Denon

Denon Home 400: review in two minutes

The Denon Home 400 is part of the Japanese brand’s completely repositioned Home 2.0 range for 2026, and it doesn’t take much to see the updates as a direct challenge to Sonos and the best wireless speakers on the market. The range includes three speakers – the Denon Home 200, 400 and 600 – all of which promise spatial sound from a single enclosure. They are all tuned by sound masters, designed for native stereo playback even as single units, deliver an immersive experience and feature refined designs.

The Denon Home 400 is right in the middle of the range, but occupies a somewhat ideal place. Its $599 price tag puts it in the same league as the Sonos Era 300, and I think Denon comes out of the comparison as the better option.

With Sonos, however, there’s no shortage of competition from Apple’s HomePods, JBL’s Authentics 300, and WiiM Sound smart speakers. Although the Denon line technically supports Siri, it’s a product that’s far more focused on sound than intelligence.

In use the sound is great and highly customizable with a full spatial audio experience where you can really hear the difference. The HEOS app works wonderfully and setup is a breeze. He also has a sense of style. This is a speaker that looks premium rather than plastic, and that alone may make it easier to recommend than Sonos for many potential buyers.

But is it worth the high price? I went out into the field to find out what the Denon does differently.

Denon Home 400 review: price and availability

• Released March 24, 2026
• $599 / £449 / AU$999 (approximately)

The Denon Home 400 costs $599 / £449 / AU$999 (approximately) and is clearly positioned to compete with the Sonos Era 300, which officially costs $479 / £449 / AU$749, but is a little more likely to be available, having dropped to $379 / £339 on Amazon in the last six months.

Other similarly sized rivals include the JBL Authentics 300, which costs $450 / £380 / AU$600, or the bass-heavy Brane X for $599 / £475 / AU$915. Apple fans will also, of course, wonder whether a HomePod 2 ($299 / £299 / AU$479) might better suit their needs, as it offers some nifty tricks and perks for iOS loyalists.

Denon Home 400 review: specifications

Denon Home 400 review: features

• Native Dolby Atmos with adjustable height and bass
• Multiple connectivity options
• Voice control only via Siri, and only if you already have a HomePod

The main selling point of all the new speakers in the Denon range is support for Dolby Atmos with adjustable sound modes. I’ll go into this in more detail in the “Sound Quality” section below, but it’s a significant differentiator between this speaker and most of its competitors. The vast majority of other smart speakers will either not have Atmos or will rely on some (admittedly clever) spatial virtualization digital processing trick. This is also what the Denon Home 200 does.

The only option offering good Atmos is the aforementioned Sonos Era 300. The Denon Home 400, just like that rival, packs true Dolby Atmos with a six-speaker setup: dedicated left and right speakers, upfiring speaker units, and two 4.5-inch woofers (all powered by six independent Class-D amplifiers). That means you’ll get a lot more width – throw a Dolby Atmos track through this speaker and you’ll hear a wider soundstage – and actual height, because it bounces sound off your ceiling. Auto mode adjustability means you can dial in exactly how much bass extension, width or height you want.

You can use voice assistance on this speaker, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s a flagship feature. Apple’s Siri is the only voice assistant offered, so you won’t find Google Assistant or Alexa as an option during setup. And, to set it up, you need to have an Apple HomePod or HomePod mini on your Wi-Fi network to handle the Siri requests you make on the Denon speaker.

Luckily I have HomePods in another room, so I was able to test that, and it works pretty well, but I wouldn’t suggest it’s a speaker with built-in voice control. This is more of a niche supplement, provided you already have an additional accessory that would cost you at least £99.

In general, the HEOS app (HEOS stands for Home Entertainment Operating System, thanks for asking) is excellent and ideal if you think you can set up a multi-room speaker ecosystem after investing in this one. It covers multiple brands, not just Denon, and works with a wide range of speakers, soundbars and receivers.

Overall, the Denon Home 400 offers a wide range of connectivity options, including 3.5mm AUX for use with turntables or MP3 players, and a single native Bluetooth button for connecting to other devices if you’re not using the app. Bluetooth LE Audio arrives via an update and supports ALAC and aptX formats via Bluetooth. You also get Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, and Qobuz Connect built-in.

Thanks to the USB-C port, you can deliver firmware updates via USB or use wired Ethernet via any USB-C adapter, which is a nice advantage over others that might tempt you to purchase a proprietary dongle. Obviously it’s not quite the same as built-in Ethernet, but it’s not a feature everyone would use.

There’s no remote with the speaker, it’s designed for use with the feature-rich HEOS app, where you can bring together your music services – including Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Tidal, Qobuz and TuneIn – and your internet radio stations, as well as control multi-room setup and audio customizations. I would have liked my choice of streaming service, Apple Music, to be added to the choices, but otherwise it’s an app I find hard to fault.

• Features rating: 4.5/5

Denon Home 400 review: sound quality

• Exceptional spatial audio performance from a single unit
• Excellent height and width customization
• Pure mode for a more direct and balanced experience

We’re going to talk a lot about spatial audio in this section, because it’s really the highlight of the Denon Home 400. It can take a well-encoded Atmos mix and make it feel three-dimensional. It’s in the Auto setting by default, and that’s probably where I’d leave it in my environment, in which it’s more than capable of producing immersive, room-filling audio.

If spatial is not for you, you will prefer Pure sound mode. This bypasses the DSP and is a great mode for anyone who wants to experience a typical stereo image.

I had previously had the chance to hear the Denon Home 400 in a hotel suite in London, and that gave me an idea of ​​how impressive it would be. During the Ed Sheeran show Thrill, I could hear a noticeable height extension that makes it noticeably different compared to the Home 200. Listening to the Atmos mix of Riders in the Storm from The Doors reveals background vocals in the pitch layer, an element harder to spot in neutral mode.

Having the speaker in my own apartment only confirmed how adept it is at spatial sound. To test it, I mainly focused on playing Dolby Atmos from Apple Music via AirPlay, but I also used it with Spotify Connect, radio stations, and set up Spotify and Deezer in the HEOS app to test them as well. The experience is compelling, there’s plenty of clarity to be heard across the entire frequency range and two woofers deliver significant bass punch.

Listening to Raye Where is my husband! in Dolby Atmos is very rewarding for the amount of extra detail you begin to hear in the layers of instrumentation, while still keeping his powerful vocals front and center. I used the HEOS app to adjust the width and height utter, and one can feel the backing vocals expanding across the soundstage, the instruments becoming easier to identify in space.

Put the 400 in Pure mode and switch to Symphony Click Clac shows that there is a place for both modes. Pure is much more direct and balanced. There is clearly more vocal presence in this mode and the stomps have much more impact. You can get a different sound experience by switching between the two modes, which this track shows so well: it’s borderline ethereal in Auto mode with those spatial customizations, but sounds intimate with the Pure setting.

In general, I find the sound difficult to fault. By default, Auto mode can have a little too much bass for my liking, but this is easily remedied by moving the slider down two notches in the app. Pure mode is fairly neutral in its approach, but still has its share of energy and dynamism. If you’re listening to spacey tracks, play with Auto, but most of us should find Pure less tiring, making it a better “set it and forget it” option.

• Sound quality rating: 4.5/5

Denon Home 400 review: design

• Durable and elegant appearance
• Two neutral colors
• Will fit most living spaces

Immediately after unboxing, it’s clear that the Denon Home 400 is more than your average utility speaker. The best thing about its design is the lack of visibility. The plastic, which is only really visible on the upper part of the speaker. The rest is covered in a seamless piece of fabric, with no obvious seams, and the bottom of the speaker – like all models in Denon’s new range – is a sturdy titanium baseplate. This adds a bit of bulk, of course, but also the satisfaction of knowing it’s durable and can’t be knocked over.

Below the speaker, a light turns on to let you know it’s on. This is something that my wife initially thought would ruin the look, but it’s easily fixed because you can dim the brightness (or turn the light off completely) in the app. Crisis averted. There are physical controls on the right side of the device, letting you control volume and playback, as well as three quick-select buttons (for your favorite Internet radio stations or streaming services) and an action button for invoking voice control.

The speaker is also available in the same two neutral colors as the rest of the range – Charcoal and Stone (my review unit). I have no complaints. It’s a speaker designed to look great in the living room without drawing attention, and that’s exactly what it does. It’s also worth noting that on the back there is a switch to mute the microphone and this is a hardwired mute button that is not connected to network circuitry.

I find that it feels much less plasticky compared to competing speakers (looking at you, Sonos) and that the Home 400’s buttons and controls are easier to understand and use (looking at you, Apple). He ends up winning on several fronts.

• Design rating: 5/5

Denon Home 400 review: usability and setup

• Controls are easy to understand and use
• The HEOS app is intuitive and feature-rich
• But there’s not much voice control available here

The Denon Home 400 is an exceptionally simple speaker to set up and use. The box gives you the speaker itself and the power cable. Once plugged in, you set it up with the HEOS app, a process that took me about five to 10 minutes, and connect it to your home Wi-Fi network, telling the app whether the speaker is away from the walls, in a corner, or right in front of a wall, which helps it tailor its sound.

You have to use the app to get all the internet-connected features, but it doesn’t take long to get started. Once you’ve chosen some favorite radio stations in the app, you can also long-press the preset buttons to save them for quick access, and you can always just use the Bluetooth button to connect devices that may not be on your wireless network. The same goes for wired playback.

I tested both with my MP3 player, the Activo P1, and found it smooth to use. However, it’s worth mentioning that I wasn’t able to get the Denon to play on any of its supported high-res Bluetooth codecs compared to the P1; it got stuck in SBC despite supporting higher bandwidth options.

In everyday life, however, its use is very intuitive, both wirelessly and if you connect an AUX cable to an MP3 player, CD player or vinyl turntable. Denon said the goal of this product is to let you listen to your music with as few button presses as possible, and that remains true during use whether you’re using those quick select buttons or just playing wirelessly through the HEOS app, Spotify Connect, or AirPlay. The only downside would be for those who are used to voice control of their playlists. Unless you use Siri and already have a HomePod, it doesn’t work well for this.

If you want to create multi-room groups, this would also work well, with controls in the HEOS app, as well as the ability to create a stereo pair with two Denon Home 400s. It’s also a nice feature that the ability to mute the microphone is a physical control, and not something that exists solely in software, something that’s great for peace of mind if you don’t want to use voice assistance or have your voice recorded.

• Usability and configuration score: 4.5/5

Denon Home 400 review: value for money

• Premium price corresponding to the Sonos Era 300
• Cheaper units don’t provide as good spatial sound
• Rivals are a bit better at voice control, though

At $599, the Home 400 is priced at the top of the premium standalone home speaker market, making it a direct rival to the Sonos Era 300. For me, the Denon more than matches its Sonos competitors when it comes to powerful spatial audio and is also a sleeker speaker with more intuitive control and better connectivity. The Denon gives you spatial customization that Sonos lacks, and it also has built-in AUX, USB-C, and the Ethernet option.

While competitors like the Sonos Era 100 and Apple HomePod are cheaper, they’re also more locked into ecosystems. They’re good, affordable rivals, but the Denon offers more powerful, more immersive, and more customizable sound. And, while the JBL Authentics 300 also has a lot of appeal and I’m particularly a fan of its retro styling and controls, it lacks native Dolby Atmos, so it doesn’t feel like a direct rival.

The only thing you need to keep in mind is the Denon’s lack of capable voice assistance at launch, but if that doesn’t matter to you, the customizable spatial sound, the ability to connect to players and turntables, and the intuitive control make the Denon Home 400 a good value buy at this price point. Just make sure you like spatial sound and know you want to hear the layers inside a mix, because that’s what sets it apart.

• Value rating: 4.5/5

Should I buy the Denon Home 400?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Denon Home 400 review: think too

Drag to scroll horizontally

Denon Home 400 competitors

Header Cell – Column 0	Denon Home 400	Sonos era 300	Apple HomePod2
Price	$599 / £449 / AU$999) approx.)	$449 / £449 / AU$749	$299 / £299 / AU$479
Speaker Drivers	2 x 0.75 inch tweeters, 2 x 1 inch upfiring drivers, 2 x 4.5 inch woofers	4x tweeters, 2x woofers	5x tweeters, 1x woofer
Amplification	6x Class D amps	6x Class D amps	Not listed
Dimensions	11.8 x 5.9 x 8.6 inches (300 x 150 x 219 mm)	6.30 x 10.24 x 7.28 inches / 160 x 260 x 185 mm	5.6 x 6.6 x 5.6 inches / 142 x 168 x 142 mm
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth, 3.5mm line-in, USB-C	Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C (3.5mm line-in and Ethernet via adapter)	Wi-Fi (802.11n), Bluetooth 5.0 (no audio)
Streaming support	HEOS app, Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, Apple AirPlay 2	Sonos app, Apple AirPlay 2	Apple AirPlay 2
Voice assistant support	Siri (only if you have a HomePod on the same Wi-Fi network)	Alexa, Sonos voice control	Siri
Other features	HEOS multiroom, stereo pairing	Dolby Atmos support, Sonos multiroom control, Sonos home theater option, stereo pair option	Dolby Atmos support, Thread/HomeKit smart home hub, auto calibration, stereo pairing option, Apple TV home theater option

How I tested the Denon Home 400

• Tested with music streamed from Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music via AirPlay and radio stations in the HEOS app
• I also tested Bluetooth and wired performance with the Activo P1 audio player
• Audio Pro A10 MkII used for comparison in listening tests
• Tested over several weeks of casual and critical listening

I tested the Denon Home 400 using a wide range of different genres and music styles, including popular hits, soundtracks, ambient playlists, and classical. I also listened to podcasts and radio content during several weeks of testing. I mainly used the Denon Home 400 in one place, on a table in my living room, and that gave me an idea of ​​its ability to fill the space in my small apartment.

I used Bluetooth and wired connections with my Activo P1 music player, and I also streamed using the HEOS app itself, accessing Deezer, Spotify, and radio stations from that interface. Most of my spatial listening was tested via AirPlay, playing tracks mixed for Dolby Atmos via Apple Music.

To make direct comparisons, I used the other speakers I currently have in my apartment, including an Audio Pro A10 MkII and a few HomePod Minis in a stereo pair. And, to fully understand the speaker’s performance, I made sure to listen to the widest possible range of genres at different volume levels.

• First revision: June 2026
• Read TechRadar Reviews Guarantee

Simon Cocks is a freelance tech journalist and former technology editor for Good Housekeeping UK. With over a decade of experience, Simon has written for several major titles, including Esquire, Digital Spy, Shortlist and Men’s Health. He specializes in testing the latest gadgets and has reviewed smartphones, headphones, speakers, e-readers and much more.

Related

Ivan Mehta