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Built-in Bluetooth enables wireless connection to the soundbar of your phone, tablet or laptop. This gives you access to your favorite music on your mobile devices, streaming services and Internet radio with the same Denon-branded sound quality that you enjoy watching TV. What do you really need? Above all – legible and natural sounding. To this it is not superfluous to add a clear transmission of dialogues, the illusion of surround sound, simplicity and flexibility in setting up effects. Now we look at the remote control for the Denon DHT-S316 and find all the signs of the above on it. Overall, this soundbar and subwoofer made a great combo for upgrading the sound quality over the built-in speakers of our TV and projector. They don’t take up a lot of space, and fill our small living room with impressively clear sound quite adequately.
Setup is a piece of cake, with the main decisions related to whether or not to wall-mount the soundbar, and where to position the subwoofer. In the box Denon includes an IR blaster, which might be useful, along with an HDMI cable, an optical digital cable, a 3.5mm analogue cable and an Ethernet cable.The subwoofer and the soundbar wirelessly pair in an instant. If they don’t, they can be forced to, but in our experience they locate each other and form a connection immediately. And that’s your job done. There’s no room calibration, no fiddling with cross-over frequencies. As far as the Denon DHT-S517 is concerned, one size fits all. But – and with soundbars there are always “buts”– though the Denon’s sound was clear and intelligible, male voices took on a very mild “honky” cast. More significant was the disconnect between the bar’s bass and its reproduction of mid-range and treble frequencies. On the inside are left and right speakers, composed of bi-amplified mid-woofers and tweeters. The soundbar uses digital amplification and DSP processing, but Denon is fairly tight-lipped on the exact numbers. The same goes for the included wireless subwoofer, which delivers the low-end frequencies and is styled to match the soundbar. The rear-ported sub fires downwards and comes with optional non-skid pads. It measures 17.2 x 31.1 x 17.2cm (WHD) and weighs 6.6kg. Denon says it’s designed the DHT-S416 to be easy to set-up and use. The soundbar supports wall-mounting and features a HDMI ARC (with CEC support for control with the TV remote) and an optical input. Bluetooth is included for wireless pairing to other sources.
However, out of the box the subwoofer is so boomy and overpowering that it’s simply unlistenable in small to medium-sized rooms at moderate volumes. And while this problem can be tamed with judicious stuffing of the bass reflex port, I’d much rather the sub was tuned correctly in the first place.
Bluetooth wireless audio streaming is built-in, but since there’s no Wi-Fi compatibility, AirPlay and Chromecast are not on the menu. There are two main issues with the way the Denon DHT-S316 delivers sound. That’s not many, but they’re each, in their own way, significant. Denon is coy about revealing the amount of amplification power that’s on tap here. But – as the 'audio performance’ section will make obvious – the power that’s available is plainly more than adequate for all but the largest listening spaces. And everyone from JBL and Sonos to Sony and Yamaha are more than happy to part you from similar money in exchange for a similar soundbar, sometimes with a subwoofer thrown in too. In other words, Denon doesn’t exactly have the field clear. Design
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