In its competitors with Sonos and Bose, Denon has a brand new arrow in its wi-fi, multiroom quiver: the Denon Dwelling Amp. It’s successfully the next-gen model of the getting old HEOS Amp HS2, with two vital new options that maintain it related in a contemporary house: an HDMI eARC enter and compatibility with multichannel Dolby Audio. Plus, there’s extra energy on faucet for linked audio system with as much as 125 watts per channel. You should purchase the Denon Dwelling Amp from retailers or denon.com for $799.
Denon has been slowly migrating its HEOS line of wi-fi multiroom audio system and elements over to its new Denon Dwelling model, and the Dwelling Amp is the most recent machine to be transitioned. It takes the center of the $499 HEOS Amp HS2 (which Denon continues to promote) and wraps it in a brand new, simple-yet-sophisticated physique that can mix extra seamlessly with individuals’s current hi-fi setups. The clear traces and squarish dimensions are very paying homage to the Sonos Amp ($699) and Bose Music Amplifier ($699), with contact controls on the entrance panel for preset entry, play/pause, observe skipping, and quantity management.
The entire common HEOS capabilities stay, like app-controlled multiroom music streaming from a wide range of well-liked companies like Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn, SiriusXM, Amazon Music, Tidal, iHeartRadio, Deezer, and SoundCloud. The machine can decode ALAC, FLAC, and WAV codecs as much as 24-bit/192kHz hi-res lossless audio, in addition to DSD 2.8MHz and 5.6MHz (a rarity within the wi-fi house audio area). The Dwelling Amp will work seamlessly with another HEOS-enabled machine like AV receivers from Denon, Marantz, and different manufacturers.
On the again panel, optical and USB-A digital inputs are joined by RCA analog inputs (the HEOS Amp’s 3.5mm enter has been omitted), together with four-way binding posts for linked passive audio system and a subwoofer output. New to the Dwelling Amp is the HDMI ARC/eARC enter and a devoted button for Bluetooth pairing.
That HDMI enter lets the Dwelling Amp downmix multichannel Dolby Audio (with Dolby Digital Plus compatibility) into two-channel sound — a useful characteristic for many who favor a stereo setup for his or her TV audio as a substitute of a soundbar or AV receiver-based multi-speaker association. Like the entire different inputs, the audio from the HDMI port will be shared throughout linked HEOS audio system within the house.
You should utilize wired or wi-fi networking to attach the Dwelling Amp to your community, although curiously Denon hasn’t upgraded the Amp’s Wi-Fi specs: It’s nonetheless twin band, 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac as a substitute of the newer Wi-Fi 6 or higher requirements.
Amplification continues to be two-channel, class D, however energy has been elevated significantly from the HEOS Amp HS2 (70 watts per channel @ 8 ohms) to 100 watts @ 8 ohms and 125 watts @ 4 ohms. Just like the Sonos Amp, you may run two units of audio system, so long as their mixed impedance isn’t lower than 4 ohms.
Like the remainder of Denon’s Dwelling sequence of wi-fi audio system (and the Sonos Amp), the Dwelling Amp will get Apple AirPlay 2 assist. You possibly can stream lossless audio at CD high quality from any Apple machine, and the Dwelling Amp will be added to the Apple Dwelling app, the place it may be managed together with another AirPlay gadgets chances are you’ll personal. One other profit to this functionality is Apple Siri voice management: So long as you may have an iPhone, Mac, or HomePod, you may management the Dwelling Amp utilizing Siri.
Amazon Alexa can also be suitable in case you use the HEOS Alexa talent, nevertheless there’s no assist for Google Assistant compatibility.
