Tom's Guide Verdict
The Denon Home 350 is a feature-packed smart speaker that’s compatible with a selection of voice assistants. It looks premium and sports a minimalist design, and its touch controls are intuitive and responsive. Setting up a multi-room system is super easy as the speaker can pair with other HEOS-compatible devices. The sound quality is powerful, clean and detailed, and three-dimensional so you can immerse yourself in it.
Pros
- +
Premium design
- +
Responsive touch controls and proximity sensor
- +
Easy multi-room setup
- +
Consistently powerful sound across genres
- +
Voice assistant support
Cons
- -
Costs an arm and a leg
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There’s a lot to love about the best smart speakers; nifty devices that can not only let you jam to your favorite tunes, but also help you with everyday tasks. There’s a whole range of smart speakers beyond Alexa, Google and Siri, and some that enable you to stream high fidelity audio, such as the Denon Home 350.
This premium-looking speaker produces three-dimensional audio, which sounds ridiculously good. Bass response is powerful while vocals are clear and detailed. The responsive touch controls and user-friendly app make controlling the Home 350 extremely easy. You can also pair it with any other HEOS-compatible speaker to create a multi-room setup.
But the speaker costs an arm and a leg, so should you pay the premium? Read my full Denon Room 350 review to find out.
Denon Home 350 review: Cheat sheet
- What is it? A smart speaker for multi-room streaming
- Who is it for? Anyone who wants whole-home audio and outstanding sound quality
- How much does it cost? It’s not the cheapest — the Denon Home 350 retails for $749 / £599
- What do we like? The premium design, easy setup, responsive touch controls, powerful sound across genres, and voice assistant support
- What don’t we like? It costs an arm and a leg!
Denon Home 350 review: Specs
Denon Home 350 review: Price & availability
The Denon Home 350 is part of the Japanese brand’s lineup of hi-fi smart speakers powered by HEOS, a proprietary wireless ecosystem. Retailing for $749 / £599, the Home 350 is the most expensive speaker in the Home family. It’s also pricier than the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin ($559) and the Sonos Era 300 ($449), two of its closest competitors.
While the Home 350 costs a premium, I think it’s well worth it. It sounds great, it looks lovely, it’s easy to control, and there are plenty of connectivity options.
Denon Home 350 review: Design & controls
- Premium, minimalist design
- Responsive touch controls
The Denon Home 350 shares design traits with other speakers in the Home lineup. Just like the Denon Home 150 ($249) and the Denon Home 250, the Home 350 is covered in soft fabric which wraps around its entire body, covering the front, rear and side speakers. The Home 350 looks smart and like you’ve paid big bucks for it, and it adds a premium touch to any space.
This is not a portable speaker at all, though, and it’s meant to stay put in one place (near a power socket). It measures 14.96 x 8.85 x 7.08 inches and weighs 13.88lbs, making it heavier than the Sonos Era 300 (9.9lbs) but lighter than the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin (14.33lbs).
Keeping with its minimalist design, the Home 350 doesn’t feature any fancy or reactive lighting, but you get a small LED light at the bottom, which changes colors depending on connection status.
As for controlling the speaker, there’s a touch panel that illuminates when you hover your finger nearby. There are six numbered buttons that you can customize via the app. By default, for example, 1 switches input to aux. Next to these numbers are the play/pause and volume up/down buttons, all of which are extremely responsive.
You’ll find a pair of Bluetooth and power buttons around the back, located between the input ports. Again, easy to reach and responsive. No notes, really. This is a well-designed speaker with an intuitive control scheme.
Denon Home 350 review: Features
- Easy to create a HEOS multi-room system
- Fantastic synchronization between speakers
- Compatible with Alexa and Siri
Unlike the best Bluetooth speakers I’ve tested, the Denon Home 350 is a smart speaker that can’t be used wirelessly, so you need to plug it into a wall outlet. This also means that it’s designed to stay put in one place, whether that’s a corner in your bedroom or on your living room’s coffee table. Denon doesn’t specify any IP rating so I’d recommend being careful with any liquids.
But similar to other Bluetooth speakers, you can pair the Home 350 with another HEOS-compatible speaker to create left and right channels of a stereo pair. What’s even better is that it works with another speaker that isn’t a Home 350 — so I did it with a Denon Home 150 and it worked like a charm.
It’s also extremely easy to set up a multi-room system, but you’ll need to download the companion app for that (more on that in a minute). Once finished, there’s fantastic synchronization between speakers with zero lag. Controlling the playback was seamless and instantaneous too — I’d press pause on the Home 350 and it would pause music on the Home 150 too.
If you use a voice assistant around the house, you’ll be pleased to know that the Home 350 supports Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri via AirPlay 2. I own an Amazon Echo Dot Gen 3 but I don’t use it a lot. However, I loved being able to ask the Home 350 for simple tasks, like checking the time and setting reminders. It also meant that I could go hands-free and not rely on my Google Pixel 7 Pro every time, especially if I was playing video games or cooking.
Denon Home 350 review: Connectivity & app
- Extremely user-friendly app
- Bluetooth and 3.5mm aux input
- USB-A port for thumb stick playback
One of the best things about the Denon Home 350 is its versatility when it comes to connectivity. Whether you want to listen wirelessly or you want to go old school with some good ol’ fashioned aux input, you can do so easily. The Home 350 utilizes Bluetooth to seamlessly connect to your smart devices, including Bluetooth-enabled turntables. As I mentioned in the previous section, there’s built-in 2.4/5GHz Wi-Fi support for creating a multi-room system.
For wired playback, you get a 3.5mm aux input as well as a USB-A port if you want to plug in a thumb drive to listen to music stored on it. See? Old school, and I love it. Also located around the back is an RJ-45 Ethernet port. All of these are missing from the Sonos Era 300 and the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin, neither of which feature as many physical ports.
Accompanying the Room 350 — and other speakers in the lineup — is the HEOS smartphone app, available for free on Android and iOS. The app is extremely user-friendly and sports a clean interface, and you’ll need it to create a multi-room system with other HEOS-compatible devices (such as the Denon Home 150). You can use the app to adjust the speaker’s equalizer too.
The best music streaming services are also embedded within the app, including Qobuz, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon, Pandora, Tune-In, and SoundCloud. Your Bluetooth device doesn’t need to be constantly connected to the Home 350 either, so you can listen to music without having your smartphone in range.
Denon Home 350 review: Sound quality
- Powerful bass response
- 10/10 performance across the board
- Sound fills rooms very well
Having tested many, many Bluetooth speakers and other kinds of audio gear, I don’t say this lightly, but the Denon Home 350 is, hands down, one of the best-sounding speakers out there. It features a well-balanced, full sound that fills rooms very well. Having used the Home 350 in my living room and our testing lab, I was highly impressed by the speaker’s loud volume and ability to flood the rooms with powerful sound, even when it was playing at just 45% volume.
It’s also equipped with six class D digital amplifiers that power the drivers, making the Home 350 a well-endowed speaker — and it shows when you listen to literally any tune.
In terms of its specs, the Home 350 is fitted with two 1-inch tweeters, two 2-inch mid-range drivers and two 6-inch woofers. It’s also equipped with six class D digital amplifiers that power the drivers, making the Home 350 a well-endowed speaker — and it shows when you listen to literally any tune.
To test the Home 350’s sound quality, I listened to songs I’m familiar with on Qobuz over Wi-Fi — as is the speaker’s intended use. The Home 350 offers gapless high-resolution playback up to 192KHz/24-bit using files in FLAC, WAV, ALAC, and DSD 2.8/5.6MHz formats. What’s even better is that regardless of where in the rooms I stood, I heard the same sound. That’s thanks to the DTS Neural:X upmixer which helps produce immersive, lifelike, three-dimensional sound.
The first song I listened to was ‘The Chain’ by Fleetwood Mac, and I was immediately impressed by how expressive each guitar note sounded. Each note plucked was clear and sharp, and the kick drum at the beginning sounded warm. As soon as the bassline kicked in during the chorus, it added plenty of depth to the song, and I felt fully immersed in the track. Also, that solo bassline in the instrumental bridge? I felt like I could feel it deep within my soul.
To test how the Home 350 handled high-pitched notes, or falsetto, I listened to ‘Cradled in Love’ by Poets of the Fall (a very underrated band, by the way). Marko Saaresto’s notes in the verse and especially the chorus never sounded piercing, and the transition from a low to high pitch and vice versa didn’t sound unpleasant either.
In 070 Shake’s ‘Elephant,’ the bass sounded powerful and her vocals were just as scratchy as she intended (in the best way possible), as there was enough room for me to appreciate their distortedness.
I then listened to heavier tracks. First up, ‘Holy Mountains’ by System of a Down. The switch-up from Serj Tankian’s soft vocals to powerful belting was seamless and the speaker handled it very well, and the song sounded downright amazing. Similarly, in 070 Shake’s ‘Elephant,’ the bass sounded powerful and her vocals were just as scratchy as she intended (in the best way possible), as there was enough room for me to appreciate their distortedness.
Finally, I thought I’d listen to some nice, relaxing music, the kind I turn to when I want to be transported to another world, so I listened to ‘Lumiére’ from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and ‘Main Theme Pt. 3’ from Baldur’s Gate 3. In the first track, Alice Duport-Percier’s vocals sounded absolutely magical, and I loved the soft yet detailed acoustic guitar. In ‘Main Theme Pt. 3,’ I was able to fully appreciate just how well the flute, oboe, French horn and other instruments harmonized, making an already stunning track sound even better.
Denon Home 350 review: Verdict
If you’re after top-notch sound quality over Wi-Fi and need a voice assistant at the same time, I can’t recommend the Denon Home 350 enough. It’s a very capable and well-endowed smart speaker with six drivers, including two large woofers, and every song sounds highly detailed through it. The speaker also creates three-dimensional, immersive sound that fills most rooms.
The Home 350 is easy to control too, either via touch controls or the app… or your voice! It also synchronizes well with other HEOS-compatible devices, or any other Denon Home smart speaker. You can use it as a left or right channel when using stereo sound.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the Home 350 is one of the finest-sounding speakers I’ve had the pleasure of testing. It’s my new favorite way to enjoy my playlists.
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