Denon Home 150 Black

Since last week I have the Denon Home 150 in my possession. I've had a Sony SRS-ZR5 for some time now. These are no longer available, so it was not possible to expand with them. I was very curious about the latest Denon HEOS line and now have the Home 150.

My first impression: a lot nicer than the previous HEOS line, solidly built and a fantastic sound. But just step by step:

1. Connecting: It turned out that my router didn't have a WPS button, so setting it up was unfortunately not so easy. Setting via the HEOS app or autodiscover is not possible. Connect wired with an Ethernet cable to the router. Then search through the app. Still quickly arranged, but a pity that you cannot enter the SSID manually. The HEOS app is clear and the Quick Start Guide tells you just enough to get it up and running.

2. Spotiy Spotify is my primary music source via smartphone. Start Spotify, select a song, click on available devices and choose the Denon Home 150. Done. What a wonderful sound this thing produces. Tested with Pink Floyd, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Goldberg Variations by Bach, Four Seasons by Vivaldi, Dire Straits. All very nice sound.

3. The sound The sound is clear and well balanced. The HEOS app lets you easily control bass and treble, but I just have it in the neutral position. Even at low volume there is sufficient definition in the sound, subtle details remain clearly audible. And if you open it up just as well, you get the impression that there is more to howling than one speaker of barely 20 cm high. Too bad I only have 1, this really needs expansion.

4. Internet radio Take a look at how internet radio sounds. Select the country, search for the channel and put it in favourites. This speaker can store 3 of them. Turn it on via the app. Then press and hold the button 1, 2 or 3 on the speaker. If the blue light flashes, it is in the memory and the station can be recalled immediately. It's also nice that the display lights up immediately when you come close to your speaker. The keys also respond with a very light touch.

5. USB Just put a few flac files on a stick. You press this at the back of the speaker and scroll through the menu in the app. The USB folders are hidden a bit deeper, but are still easy to find. What is striking is that the speaker reacts very quickly to selecting a track, almost without delay. And here too: very good sound!

My conclusion after the first week: this Denon Home 150 is definitely worth it. What a fine speaker! He really asks for family expansion, I'm so curious about the multi-room functionality....

Final note: Coolblue thinks I should assess the battery life, but it is not in this speaker. I'm not going to give this a low score, that would detract from this speaker.

Beautiful sound! Much fuller and more natural than the Sonos One (put them side by side to test). Nice layered sound, sounds very natural. Found it a bit disappointing at first, but after some experimentation I found out that it sounds much better via Airplay than via Spotify itself (via connect). Controlling volume from your phone is also better this way, so totally great :)

Sonos app is a bit nicer than Heos's, but that does not outweigh the quality of the sound. Also very nice that it is possible to connect a 3.5mm cable to it: in this way 0 sound delay if I want to listen to movies via my laptop (at least that's what I assume, I'll test it tomorrow).

With Denon the sound fills the room (so also very nice in combination with watching movies: a mini cinema experience), with Sonos it comes clearly from that one speaker. I think the Sonos is really much more intended as part of several boxes for a surround sound. This Denon does it beautifully on his own.

And I think the design of the Denon is much nicer than that of Sonos, but that's very personal of course ;)

I have been using this speaker for about 2 weeks now. It is in my kitchen where it is often used for listening to the radio, Spotify and streaming. This small box just completes the kitchen, 20m2. A size bigger might not have been an unnecessary luxury.

Due to the beautiful design, it will not look out of place in our sleek kitchen. The quality of the sound is fine. The buttons on top of the speaker, which become active as soon as your hand is above them, make the speaker easy to operate. You can easily switch between the music sources. If you choose HEOS, it will automatically continue playing from the last source.

We also already have a HEOS bar in the living room that is easy to connect to this home speaker. This made it very nice to hear the same music in both rooms during a party.

My expectations of this speaker were fairly high and this speaker can meet that.