Denon Home wireless speaker review

he new line of Denon Home speakers is great for adding streaming music to spaces in your home where a traditional stereo hi-fi system won’t fit or just doesn’t make sense for whatever reason. Plug one of these into AC power and you’ve got music.

The original line was popular and updates in the new 200, 400, and 600 models improve sound and versatility. When I got the chance to take all three home for testing, I put them in rooms that seemed like a good match for the different sizes. I also tested the smallest pair as wireless rear surrounds in a home theater setup with a Denon sound bar.

What's new in Denon Home speakers

The most significant updates in the new models include more drivers in each model, increased amplification, and support for Dolby Atmos music. There’s also a USB-C port for playing music from a compatible drive or device — which if that’s your phone, tablet, or computer will also charge it.

Like their predecessors, these smart speakers have easy wireless features. They all have Bluetooth, but you'll get better sound quality and stability if you connect to your home network via Wi-Fi or — even better — Ethernet when you use an Ethernet adapter plugged into the USB-C port.

Built-in wireless multi-room HEOS network streaming lets you add the speakers to your home network and control them with the free app — you can group them, play them independently and adjust some audio settings like bass and treble.

HEOS gives you powerful wireless multi-room streaming options.

Each speaker also has discrete built-in amplifiers for every driver, so they sound great for music when you match them to your space.

You can pair two of the same model in stereo, or set them up as rear speakers in a wireless 5.1 surround sound system with the Home 550 Sound Bar and Home Subwoofer.

They all also support Apple AirPlay 2 and have a 3.5mm aux input. And there’s a built-in mic for Siri voice control, which you can turn off with an actual switch on the speaker if you don’t want it listening.

Getting hands-on with Denon Home speakers

I spent some time with all three of these speakers in my home. I set them up in different rooms — the smallest, the Home 200, in my office/studio, the 400 in a bedroom, and the 600 in the living room.

I really appreciated how easy the wireless setup was. The app walks you through it and I hit no hiccups. I just had to wait a couple minutes for each one to update to the latest firmware.

Once I got them set up, I spent some time just listening and playing around with the HEOS app. I like the clean look and functionality of the app. In terms of features, HEOS is one of the more streamlined wireless multi-room control apps I’ve spent time using.

The app has preset EQ settings for placement in a corner, against one wall, or in a more open space. You can also adjust bass, treble, width, and — on the bigger 400 and 600 — height.

Listening impressions

I wandered between the three rooms where I had them set up while playing through several tracks. I listened to the opening track on Yes’s Close to the Edge, which has a lot of opposing musical textures working together like a machine, and from there I moved on to the Minutemen’s The Punchline, which has a similar feel and similar tones — especially the growling bass and precise powerhouse drumming.

Then I listened to Ornette Coleman’s “The Lonely Woman” from The Shape of Jazz to Come. And then some classical: Jean Martinon and the Orchestra of Paris’s recording of Ravel’s Bolero, and Paavo Jarvi with the Zurich Orchestra for Mahler’s 2^nd symphony.

In each room, I ended up pushing the width and — in the bigger two models, the height — levels up about half-way to expand the soundstage without sounding exaggerated.

Read on for my impressions of each of the three models in this series.

Denon Home 200

I think the Home 200 delivers nicely as far as separation, detail, and bass. In fact, I’d say it's one of the better-sounding models in this size and price range that I’ve heard. Maybe that's on account of having separate amplifiers for each driver.

I was struck by how nicely it handled the punchy dynamics of my favorite Minutemen record. It had enough substance to give Mike Watt's boiling basslines the girth they need. The treble response also impressed me, outlining D. Boon's uniquely precise guitar riffing and Geore Hurley's stop-on-a-dime drumming.

The Denon Home 200 has a 4" woofer and dual 1" tweeters for true stereo sound.

I like the Home 200 for smaller spaces like a bedroom or office. And a pair of them would fill larger spaces and deliver even more spacious stereo sound.

Denon Home 400

I set up the Home 400 in medium-sized bedroom. It pumped out an impressively palpable rendering of the nimble drone of Charlie Haden’s upright bass in the Ornette Coleman recording.

Experimenting with the height channel adjustment in the app helped open up the soundstage in the bedroom where I was testing it. I sat down in the easy chair and got drawn into the Mahler symphony's warm, cantering splendor, "hearing" the space around the musicians.

Dual 4.5" woofers, .75" tweeters, and 1" up-firing allow the Home 400 to deliver Dolby Atmos height effects.

This speaker would work well in a medium or large room, like an open kitchen or den where you can impress a few music-lovers who haven't checked out what's possible in the world of smart speakers lately.

The Denon Home 600

The Home 600 understandably has the most substantial bass of all three models, especially for handling the tympanic lows of orchestral stuff. I set it up in a large, open living room where wall and window reflections can challenge a sound system.

But the 600 has the amplification and air-moving capability to sit confidently in a large space. I stopped with the volume about halfway up, and could sense the comfortable headroom as well as hear exceptional detail in the slow build of "Bolero."

Opposing 6.5" woofers, and a pair each of .75" tweeters, 2.5" midrange drivers, and 2.5" up-firing height-effect drivers give the Home 600 an exceptionally spacious soundstage.

This formidable smart speaker would work well in larger rooms, and might even generate calls from the neighbors if pushed in an apartment setting. Two of them paired in stereo would best or rival many traditional hi-fi systems.

Testing a Home 200 pair as wireless surrounds

I connected a Denon Home 550 sound bar to my Sony BRAVIA TV. A Denon Home Sub and a pair of Home 200 speakers rounded out this wireless surround system. The TV room is small — about 12' x 12' — with a thin table behind the couch where I put the Home 200s.

The only wired connection to the TV was via HDMI eARC to the sound bar — the surrounds and sub were all plugged into AC power, but connected to the system wirelessly. Setting this up with the app was simple and straightforward.

With a pair of Home 200s as wireless surrounds, this 5.1 Denon home theater setup wraps the viewer in rich sound.

We watched a few different things, including an episode from the first season of Landman and some BBC 4K selections from David Attenborough's nature show catalog. But what really demonstrated the immersive audio of this system to its fullest was an expertly edited compilation of David Lynch's Twin Peaks audio highlights.

That convinced me that if I had a good soundtrack, this system could do all I could ever ask of it in my TV room.

A note regarding using Denon Home speakers as wireless surrounds

We've had a lot of customers asking if the Denon Home speakers would also work as wireless surrounds with HEOS-enabled Denon and Marantz home theater receivers. The previous versions didn't have that capability and we’ve confirmed with Denon that the answer is still no at this time.

A small surround system with the 550 sound bar, Home subwoofer, and a pair of the Home 200s is a huge sonic improvment over the bar alone. And we’re hopeful that we might see a new bigger sound bar that would be a better match with one of the larger two models as surrounds from Denon in the future.

Dolby Atmos music

Kudos to Denon for putting up-firing drivers in the 400 and 600 and building spatial audio into their platform. A speaker like this is not going to be able to direct the sound all around you like a top-notch Atmos sound system with dedicated rear and overhead speakers.

But Atmos music mixes — and there aren't that many out there — can give you a noticeably expanded soundstage and clearer instrument separation.

Should you get Denon Home wireless speakers?

Denon’s Home wireless streaming speakers are a great way to get high-quality sound in all sorts of spaces. They don’t replace a traditional stereo system. They don’t have a lot of wired connections for sources like a turntable, CD player, TV, or what have you.

But if streaming’s your thing, these are the shortest distance from your phone to great sound. And remember: you can pair two of the same model together in stereo.

If you already have Denon or Marantz gear with built-in HEOS, the Denon Home speakers can be synced and controlled with the same simple app. And if you don’t have any wireless multi-room streaming gear, getting one of these gives you some great choices for building a whole-home music system.

Still have questions?

If you want to learn more about any of these speakers, or any other Denon or HEOS gear we have here at Crutchfield, get in touch with our friendly, knowledgeable Advisors. And as always, all of your Crutchfield purchases come with free lifetime tech support.