I tested Denon’s top-of-the-range soundbar and it’s everything you’d expect from an audiophile brand — but there’s a catch

The Denon Home Sound Bar 550 is definitely one of the best soundbars I’ve tested, especially when you take into account that it’s just a 2.0 soundbar. This isn’t even a 3.0 — that means it only has as many channels as the super-basic $99 soundbars you might find on Amazon.

However, this performance doesn’t come cheap. For $699, the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 is incredibly expensive for a 2.0 channel setup. When used with the rest of Denon’s Home series, the overall price goes up to almost $3k — and you only get 5.1 channels.

If you’ve got money to burn, then by all means, the Denon Home series won’t disappoint. However, alternative soundbars provide similar sound at much better prices. So is this the soundbar for you? Find out in this Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review.

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A 2.0 channel soundbar, can be used alone or in a wider setup
• Who is it for? If you want a great soundbar and have $$$ to spend
• What does it cost? Eek: $699 / £599
• What do we like? The sound is undeniably good
• What don’t we like? For a 2.0 channel soundbar, it’s beyond expensive

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: Specs

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: Price & availability

The Denon Home Sound Bar 550 is available for $699 from Amazon U.S., $699 from Denon U.S., $699 from Best Buy U.S. and $699 from Walmart U.S.. I would purchase from whichever outlet is offering a discount, so ensure you check which retailer has deals live.

In the U.K., you’re getting a much better deal. The Denon 550 is £599 from Amazon U.K., but often discounted to between £400-£300. I think this is a much more acceptable price.

Even so, this price is around par for the course for a soundbar of this caliber. The Bose Smart Soundbar is probably its closest competitor; you’ll find it for $549 on Amazon U.S. and £499 on Amazon U.K.. The Polk Audio Signa S4 is a soundbar + subwoofer priced at $449/£329, and is my go-to recommendation for home cinema newbies. The Signa S4 is a fantastic option if you want to save money but still have a great experience.

Based purely on value, I’d recommend the Samsung Q600F ($599) over the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 — unless you prioritize smart home and smartphone-forward devices. The Samsung Q600F doesn’t have any smart home features, such as AirPlay.

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: Design & controls

• Simple, straightforward design
• Just 26 inches long
• 4.7 inches deep

The Denon Home Sound Bar 550 is a compact soundbar. At just 26 inches long, this is an ideal soundbar for small homes and small TVs. I tested it with a 55-inch Samsung flagship model and it looked really strange. If you’ve got a larger TV, I’d instead recommend the Polk Signa S4, which is 41 inches long.

In terms of appearance, the Home Sound Bar 550 looks exactly how you’d expect. It has a gray mesh casing, touch controls on the top, and a silver Denon logo on the front. It’s surprisingly deep, at almost 5 inches thick, so be mindful of that if you’ve got a particularly narrow TV stand. I don’t think I’d recommend wall-mounting this soundbar due to the depth.

Inside the soundbar you’ll find two speakers, which makes the Home Sound Bar 550 a 2.0 channel soundbar. As I said earlier, this is quite a pricey soundbar for just two speakers.

However, the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 is designed to be part of a Denon home sound system, not used alone. Denon makes a subwoofer and rear speakers to upgrade this soundbar to a 5.1 channel setup. If you have all the add-ons, your setup will look like this: Denon Home Sound Bar 550 ($699), Denon Home Subwoofer ($649), and the Denon 150, Denon 250, or Denon 350 speakers ($219, $499, $699 respectively).

So, if you got the whole setup with the best rear speakers, it’d set you back an eye-watering $2,746. That is really very expensive. Obviously the Home Sound bar 550 sounds fantastic, and I’ll discuss sound quality in full later. This makes the full setup around the same price as a Sonos setup, so it’s not out of this world. Good sound systems simply cost a lot of money.

Even so, I can’t review the soundbar’s performance in the “full” 5.1 setup, as that’s not the product I’m reviewing. I’m reviewing the Denon Home Sound Bar 550, not the Denon Home Surround System, which comprises numerous separate elements. So even though the soundbar is designed to be used with rear speakers and a subwoofer, my review does not cover the accessories.

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: Features

• Denon’s proprietary HEOS system
• Sound modes
• Dialogue enhancer is great

The Denon 550 has Denon’s proprietary HEOS system, which (kind of) acts like AirPlay or Google Cast. However, HEOS wirelessly syncs up Denon devices for multi-room, whole-house surround sound playback. Most of Denon’s range has HEOS now, so, for example, you’d be able to play music from the kitchen speaker, and sync up with the living room 550 soundbar.

You can also sync up your music streaming service and play directly from Spotify or Qobuz on the HEOS app. This is a really neat feature. I’ll discuss HEOS more in the ‘App’ section below.

Going back to soundbar features sans-HEOS, the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 has all the usual suspects you’d expect from a $699 soundbar. Bass and treble volume adjustment, dialogue enhancement, night mode, and sound mode.

I’ll discuss sound mode first. This is basically a listening/playback controller. You can choose from: Stereo, Dolby Audio - Surround, Dolby Audio - Movie Surround, DTS Virtual:X, and Pure.

These modes do what they say on the tin: pure and stereo are your basic listening profiles, then Dolby Audio and DTS Virtual:X are virtual surround sound playbacks. I mostly used Dolby Audio while testing as this resulted in the richest sound, even when I was watching on basic Netflix.

Even though it’s a 2.0 channel soundbar, using the Dolby Audio mode made me feel more immersed in what I was watching. It could just be placebo, but hey, if the placebo works, then the desired outcome has been achieved.

Last but also kind of least, night mode. Night mode is very simple: it just reduces bass so as not to awaken neighbors, roommates, or family members when watching at night. I wouldn’t recommend this for general use as it makes movies sound flat.

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: App

• Denon HEOS app for multi-room listening
• Connect additional speakers in the app
• Can link up music streaming services within the app

After downloading the HEOS app from the App Store, my phone instantly connected to the soundbar using AirPlay. I followed the instructions in the HEOS app and thought I was all set up and ready to go.

However, there were a few connectivity hiccups after the initial setup. The soundbar disconnected itself from my Wi-Fi and I had to reset it. I was able to get it set back up, but I’d be a little wary of connectivity hiccups, especially if you’re not particularly tech-savvy.

The HEOS app is very simple and easy to use, but, again, it’s designed to be used with a Denon home sound system, so it looks a little sparse with only one product. Here’s a screenshot from the app.

As you can see, the HEOS app is great for home hi-fi enthusiasts. You can add loads of streaming services like Qobuz, Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music. Once I’d connected to Qobuz — which was instant and painless — I could play music directly from the HEOS app via Qobuz.

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: Sound quality

• Great bass, even with no subwoofer
• Clear dialogue
• Faithful, natural sound across a range of mediums

I test every soundbar with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ on 4K UHD Blu-Ray, TV shows on Netflix, and music on Spotify and Qobuz.

Movies

I always test soundbars with ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ because the opening scene has it all: bass loud enough to shake floorboards, high-frequencies, layered diegetic sound effects, and expansive sound.

I watched ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ with “Dolby Atmos” enabled in the HEOS app. Obviously, though, a 2.0 channel soundbar is physically incapable of true Atmos, so I was skeptical of this.

I was actually really impressed with the soundbar’s performance, though. The jet engines were loud, but didn’t overpower the softer sounds of whooshing air or radio dialogue. The aforementioned high-frequency sound effects (ropes being untied, metal clinking) were audible over ‘Danger Zone’ and the jets taking off.

Although it wasn’t as immersive in terms of 360° audio as I would’ve liked, the overall sound was awesome for just two channels.

I was impressed with the bass performance during dogfighting scenes, even without a subwoofer. The bass was loud and rich, without overpowering dialogue. Even without ‘dialogue’ mode activated, I could hear every word spoken. While some male voices were a little too bassy (not something I’ve experienced on other soundbars), this didn’t negatively impact my experience.

After ‘Top Gun’, I watched ‘Thunderbolts’. The first thing I noticed was how good Florence Pugh’s voice sounded. The 550 handled her husky timbre well, and resulted in a really immersive voiceover at the beginning of the movie.

Even during action scenes, I could hear the string-heavy soundtrack over sound effects like smashing glass and visceral flesh stabbing. The diegetic and non-diegetic sound separation was excellent, but the 3D audio wasn’t as immersive as I wanted it to be. Obviously this is a physical limitation of a 2.0 channel soundbar.

After ‘Thunderbolts’, I watched ‘How To Train Your Dragon (2025)’. The original is my favorite movie of all time, so I took this test very seriously. I know exactly how it should sound, and the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 did a fantastic job. John Powell’s emotive soundtrack had great instrument separation, and the bass was surprisingly powerful.

During Hiccup and Toothless’s first flight, I could feel the wind whooshing past my ears. Although the scene wasn’t wholly immersive, for a 2.0 soundbar, the performance was admirable.

Again, all the dialogue sounded awesome. I never struggled to understand, even when lines were mumbled or shouted over loud noises.

Overall, the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 is a really impressive soundbar. I have no problems recommending it wholeheartedly. The bass is remarkably rich and loud, despite the lack of soundbar. On top of that, all dialogue was clear and intelligible, even in cluttered, noisy scenes.

TV

As I watched 4K UHD Blu-rays to test movies, I needed to test the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 with lower-resolution content as well. It’s unrealistic that you’ll only use a soundbar to watch creme-de-la-creme movies, so I always test with basic Netflix and other streaming apps.

First, I watched ‘Celebrity Traitors’ on BBC iPlayer. I activated dialogue enhancement mode in the HEOS app as this is a reality show, so I needed to be able to hear every word spoken.

The dialogue enhancer worked wonderfully well. It increased the volume and clarity of treble, but didn’t minimize bass or overall immersion. Obviously watching reality TV isn’t particularly immersive in the first place, but the Home Sound Bar 550 made it feel like I was watching something a little more high-caliber.

After ‘Celebrity Traitors’, I watched ‘Wednesday’ on Netflix. Again, this is non-Dolby-Atmos basic Netflix. I used the ‘Dolby Atmos - Surround’ playback mode, and it was really impressive. Even with a 5.1 rather than Dolby Atmos codec on Netflix, the Denon Home Sound Bar 550 did a good job of tricking me into believing otherwise.

‘Wednesday’ has a scene with a huge fire, and I could feel the embers burning all around me. The soundbar provided a surprising amount of height and depth even with just two speakers. There was one moment where the volume suddenly increased, but I can’t be certain that this wasn’t an audio-mixing issue as opposed to a Denon issue.

Music

To test music performance, I listened to a variety of genres using Qobuz, our best music streaming service for audiophiles. As I mentioned in the ‘App’ section, I linked up Qobuz directly with my HEOS app so I could play straight from the soundbar’s app.

First, I listened to ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ by Jose James. This song was flabbergasting, in the best way possible. I couldn’t quite believe how rich and immersive the sound was: I could feel each guitar string reverberate, and the percussion had a great deal of height. This was really impressive, and maybe the best soundbar I’ve ever tested for music playback.

Afterwards, I switched genres to electronic and played ‘I Like It Like That’ by Fcukers. While the bass was a little disappointing, the overall soundscape was rich and immersive. In the bridge, there’s a moment where the synth whooshes as if plunging underwater. This specific section was a standout of the whole track, and ticked all the right boxes.

Lastly, I played something heavier. I settled on ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’ by Wolf Alice, which is a grungey alternative rock track. The vocals were incredibly powerful in the verses, but the heavy sections were a little disappointing. In some moments, they felt muffled or restricted.

Even so, the overall music performance was awesome for a soundbar — particularly the soul track I mentioned first. I would definitely recommend using this soundbar as a music speaker for soul and acoustic, but would be a little wary of heavier genres.

Denon Home Sound Bar 550 review: Verdict

The Denon Home Sound Bar 550 is a fantastic soundbar ideal for hi-fi newbies. If you want a soundbar you can add additional pieces to, or if you want a full home sound system from a premium audio brand, then this is the perfect first piece.

No, it’s not cheap, at $699, and yes, there are other options from Samsung (the Q600F) and Polk Audio (the Signa S4) that are much better value. However, the Samsung and Polk Audio options can’t be added to in the same way that Denon pieces can (unless, of course, you have a Samsung AI-enabled TV).

For serious hi-fi enthusiasts, you need to keep this soundbar on your radar. It’s got everything you’d want: rich bass, clear dialogue, and impressive immersion. It’ll just cost you. But I suppose, aren't the best things worth paying for?