🏆 Review score: 4/5
🏅 Editor’s Choice Award
✅ Pros
Noticably louder and more dynamic than all other competing smart speakers
Impressive sound delivers warm, crisp mids with resonating bass
Heos app supports up to 64 speakers in 32 groups – 2x more than the Sonos app
Visually streamlined Heos app makes configuring multi-room audio easy
3.5mm aux input included without any USB-dongle
❌ Cons
Largest of all the current smart speakers
Default settings can degrade the sound quality of this speaker
No native support for Google Assistant or Alexa+
Siri voice control requires a separate HomePod
Speaker groups are only accessible through the Heos app
The Shortcut Review
The $399 Denon Home 200 has come out on top as the best-sounding smart speaker. I’ve been putting Denon’s newest Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speaker to the test against all its modern rivals, including the $219 Sonos Era 100, $349 Apple HomePod 2, and $299 Bose Ultra Lifestyle Speaker, and the Denon Home 200 has consistently sounded louder and more dynamic with crisper mids and resonating bass.
That said, the Denon Home 200 is by no means perfect. It’s much bigger than all its competitors and nowhere nearly as smart. The speaker comes with no built-in support for Google Assistant or Alexa+, and while you can talk to Siri, you’ll need to have an Apple HomePod already set up in your home to use it.
This speaker also lacks a physical upfiring speaker, so if you want genuine, non-virtualized Dolby Atmos audio, you’ll have to trade up to the $599 Denon Home 400 or get the Bose Ultra Lifestyle Speaker instead.
Despite those limitations, for purely stereo sound, the Denon Home 200 is the best smart speaker for listening to music. And if you’re looking to create a stereo pair of Denon Home 200 units or an even bigger group of speakers, the Heos app offers a more visually streamlined experience that’s accessible to anyone on your Wi-Fi network. Just make sure to change the default app settings that can actually hamper the Denon Home 200’s audio quality.
Full Review
📏 Biggie-sized. The Denon Home 200 stands out as the largest smart home speaker next to the Sonos Era 100, Bose Ultra Home Speaker, and Apple HomePod 2. At 8.5 inches tall, the Home 200 is closer in size to an air purifier. Despite its larger size, its simple but elegant aluminum base and fabric exterior are muted enough that it just blends in with the rest of your home decor.
🔊 Big sound. The Denon Home 200 drives stereo sound with serious bass all on its own thanks to its dual tweeters and a 4-inch woofer. This makes the Denon Home 200 sound significantly louder than the Sonos Era 100. The Home 200 produces a more expansive soundscape with resonating bass, brighter highs, and crisp vocals. The Sonos Era 100 projects wider stereo sound with clearer vocals, but personally, the Home 200 just left a bigger impression, no matter which song I played on both speakers.
🏆 Better than the rest. I was blown away by how much better the Denon Home 200 sounded, and it also came out on top in head-to-head comparisons with the Apple HomePod 2 and the brand-new Bose Ultra Lifestyle Speaker, playing a variety of tracks like Black Eye, Hurt, Not Like Us, and Can I Kick It. The Denon Home 200 consistently produced more dynamism between the highs, mids, and lows. Comparatively, the HomePod 2 produces the cleanest sound, while the Bose Ultra Lifestyle Speaker delivers size-defying audio that’s almost as loud as the Denon Home 200 and also features a physically upfiring speaker.
🧠 Not so smart. I can hardly call the Denon Home 200 a smart speaker, as it lacks native support for Google Assistant or Alexa. The mics on the Home 200 are there purely to support Siri, but even then, it’s only available if you already have a HomePod connected in your home. If you’re looking for a truly smart speaker, you might be better off with Alexa on the Bose Ultra Speaker or the Sonos Era 100 that comes with the brand’s own smart assistant and Google Assistant.
🛜 Ready to connect. The Denon Home 200 comes with several connectivity options, including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, USB-C, and a 3.5mm aux input (that doesn’t require an adapter like Sonos). It can also connect directly to a variety of music apps through Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz Connect. AirPlay 2 is on tap, too, so you can stream audio directly to the Denon Home 200 with any Apple device. Google Cast is the only thing missing on this speaker, so if you’re an Android user, look to Sonos or Bose instead.
👨👩👦👦 Groupies. Denon’s Heos app allows you to pair the Home 200 into all sorts of speaker setups, and you can go for broke by assigning up to 64 products into 32 different zones. That’s double Sonos’s limit, which only allows up to 32 devices in a single Sonos system. I also like how visually streamlined the Heos app is compared to Sonos, as it puts rooms front and center in the app without having to dive into submenus.
Surprisingly, I was also able to group Denon speakers that my coworker set up on his own account, whereas a Sonos system can only be edited by its sole owner. Sonos, however, has a leg up on letting you access speaker groups from the Spotify app, whereas I can only use grouped Denon speakers from the Heos app.
📺 Home theater ready. Beyond creating speaker groups, the Home 200 can also be paired with the Denon Home 550 soundbar to serve as rear satellites in a home theater setup. However, as the Home 200 doesn’t feature any physically upfiring speakers, it can only virtualize Dolby Atmos audio. If you want the real McCoy for your home theater setup with a Denon system, you’ll have to step up to the Denon Home 400 for genuine upfiring speakers.
🎚️ Check those settings. As much as I like the Heos app, it assigns some strange default settings to the Denon Home 200 speaker. For starters, the default “Auto” sound mode actually attempts to virtualize all sound into spatial audio. While I usually love spatial audio on headphones like the AirPods Max 2 and Sony WH-1000XM6, I don’t expect it from a speaker designed specifically for stereo sound.
Additionally, Multi-room Audio Quality is set to normal by default, which compresses audio to 256kbps AAC format, defeating the whole point of streaming lossless audio over Wi-Fi. Even the most meager home Wi-Fi will handle uncompressed 16-bit, 44.1 kHz streaming across rooms.
🎛️ Playlist speed dial. On top of the usual set of playback and volume touch controls, the Denon Home 200 features three programmable preset buttons you can assign to play your favorite playlists and radio stations. You have to set it all up in the Denon Heos app, but once you do, you can press the buttons at any time to start playing music without reaching for your smartphone. I love the one-button playback shortcut, and it works across a variety of apps, including Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music HD, Tidal, Qobuz, and SiriusXM.
Should you buy the Denon Home 200?
✅ Yes, if…
You want the loudest and best-sounding smart speaker
You want to hear more dynamism from your music with crisper mids and resonant bass
You want to group a huge number of speakers into separate rooms
You want a smart home speaker setup that’s accessible to everyone in your household
❌ No, if…
$399 for a single smart speaker is too much (get the Sonos Era 100 instead)
You need a satellite speaker for your home theater setup (get the Denon Home 400 instead)
True, non-virtualized Dolby Atmos is a must (get the Bose Ultra Lifestyle Speaker instead)
You want a smart speaker you can talk to (get the Sonos Era 100 instead)
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam