Denon is best known for their professional A/V systems, home theater gear, audio receivers, and turntables, but with the competition in the home-speaker market heating up over the last few years, Denon is looking to redouble their efforts in the home audio marketspace with an impressive refresh of their previous “Home” speaker lineup.
The Denon Home 200, 400, and 600 are three new wireless multiroom speakers, all in different sizes and designed to work either separately or together in a home ecosystem via Denon’s proprietary HEOS platform. With HEOS, you can build a multiroom sound system that caters to your individual spaces that can grow and expand over time.
So how do these new Denon speakers stack up against the competition, what features do they have to offer, and most importantly, how do they sound? Let’s get into the details.
What’s New for Denon Home Speaker Lineup?
The previous Denon Home 150, 250, and 350 were a great lineup of speakers competing with the market share Sonos had very much dominated until quite recently. In the new lineup, beyond the design overhaul, the biggest upgrade for the 200, 400, and 600 is Dolby Atmos support across all three models.
While the 400 and 600 models now have real, physical upfiring speaker drivers installed in the units to simulate ceiling speakers (the sound is projecting in a manner where it’s meant to bounce off the ceiling), the 200 model uses DSP and psychoacoustics to deliver a convincing 3D-object based sound environment. The 200’s 3D imaging effect is excellent for what it is, but with the bigger models’ physical directional divers, they will have much clearer and more obvious Atmos imaging in most spaces.
Outside of this superlatively exciting addition, the new Denon Home series now supports 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz Wi-Fi bands (so you can get out of congested bands for better latency and response), Siri integration via AirPlay so it can be an audiophilic addition to an Apple HomePods environment (it’s kind of complicated, but more on that later), and has included a toggle for the physical internal microphones so you can switch into a privacy mode.
Other Features—Was Anything Removed?
Nothing of importance was removed from the old lineup of speakers—the 200, 400, and 600 all come with individual Class-D amplifiers for each one of their drivers and enjoy their rich connectivity and playback features from the HEOS app, physical 3.5 aux-in and USB-C ports, built-in microphones, and support for high-res audio formats like lossless and DSD. All three models support surround-sound connectivity when used as rear L/Rs, but only with the Denon Sound Bar 550.
Unboxing and First Impressions
All the speakers arrived in their own quite plain and simple packaging—Denon wasted no money or time with any unboxing experiences or unnecessary frills. The box contains only the speaker, the power cable, and some literature for setting up and downloading the HEOS app. The setup was easy enough for a five-year-old to figure it out, literally one step: plug in the cable to the speaker and the wall and you’re good to go! (Step 2 was to download the HEOS app, but users do NOT have to do that to use the speaker.)
The speakers themselves are beautiful and relatively understated, coming in two colors, meant to blend into your home rather than stand out. The anodized aluminum and mesh covered sides and top (depending on what model you get) look and feel quietly luxurious. The metal accents and cleaner silhouette give the appearance of something like an elevated version of the Apple HomePods—and they’re designed to work quite seamlessly with one as well!
Apple Smart Home, Siri, and Voice Control Features
One of the features that sets the Denon Home Series apart from the competition is its Apple Home support, which is largely reserved for first-party Apple devices like the HomePod. You can include any of the Denon Home speakers in your home ecosystem to create scenes and automations, like setting up as a doorbell chime, pausing audio when you leave home, or playing ocean sounds and setting an alarm for a bedtime scene.
Thanks to Apple Home and AirPlay 2 support, the Denon Home series can be used as an intercom between units, allowing audio casting to any single or multiples of Denon Home Speakers from any Apple device.
However, Siri and any other Hub environment actions will only work properly if you also have a HomePod in your environment—it essentially acts as a middle interpreter, sending your query to the HomePod which sends it back to the Denon, who delivers the answer. This is different than Denon’s competitors who utilize their own voice control apps and such—so if you’re coming into the Denon Home expecting to use Siri and other connectivity features, make sure you also have a HomePod or HomePod Mini somewhere in your environment.
What Can the HEOS App Do?
The HEOS App is not dissimilar to Denon’s competitor’s solutions like the Sonos App but your experience can be enhanced by taking advantage of the aforementioned support with Apple Smart Home and Siri functionality. Take note that if you want to use Siri with your Denon Home system, you’ll need to have a pre-existing Apple Smart Home environment with a HomePod.
The HEOS app supports direct streaming from most popular streaming services and even includes hi-res audio streaming from Roon Ready, Tidal Connect, Tidal Hi-Res, and Deezer Hi-fi. It can also group all your rooms instantaneously with group presets, so you can stream you music to any permutation of Denon Home speakers you have in your environment—so if you want to have one room playing stereo audio from two Denon Home 200s and another in the living room playing audio from a movie in the living room, all those things can be set up in the HEOS App.
Apart from streaming from services and grouping speakers, the app allows you to adjust volume, perform updates, group sets of speakers together, adjust track queue, and adjust audio processing modes for each speaker independently—including DSP modes and stereo width settings.
Which Speaker Works Best for You?
Between the three speakers, Denon has given us flexible offerings all within a similar package and form factor, and all Denon Home speakers can communicate together, whether they’re the same model or not. You can build your system out with one of each—200 in the bedroom, 400 in the kitchen or living room, and 600 in a home theater or entertainment space—or just get the one/couple that best suits your needs. All models include mounting threads on the bottom of the device, so they can be mounted to stands or flown from ceilings/walls if you’d like to do that.
While that’s a general overview of the kinds of spaces you’d put each model into, let’s go over the specific differences between each model so you can know what best caters to your needs.
Denon Home 200: Compact High-Performance
The Denon Home 200 is the smallest speaker in the new lineup coming in at around 5lbs stocked with three drivers: a dual stereo-wide-bandwidth tweeters for stereo sound and a 4” woofer. The Dolby Atmos 3D-object based surround is achieved by psychoacoustic processing to simulate height (the other models use physical drivers).
The physical unit sounds impressively large for its size, sending powerful lows from its woofer and giving decent stereo image separation for a cylindrical device with its splayed tweeters. The 200 can get very loud—too loud for my apartment at around 80 percent—but even when blasted all the way, the sound profile remained consistent and responsive, not noticeably boosting any frequencies or blowing out the mids or lows. It sounds rich, warm and at least as good—maybe a bit better—than a Sonos speaker in its weight class (but the Denon lacks the Sonos’s outdoor portability).
As the smallest member of the group, the Denon Home 200 is a powerful, capable speaker best suited for use in a small or medium room and is a great starting point for anyone looking to begin or expand their Denon Home system.
Denon Home 400: Width and Articulation
The mid-sized Denon Home 400 is roughly twice the size of the 200, equipped with six drivers in total: two splayed tweeters for stereo, dual 4.5” woofers, and two upfiring tweeters for simulated ceiling speakers enabling the Dolby Atmos experience. Compared to the 200, it has more stereo separation, fuller bass response, and almost aggressive loudness—this one was plenty enough for my small Brooklyn apartment.
For someone with a bigger space to fill with sound, the Denon Home 400 might be the way to go—it’s plenty enough to fill a medium to large sized room with warm tones and even frequency response. The bass is a huge upgrade from the 200, even able to shake the floorboards a bit when set at max volume while avoiding muddiness and sounding tight and clean.
The Denon Home 400 will probably be the option most people with mid-sized homes would go for—it’s a great sounding sleek machine that will fill the audio needs of just about anyone.
Denon Home 600: Power and Presentation
The Denon Home 600 is the largest of the family and has a noticeably different form factor and sonic presentation than its two siblings. It’s meant for larger rooms, able to effortlessly fill in impressively sized spaces like galleries or event spaces with its eight drivers (now in a three-way system plus upfiring tweeters): dual tweeters, dual 2.5” midrange woofers, dual 6.5” subwoofers, and dual 2.6” upfiring tweeters. It’s big, needing to be handled with two hands and weighing in at roughly eighteen pounds. At this size, it’s a serious beast contending with the best home wireless speakers on the market.
The Denon Home 600 is meant for audio enthusiasts and those who have large rooms they need to fill with expansive presentation. The stereo separation, 3D Atmos simulation, sonic depth, and deep sub-bass bring the Home 600 to the professional level. Its spectacular representation and reproduction of sound is perfect for hi-fi listening, home theater setups, and for entertaining large groups of people.
If you want the best Denon has to offer—and if you have a big enough space to justify it—the Denon Home 600 is the way to go.
The new Denon Home Series are all powerful sound systems with performance as high-class as their design. They’re notably expensive for their weight class and don’t offer the same kind of portability that some other competitors like Sonos like to focus on, so they’re meant to stay in the home—but they’re designed for that with their integration with Apple Home and Siri.
If you’re in the market for a high-performance multiroom speaker system with excellent control and customization, the Denon Home series is an excellent choice. For more information, check out the Denon Home on our online storefront, or come check it out yourself at the B&H SuperStore.
