&R shelf speakers, a center, two surrounds, and a sub. It sounded great when I got it all wired and set up and tuned, etc. Then we moved homes a bunch of times and technology caught up (see point 2). In our current house, there's zero way to run the wires. Zero. They will be seen or tripped over while moving in and out or through the room. Then there's the fact that the TV wall is extremely clean. We have the TV mounted with a picture wire mount so it's super flush to the wall, the cords roll down through the drywall, and the gear sits inside the back of an electric fireplace fake-mantle thing. That's it. If I had to guess, the cabinet is 55-60". So I don't have space to put anything more than two speakers (definitely NOT 3, back to your spacing point) -or- a soundbar. Additionally, my wife loves to decorate that fireplace "mantle" so I have even less space than the 55-60". All that to say... I don't have a ton of room up front for speakers. More on the rear side of the room in point 3.
2) Technology has improved audio. No longer do we need optical audio and 12-guage copper wiring. Yes, I can look at "professional theater setups" all day long, but this is my house. I don't need or want that at my house. I want something that is easy to set up, works 95% or more of the time without hassle, and sounds pretty darn good for movies, TV (sports), and music. Those are my requirements. There are some folks like you who demand better sound - cool. Good on ya. Do it, by all means, do it. If I had all the monetary means and a different layout (see point 3) and no decorating wife, I'd probably have something other than Homepods too. Moving on, yes historically, the "fake" surround has not been very good. It sounded spacy, kind of like when you messed with the "physical building space" options on an old receiver, like "Music hall" or "Concert hall" or whatever. It messed with the audio in a way that made it up-in-the-air somewhere (my very technical opinion). This latest iteration though... in the right room, sounds incredible. Unbelievable even. When the fake "atmos" bounces off the ceiling and walls around it, honestly, it does sound like there are more than just two speakers in the room. My buddy has a Sonos Beam 2 and a sub in a closed off, 14x14 room in his house, and dude, it sounds fantastic. But it's the same reason why Best Buy had Magnolia showrooms. In a controlled environment, you can make pretty much anything sound amazing. But...
3) My house isn't built perfectly for fake surround. The main TV is hung on the short wall of a 3 sided rectangle (2 short walls and one long wall on one side). It's open on the other long wall to the kitchen/bar/dining room. There was nothing for the Sonos Beam I had to bounce its sound off of on that side, so it sounded like all the sound was coming from the right, and nothing from the left. It
sounded to me like a sub-$100 speaker that I paid $400 for. The rear right and left IKEA Sonos speakers helped some when they would connect properly, and I thought about purchasing the sub to help too... but I couldn't bring myself to spend another $700 on gear whos connectivity was spotty. So I decided to sell it all. Yes, my opinion, the
one Homepod sounded almost as good on the TV wall in my house. Period. This is not an Apple fanboy talking Apple. It's not. It's my opinion, based on living in my own house.
So all that to say... we don't know the OP's space. Maybe he's got 30 feet to play with, has the monetary means in which to afford, and can install 11.2 while trying to emulate his local theater. My guess is, with an original budget of sub $350, those aren't true assumptions. So we can assume that it's a 12x12 space that's closed off. In that case he can get a very good bar + sub for that price, or just a Sonos soundbar, or yes, one Homepod (I personally am not recommending just one Homepod, though). My point is, if he
were to go with one Homepod, he could benefit from Airplay from his iPhone AND could get a second down the road to enable "fake" surround in his 12x12 space.
Rifling through my tech drawer this weekend, I stumbled upon some old iPhones, traded them in at Apple, and drove home with two Homepod 2's. They're happily sitting in a stereo pair on our fake fireplace, enabled for "fake" atmos surround and do an.absolutely.insane.job.for.what.they.are. They are providing bass like the Homepod minis couldn't, and almost eliminate the need for the 2 Homepod mini's in our kitchen. Are they professional quality? Nope. Were they easy to set up, work 95% of the time, and sound pretty darn good? Yep.
So you can dismiss my post as Sonos bashing or Apple-hugging. Go for it. Hopefully the rest of us understand that I'm attempting to level with the OP. Helping him think through the
whole scenario of price, room setup, ease of setup and use, overall ecosystem, other benefits, etc, while sharing my historically accurate to me use-cases.
