The wireless whole-home audio market has suddenly become highly competitive. For years, it was dominated by Sonos, who essentially invented the category. Suddenly, several mainstream audio brands have entered the race. One of these is Denon, who launched the HEOS multi-room system this summer.
Out of the gate, the HEOS lineup is pretty extensive. There are three self-contained wireless stereo speakers, the HEOS 3, 5 and 7 (CDN$330, $450 and $700 respectively); the 100-watt-per-channel HEOS Amp ($600) for people who want to use their own speakers; the HEOS Link ($400), a receiver/preamp for people who want to link an existing audio system to a HEOS system; and HEOS Extend ($100), for bringing Wi-Fi to HEOS zones with poor network coverage.
Granted, there are gaps in the line. There's no soundbar or subwoofer, for example, and there's no outdoor speaker. Still it's an impressive debut, and Denon will almost certainly add to the HEOS system.
SETUP
I tested a HEOS multi-room system with the HEOS 3, 5 and 7 speakers installed in three different rooms. To set the system up, you download HEOS app to your device from Apple's App store or Google Play. I ran setup on an iPhone 4S and iPad. The iPad version makes effective use of the tablet's greater screen real estate, especially in the Music menus.
When you first launch the HEOS app, you'll see a Setup Now button. When you select this function, the app will prompt you to connect your HEOS device to AC, turn it on, and then connect a supplied audio cable from your smart device's earphone output to the HEOS product's auxiliary input. That connection lets the HEOS speaker identify your home Wi-Fi network. You then choose a room name for the HEOS speaker from a drop-down list of names like "Den" and "Guest Room," or enter your own (say, "Gordon's Man Cave") using the virtual keyboard on your device You'll then be asked if you want to install another HEOS speaker.
The process is straightforward and works well. The first time around, the HEOS speaker failed to connect, but it worked on the second try and every time thereafter. I put it down to spotty Wi-Fi coverage.
All HEOS products have Ethernet jacks, for wired connection to a local network. That's not practical in my home, so I used Wi-Fi for all my tests. On only one occasion did I experience any interruptions in playback of music on my devices. Playback of music streamed from the Net will of course depend on the service and on the state of your Internet connection.
USING HEOS
The app's Rooms Menu shows all the HEOS devices in your system. You can create groups of rooms just by dragging one HEOS device over another in the Rooms Menu, then stream the same content to several rooms at once. In my tests, playback in different rooms was perfectly synchronized, which is an important consideration for multi-room sound. During group playback, you'll see just one volume solider in the Now Playing window, but when you tap it, you'll see separate sliders for each device in the group, plus master volume. This allows you to adjust volume individually for each room, as well as overall volume.
You choose the music you want to hear from the Music Menu. The opening screen shows all the music sources available through HEOS. You can play music stored on your smart device. Selecting that option presents a menu where you can select playlists, artists, albums, genres or tracks; there's also a search function. You can also play music from supported streaming services, which in Canada include Deezer, Spotify and TuneIn. After choosing what you want to hear, a pop-up menu will ask whether you want your selection to Play Now, Play and Replace Queue, Play Next or Add to End of Queue.
When I first tried to play music from my iPhone 4S running iOS 7.1.2, the HEOS app behaved quite erratically. It only allowed me to select music by Tracks; if I tried to view Albums, Artists or Playlists, I got a "No Media" error message. That problem did not occur on an iPod touch running iOS 6.1.3 or on an iPad running iOS 8.0.1. Moreover, when I updated my iPhone 4S to iOS 8.0.2, the problem disappeared.
There are also options for playing music from a source connected to the USB or auxiliary input on a HEOS device. With this option, you can stream music from a source connected one HEOS device to other HEOS devices in your system, with synchronized playback.
You can also stream Local Music from a PC or NAS (network-attached storage) drive on your home network. Which brings me to my main criticism of the HEOS system: it is not at all Mac-friendly. It supports the main compressed music codecs (AAC, MP3, WMA), as well as uncompressed WAV and lossless FLAC. However, maximum resolution is 48kHz/16 bits. High-resolution playback is not supported at this time, though Denon hints that this may be coming. Also, the Apple Lossless (ALAC) format is not supported.
But the main problem is that it's almost impossible to use the Local Music function to stream music from a Mac. That's because HEOS relies on a protocol called UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) to stream music from networked computers, and Apple doesn't support UPnP. I tried installing a free UPnP application called Universal Media Server on my Mac Mini so I could stream music to the HEOS system. As expected, that enabled HEOS to find my Mac Mini. But I had to navigate through the entire directory tree structure to find the folder containing my music library (Users/Gordon/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media) to find my music. Response at every step was painfully slow, and what I saw in the end was the individual folders (mostly artist names), with no album art or other information. HEOS may well work more gracefully with Windows PCs (I can't say, because I don't own one), but it's not really usable for Mac OS X.
However, streaming from networked computers is clearly secondary to streaming from mobile devices for the HEOS system. And other than the initial inexplicable hiccup described above, that function worked perfectly throughout my tests. It's worth noting that multiple mobile devices can control playback in a HEOS system. And as in other wireless multi-room systems, one user can bump a previous users' streams.
THE SPEAKERS
As the audio performance of the HEOS Link and Amp will depend primarily on the quality of attached components (and of course the program content), I focused on the three wireless speakers.
They're all visually attractive. Available in black and white finishes, all HEOS speakers have moulded triangular enclosures covered in matching grille cloth. The HEOS 7 also has a metallic accent on the top. Denon does not specify driver size or amplifier power for any of its HEOS speakers.
Intended for small to medium-size rooms, the HEOS 3 contains two full-range drivers, each with its own Class D amp. The speaker can be installed vertically or horizontally. During setup, the app asks which orientation you'll be using. Two speakers can be paired for a better stereo effect, with one playing the right channel and the other playing the left.
Intended for medium to large rooms, the HEOS 5 contains two woofers, two tweeters and a passive radiator, with four digital amps powering the active drivers.
The HEOS 7 (shown at top of story) contains two tweeters, two mid-woofers, a shared subwoofer and two passive radiators, with five channels of Class D amplification for the active drivers. There's also a headphone output for private listening. The HEOS 7 is intended for large rooms and open-concept living spaces.
THE SOUND
My main listening consisted of lossless CD-quality music, mostly jazz, streamed from my iPhone 4S. I left the bass and treble slides in the app's EQ function for the three speakers in the neutral centre position.
Bearing in mind the inevitable tradeoffs in a compact self-contained powered stereo speaker, I was favourably impressed with all three models. None of them can truly be called "neutral," but they are all very pleasant-sounding, and the HEOS 7 in particular is very satisfying.
Sonically, they all seem cut from similar cloth, which isn't surprising given that they all bear the same brand, and that they all employ digital processing to optimize sound for the drivers and enclosures.
The HEOS 3 sounded warm and lively, though compared to the other two speakers (not to mention my hi-fi component system), it had a tabletop-radio quality to it. I was impressed with the snappiness in the string bass on "Entelechy" from Paul Bley's album Not Two Not One. Patricia Barber's voice in "Lost in This Love" from Verse had a slightly nasal quality, but only slightly; and when her band really erupted, the sound was a little congested, as you'd expect from such a compact speaker. Also as you'd expect, frequency response was somewhat limited at both ends of the spectrum. But given that we're dealing with a small tabletop system, it was still mighty impressive.
The HEOS 5 sounded bigger, fuller and more dynamic. Gary Peacock's bass on "Entelechy" extended deeper, but it wasn't as snappy, becoming a little indistinct when it descended to the bottom string. On "Now" from the same album, Paul Bley's solo piano work had very impressive heft in the lower octaves - very impressive for a small self-contained speaker. The top end sounded natural and satisfying, though a little lacking in sparkle.
The HEOS 7 took the sound in all these tracks to the next level. Gary Peacock's bass had very good extension and snap. Timbres and dynamics were nicely convincing on Patricia Barber's "Lost in This Love." The whole presentation sounded big and effortless. Except for the lack of stereo spread, we're getting very close to true high fidelity here. My main quibble is that bass sounded a bit goosed - but I think many people will like it that way. I have no doubt that this single-piece stereo speaker can fill a very large living space with satisfying sound.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The HEOS system marks a very impressive debut by Denon into the wireless multi-room category. As I've described above, all the three speakers deliver surprisingly satisfying sound for the compact form factors. (Given the pedigree, this probably shouldn't be a surprise.) Casual listeners will be delighted with the sound of the HEOS speakers; and even audiophiles will find it satisfying for background listening. Granted, they fall behind full-blown component systems in areas like dynamics, bass and high-frequency extension, clarity and transient response. But for more serious listening, discerning users can install a HEOS Link or Amp.
Equally important, the software is functional, robust and easy to navigate. As noted above, the only serious weakness is the lack of Mac support. But listeners who want a high-performance way of streaming music throughout their homes from their mobile devices, or from the Cloud, should definitely keep the HEOS system on their radar.