A first listen to the new Denon Home wireless speaker range made me think Sonos should watch out
Trio of Atmos-ready multiroom wireless speakers deliver epic sound
Denon has given design and sound equal top billing for its new premium multiroom wireless speakers. The new Denon Home 200, 400 and 600 are designed to slot seamlessly into any modern home interior, then soundtrack your life with space-filling Dolby Atmos audio.
Officially launching today in the UK and Europe, the refreshed Denon Home trio are far smoother and more sculpted than the 150, 250 and 350 they replace. The geometric shapes, anodised aluminium bases and gender-neutral Stone and charcoal colours should blend in with every sort of living space, The acoustically neutral fabric covering the driver housings is apparently hard-wearing enough that you won’t need to keep each speaker out of any little ones’ reach.
I got an early listen to the new lineup ahead of the reveal, and got to try out the latest version of Denon’s Heos control app. If you’re yet to go full multiroom – or have lost faith in an existing setup because of disastrous app updates – this could easily be the upgrade you’ve been waiting for.
Top- or side-mounted buttons let you quickly jump into your favourite internet radio stations or streaming services. Parents with young kids will be happy to hear these can be disabled through the companion app; it’ll also let you dim the diffused white activity LED if you’re so inclined.
Denon has simplified things at the rear of each unit, with a single USB-C connection in place of Ethernet and USB-A; it’ll let you stream Hi-Res audio from a flash drive, or support wired Ethernet with a third-party dongle should your Wi-Fi not be up to the task. A 3.5mm auxiliary input sticks around too.
All three speakers have Bluetooth and Connect buttons to get you set up quickly, along with AirPlay support and a hard-wired microphone cutoff that guarantees they aren’t listening in on your conversations (Apple’s Siri assistant is natively supported through a connected iPhone or iPad).
Naturally the refreshed range supports all the major streaming services, including TIDAL, Amazon Music HD and Qobuz for hi-res playback. They can also handle 24-bit/192kHz FLAC files and 5.6MHz DSDs from a local source, via the Heos companion app. You’d need to be a serious Heos addict before you’d run out of multiroom support: it can handle up to 64 products across 32 different zones.
The Home 600 is the bruiser of the line-up, swallowing up almost the entire side table it was placed on in Denon’s demo area. That cavernous enclosure makes room for dual, opposing 6.5in woofers, four 2.5in mid-range drivers and two 0.75in tweeters, each with their own individual amplification, for a 2.1.2 configuration and native Atmos playback.
Unsurprisingly it’s the loudest and most powerful speaker of the three, with a serious amount of bass on tap, but plenty of nuance everywhere else when listening in the Pure mode, which bypasses any virtualisation. The instruments on Ed Sheeran’s Shivers really stood out, with a bite and precision that really emphasised the details.
Increasing the spatial height and width to their maximum made Noah Jones’ Come Away With Me sound like it was coming from the entire wall, not just the speaker in the centre of it; dialling everything back to a lower level then concentrated the sound without sounding at all enclosed or isolated.
The Home 400 sits in the middle of the range, and based on my early demo could also be the price/performance sweet spot. It’s packing six speakers: dual 0.75in tweeters, two 4.5in woofers, and two 1.25in mid-range drivers in an up-firing arrangement for native Atmos audio.
Denon says one of these can do the job of two rear channels when paired to its Home Soundbar 550. I can believe it: the sense of space I got from an Atmos mix of The Doors’ moody Riders on the storm was huge. The backing vocals and thunder, which sit quite far back in the stereo version, were lifted out and really emphasised.
Everything sounded airier with the virtualisation active, with a really accentuated high-end. It absolutely wasn’t short on volume, either.
It may be a tiddler compared to the other two new arrivals, but the Denon Home 200 still finds room inside for three speaker drivers (two 1in tweeters and a 4in mid-bass unit), each with their own dedicated class D amplifier.
Atmos is handled virtually here, but you can run two in a stereo pair – something the outgoing Denon Home 150 couldn’t manage – and add the Denon Home subwoofer for true 2.1 listening. It also plays nicely with the Denon Home Soundbar 550 for a 5.1-channel setup, assuming you have deep enough pockets.
I got to hear the Home 200 solo and as a stereo pair during my demo. It puts out a surprising amount of low-end for such a small unit, yet seemed clean and controlled when tasked with James Blake’s atmospheric Fall Back; the bassline didn’t bleed into the synth layer, while the virtual spatial upmixing filled the space very convincingly. I imagine one of these would suit smaller rooms like home offices, or take up residence on a bedside table.
My other takeaway from the demo? The Heos app didn’t need to do much to deliver a better user experience than Sonos, which is still in recovery mode following an infamous update that stripped out many fan favourite features – but the streamlined UI is a definite step in the right direction.
Navigation is straightforward, the setup process has been made smoother, and the “pinch to party” gesture that instantly groups all your speakers together is wonderfully simple.
The refreshed Denon Home lineup is on sale in the UK and Europe right now, with US shipping due shortly. Prices start at $399/£29/€349 for the Denon Home 200, climb to $599/£449/€499 for the Denon Home 400, and top out at $799/£599/€699 for the Denon Home 600. All three can be found at the Denon website and all the usual authorised retailers.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
