Sound quality: The Denon Home 150 has Very Good overall sound quality. Bass has good impact and goes fairly deep, but is a bit prominent and boomy. Midrange is even but is a bit grainy and hazy. Treble is fairly extended, but is a touch prominent and a bit smeared and sizzly. Does a so-so job of recovering room ambience, but sounds a bit congested. There was no significant difference between WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, and aux in sound quality. Provides a decent volume level in a small to medium sized room. When combined with a second unit to form a stereo pair they can be placed to provide good stereo separation. The sound is similar to a single unit except the bass becomes a a touch more boomy. The sound quality score remains Very Good.
Ease of use: We found the Denon Home 150 ease of use to be Very Good overall. The console volume controls are prominent; it lacks a volume control label but (+/-) symbols suggest that it is a volume control. Lacks index markings for volume levels and does not provide any indication when max volume is reached. Volume controls all inputs the same way. The console lacks a mute control but it has a play/pause control; it is obvious and well placed, but there is no indicator to show when it is engaged on the unit and it works with WiFi, Aux, Bluetooth, USB, and DLNA inputs. Source selector: Requires the app to be installed and the app installation is straight forward. Once app is installed switching between inputs is fairly intuitive, except that Bluetooth has to be selected from the Bluetooth settings of the mobile device. WiFi setup requires an app downloaded to the device, instructions are included in app. As an alternative the unit offers WPS setup (only applicable for those with WPS routers): three steps - push button on back of unit, push WPS button on router, wait for connection - instructions don't state how long the connection should take and there is no progress indicator, only a general indication that linking is taking place and whether or not linking has successfully occurred; connection takes between 30 sec and 1 min. Bluetooth pairing always requires a press of a well marked button on unit and then the selection of unit from Bluetooth selection list on source device; unit provides an obvious indication that the unit is in pairing mode as well as when pairing has actually occurred. DLNA setup instructions are provided and it makes no reference on how to set up the DLNA server on the network (i.e. does not refer user to Windows/Mac/NAS setup instructions). App Remote Control: App remote volume control is prominent and well labeled slider with non-persistent numerical volume level indicator. Works the same with all inputs. App remote has dedicated control but the marking is not the most obvious, clear indication when it is engaged and mutes all inputs. Requires app to be installed, app installation is straight forward. Once app is installed switching between inputs is fairly intuitive, except Bluetooth has to be selected from the Bluetooth settings of the mobile device. App remote play controls are obvious (good contrast, standard symbols), play/pause, skip only, no scan or scrub provision.
