If this is your budget, and you want to make sure you're getting as much from streaming Dolby Atmos movies online as possible, the Denon DHT-S217 is hard to beat. But if you can stretch to a higher budget, you'll get more from your sound. At a scant 2-inches in height, the Denon DHT-S217 can be placed in front of the TV without obstructing the bottom edge of the display or it can be easily wall mounted. It's pretty cool that Denon created an affordable, easy to set up, one

Bluetooth wireless audio streaming is built-in, but since there’s no Wi-Fi compatibility, AirPlay and Chromecast are not on the menu. As for surround and spatial effects, I heard disappointingly little of either. Relative to the Music mode, Movie made the sounds a little wider and a shade taller, but these effects were far from dramatic and nothing like the “bubble” of ambience the best Dolby Atmos soundbars can achieve.

Pure mode

Of course, we're going to need to hear this new soundbar in-person to know if it sounds good or not. But it is a promising upgrade to what came before it, at no added cost. And so there's plenty of reason to be optimistic that the DHT-S217 will deliver a solid audio upgrade to any TV without eating up too much of your home entertainment budget. Denon's latest soundbar in a living room setting

Working for Audioholics for the last 16 years has given me an opportunity to see some amazing products. I’ve had very good experiences with Denon receivers and always look forward to their new releases. In 2020, Denon released the industry’s first 8K-ready line of AV receivers including the AVR-X3700H. Based on the successes over their 110+ year span, Denon expanded their offerings to include items like soundbars, like the Denon HEOS soundbar, noise cancelling wireless earbuds, and wireless HEOS speakers. Now, Denon has introduced the Dolby Atmos Enabled DHT-S217 Soundbar with built in subwoofers. This absence of front-facing sound was also notable in a few other movies, TV shows, and games, and even the S217’s dialogue emphasis setting did little to rectify things. Our Installation Service only includes connecting to existing points and fixings. This does not include installing or moving plumbing, connection points or electrics. Installing new points or moving existing points is the customer’s responsibility we can recommend local tradesmen however this will be at the customer’s expense and we not accept any liability for their work. The 2022 movie Jurassic World Dominion is full of thundering dinosaur sequences, but a particularly challenging scene is the moment when scientist Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) encounters a Therirzinosaurus after ejecting from an airplane. The scene is almost perfectly quiet as Claire attempts to sneak past the menacing dinosaur, and the few audible effects are appropriately placed in the sound field.Inside are dual down-firing subwoofers, which look to reduce the need for a separate subwoofer, with a pair of “high-performance” midrange drivers and tweeters designed to deliver an immersive 3D performance. As there’s no mention of any upward-firing drivers, we expect Atmos sound via digital processing. One reason that soundbars have become so popular is their ease of setup. The DHT-S217 should connect to most TVs using the supplied HDMI or Optical cables. The new Denon soundbar does come with 4K HDMI connectivity along with eARC which we are seeing in most new soundbars. This should allow you to control your volume using your TV remote instead of having multiple remotes for both the TV and the soundbar. The Movie listening mode proved very similar, but with a bit more bass emphasis and a little boost to the voice range to enhance dialogue. On a related note, the remote’s Low/Medium/High Dialog Enhancer control can really push voices to the fore, especially at the High setting. Please note that our couriers will try to deliver as arranged but we will not be held responsible for any costs incurred because of non-delivery or factors introduced by third-parties. This service is based upon best endeavour and is not guaranteed. Simple setup - Easy setup with a single HDMI connection to your TV using Enhanced Audio Return Channel (eARC).

What we’re looking at here is a compact soundbar that is designed to drive as much of Atmos’ immersive sound-staging as possible, and the results are pretty astonishing, especially when you consider the size and the absence of a dedicated subwoofer (although you can add one if you’d like). Just to be clear, the Bluetooth option is certainly good if you really need it, and the DHT-S217 would rate highly as a Bluetooth-only speaker. That said, if you can stream your tunes over HDMI via a music app, you should. Does the Denon DHT-S217 support DTS? One example of the latter: the low-frequency elements of sounds like street-noise or baseball game crowd ambience came across as a discrete, muffled rumbling. This could be mitigated by turning the Bass control (which offers 8 steps altogether) below the halfway point, however, and the issue was much less evident with the master volume set below the Denon’s 60-step overall range. Unfortunately, our Installation Service excludes all gas appliances. It is the customer’s responsibility to find a gas safe engineer to connect the appliance. Any work conducted by a third part gas safe engineer will be at the customer’s expense and we will not accept any liability for their work. Overall, I found casual music listening with the Denon to be enjoyable. Its sound was full and reasonably balanced, with enough bass extension to render most music genres with satisfactory depth.

Wireless music streaming

At Peter Tyson we pride ourselves on prompt, efficient delivery. Please note that the daily cut off time for all next day delivery services is 3pm. There’s a selection of sound modes to choose from (Movie, Night, Music, and Pure), with the Pure mode bypassing all types of processing to deliver the most audiophile sound performance. Listeners who struggle to hear every word have the Dialog Enhancer feature at their disposal, adjusting the level of dialogue without changing the overall volume setting. After hooking up the S217 to our TV’s HDMI ARC connection, it was just a matter of confirming that HDMI CEC was toggled on, and we were up and running. Better yet, thanks to CEC, the S217 was automatically powered when we fired up our TV, and shut down when we turned off the set (although we have a bit more to say about this below). With two built-in down firing subwoofers, dual mid-range drivers and tweeters, you will enjoy an amazing movie and TV show audio experience when you upgrade to Denon premium-quality sound. With either movies and TV or music the DHT-S217 could play loud enough in my relatively sizeable space to satisfy most tastes. Even so, over the top few notches of its volume range the sound hardened somewhat with challenging material like massed voices or dense piano music, while the bass became noticeably “tubbier” at the same extreme.

Per Denon, there are four different sound modes available on this soundbar: Movie, Night, Music, and Pure. Pure mode offers the option to bypass all surround processing as well as any other alterations, for the listeners who desire unaltered sound. This Soundbar offers 4K HDMI connectivity including support for eARC, which supports high-quality audio from the built-in apps on smart TVs. DHT-S217 remote Seeing as Dolby Atmos is a multi-layered surround-sound experience, with audio hovering around both vertical and horizontal listening planes, a bigger bar with numerous drivers is going to deliver an experience more akin to a realistic Atmos system, but that’s not the idea with equipment like the S217.The DHT-S217 doesn’t come with up-firing drivers that bounce Dolby Atmos height cues off your ceiling; instead, the soundbar uses virtualization to achieve its height effects, as do many other budget-priced and Atmos-enabled soundbars. How well does the Atmos virtualization work? We’ll get to that in a moment. Any extended warranties offered by Peter Tyson are free. We do not include any form of insurance terms such as accidental damage or loan equipment cover. In total, this 2.1-channel sound system provides you with six speakers. On the right and left side of the soundbar, you will find a 3.5″ x 1.6″ midrange speaker, both supported by a 1″ tweeter. Compared to the competition, Denon relies on two integrated and downward-pointing subwoofers instead of an external and wireless subwoofer. The Dolby Atmos immersive audio format is supported, as mentioned earlier. This adds 3D sound to the spatial sound in your living room. However, DT:S and DT:S Virtual are not available compared to the predecessor. Of course, there are weaknesses in terms of sound and performance in soundbars in the (rather) cheap range of up to 300€.