Denon home 400
pros and cons
- Hi-res audio support
- Multi-room integration
- Dolby Atmos support
- More expensive than competitors
- Vague EQ settings
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Sonos has perhaps been the most recognized name in the home speaker market for some time, but Denon has something to say about that. The company recently launched its lineup of second-generation home speakers: the Denon Home 200, Home 400, and Home 600.
The Denon Home 400
For physical connections, there’s Wi-Fi, a USB-C port, a 3.5mm aux input, and a built-in microphone. While the HEOS ecosystem might not be as well-built as Sonos’s, in day-to-day use, HEOS works pretty well. Setup is easy, multi-room grouping is dependable, and you’ve got coverage across the major streaming services.
Music sounds excellent
Inside the Home 400, you’ll find six drivers total, including two tweeters, two 114mm (4.5-inch) woofers, and two up-firing drivers dedicated to height information. Every single one of those drivers gets its own dedicated Class D amplifier, giving the speaker precise control over each element of the sound.
This acoustic makeup is a major upgrade over the previous-generation Home 250, which had fewer drivers and couldn’t do anything close to true Atmos playback. The Home 400 is actually the first HEOS-enabled speaker to support real Dolby Atmos music playback, using physical upfiring drivers rather than virtualized height effects.
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You can hear the difference in compatible content, too. Whether you actually want to use Atmos while listening to music is another story. I sometimes find it enjoyable, but I usually prefer to stick to stereo playback. However, Atmos support does really help when you use these speakers as surrounds in a home theater setup. The immersion of 3D audio is noticeable from the surround speakers and the front channels, which can work together to enhance the height effect.
You can control the speaker’s frequency range, but it’s not very precise. To be clear, Sonos doesn’t give you very precise control either, so if you’re comparing the two, this isn’t necessarily a big drawback for this speaker specifically. You will get basic bass, treble, and height controls, so you can make heavy-handed adjustments, but the controls are a little hard to find.
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If you’re looking for immersive and full-sounding audio without paying a high price, the Denon Home 400 is absolutely worth considering. That said, whether it beats alternatives depends on your region. In some regions, like Europe, it costs the same as the Sonos Era 300
Source : ZDNet