Denon’s latest is a well-priced Dolby Atmos wireless sub and soundbar combo
The bar includes a whopping seven drivers for that all-important Atmos 3D sound
Denon has introduced a Dolby Atmos soundbar intended to bring the Dolby tech to a wider audience. The DHT-S517 boasts a wireless subwoofer and costs £379. It should make for a superb upgrade for those of us with TVs that produce superb pictures but not necessarily superb sound.
There are a whopping seven drivers inside the new Denon bar, with left and right tweeters, midrange drivers, a dedicated center-channel, plus two up-firing speakers to get that all-important Atmos 3D surround sound. Plus there’s an additional 4K Ultra HD-compatible HDMI input should you want to connect another source to the soundbar setup directly.
An included HDMI cable enables you to connect the DHT-S517 to any TV setup via a compatible HDMI eARC socket, but you can connect up your TV using the venerable optical input if it’s an older model.
Naturally there’s Bluetooth connectivity, too, for music playback from any smart devices, though there’s no Wi-Fi on board for direct connection to music services.
There are several sound modes available: Movie Mode, Music Mode, Pure Mode and Night Mode. Pure Mode takes away all surround sound processing and enables you to hear music in particular as it was originally intended rather than an enhanced version.
As with many other recent sounbars, there’s a mode to improve speech audibility (called Dialogue Enhancer here). There’s a dedicated control for this, so you can raise the volume of voice should you wish; this is independent of the soundbar’s overall volume controls.
Dan Grabham
Editor-in-Chief 
