We all know and love Sonos, and why wouldn’t we, it looks good, sounds good, works well and integrates into any home or business. That said, having installed Sonos for many many years now I have found a few draw backs. Here at Sensory we got our hands on the Denon HEOS range to have a play around…

First thing you notice is how stylish the entire HEOS range is with a choice of white or black finish. Essentially the HEOS range does everything that the Sonos Range does and more!

There is a product to match every Sonos speaker, player and amp and Denon have obviously thought carefully about what Sonos were missing as they have added an even larger speaker (HEOS 7) which floods a very large space with sound. They have also included a 4 zone amplifier (HEOS Drive) to neaten up the installed wired solution.

In my opinion the ‘HEOS Drive’ is a welcome addition, it gets a BIG thumbs up! the neat 4 zone amplifier takes up far less space than lets say 4 Sonos Connect:amps and is easily rack mountable out of the box. It comes with 4 stereo line in RCA’s and the option to connect 4 USB storage devices.

I have come unstuck in the past using Sonos, obviously Sonos want the customer to buy as much Sonos equipment as possible so in certain set ups the Subwoofer line out on a connect:amp is disabled meaning we are forced into using the dedicated Sonos Sub. This is not the case with Denon HEOS, we find ourselves being able to use 3rd party speakers and subwoofers in any configuration we wish.

The overall sound of the HEOS wireless speaker range is really good in comparison to Sonos, it should be too, Denon have been manufacturing Pro audio equipment for 100 years so know what they are doing.

The HEOS speakers were easier to set up than Sonos and the mobile App seems just that little bit more intuitive to use than the Sonos App.

The overall verdict is Good! I wouldn’t suggest rushing to replace Sonos if you already have it, however if you are in the market for a wireless speaker system or even installed multiroom audio with ceiling speaker you must consider the Denon HEOS range. Good value for money with just that little bit more flexibility.

If you are considering purchasing either Sonos or Denon HEOS please give us a call on 01423816868 or take a look at our projects page on the main website. We always welcome demonstrations of any product.