MARCH 2022 T3 71Denon Home Soundbar 550
there it’s dealt with by hardware not
only capable of handling Dolby Atmos
and DTS:X soundtracks but
24bit/192kHz and DSD5.6 too. Once
decoded, it’s handed over to a driver
array consisting of a pair of 19mm
tweeters, four 55mm full-range
drivers and a trio of 50 x 90mm
‘racetrack’ passive radiators. Given
that none of these drivers fires
upwards, though, it’s the
responsibility of the Home 550’s digital
sound processing circuitry to conjure
the impression of ‘height’ and ‘width’
to the soundbar’s presentation.
Sound barrier
The first box any soundbar has to tick
is marked ‘sounds better than an
unaccompanied TV’. Not much of an
ask, but yes, the 550 sounds a lot better
than your average TV.
And, even better, it sounds a lot
bigger than its 75 x 650 x 120mm
physical dimensions might suggest.
Stick on a movie with a Dolby Atmos
soundtrack and the Denon is capable
of quite impressive scale – its
presentation is deep, wide and tall.
Unless your TV is hanging on a
particularly large wall, the 550 will
have no trouble projecting sound close
to each of its four corners.
Low frequency presence is quite
impressive for a soundbar that’s
unaccompanied by a subwoofer, and at
the opposite end of the frequency
range there’s a nice balance of shine
and attack. The midrange projects well
and carries good levels of detail. In
fact, the Denon will happily sink its
teeth into the excesses of a show-piece
Hollywood soundtrack.
All of this assumes a volume level
that doesn’t exceed ‘realistic’. Show a
bit more ambition where volumes are
concerned and the Denon bares its
teeth, abandoning its composure and
becoming quite aggressive and
upfront. This quite fundamental
change of attitude is accompanied by
an obvious change in tonality. Treble
and midrange become edgy to the point
of stridency, and dynamic light and
shade is abandoned in favour of all-out
everything-louder-than-everything-
else attack. The lesson is: don’t drive
the Denon Home 550 too hard.
Switch to some music and the story
is much the same. Keep volume at a
civilised level and there’s a nice sense
of space to the Denon’s delivery.Elsewhere, you can control the
soundbar via Alexa, but if you don’t
fancy raising your voice, there’s a fair
degree of control available in the
HEOS app and a larger degree via
the 550’s remote control. It’s not the
most luxurious handset but it covers
most aspects of the soundbar’s
functionality. On the top of the bar,
there’s a proximity-sensing touch-
control pad that lets you adjust volume
and switch between ‘play’ and ‘pause’.
In some ways, the Denon Home
Sound Bar 550 is as good as any
compact subwoofer at a similar price- and better-specified than many of
them. It undergoes a fundamental
change of character at volume, though - and that’s not a good thing.
As long as you don’t
have the volume
too loud, the Denon
will delightSONOS BEAM GEN 2
One of the best
manageably
proportioned
soundbars around.
While its Dolby
Atmos/DTS:X
performance isn’t as pronounced as the Home
550, it doesn’t lose its cool when asked to play loud.
£449, sonos.com
S O N Y H T- G 7 0 0
A little cheaper than
the Denon, it uses
the same digital
processing trickery to
produce Dolby Atmos.
It features HDMI
passthrough and a wireless subwoofer but has
fewer drivers, which means it’s not as dynamic.
£399, sony.co.ukTHE ALTERNATIVES
WE’RE IMPRESSED Good
specification; good flexibility;
tall and convincing audio
presentation.
WE’D IMPROVE Loses
composure at volume; looks
better than it feels.
THE LAST WORD Good
selection of inputs, a decent
app and some areas of truly
impressive audio reproduction.
Go carefully with that volume
control though.VERDICT
Find the best Denon Soundbar
550 deals at: bit.ly/t3den550