Denon Dolby Atmos Soundbar for TV with Built-in Down-firing Subwoofers DHT-S218 Dialog Enhancer, 4K HDMI eARC, and Bluetooth

I’ve spent weeks down the rabbit hole of soundbars and home audio, reading everything I could and even talking to people in places like Richer Sounds. It’s a complete minefield, especially if, like me, half the terminology feels like a foreign language. My home setup is a Hisense TV running a Virgin box, Fire Stick and PS5, and until recently I was using a budget soundbar that was just about passable. I made the mistake of “upgrading” to the Hisense AX3120G, assuming it would work seamlessly with my TV. It was a disaster. The sound was inconsistent, tinny for sports, the subwoofer easily overpowered everything, and switching between sources constantly caused quality issues. After returning it and going through far too much research again, I finally picked up this Denon soundbar and I’m genuinely blown away by how good it is. The sound is rich, detailed and far more powerful than a single unit has any right to be. Dialogue is crystal clear and action scenes have real depth without the rumbling chaos I was dealing with before. Setup couldn’t have been simpler. Plug it in, connect it via the eARC to hdmi1, ps5 into the soundbar, then virgin box and fire stick in hdmi 2 & 3 and you’re done. It all works perfectly, automatically switching between inputs seamlessly, it’s even turns its self on and off with the TV. The presets actually matter too. Movie Mode opens everything up beautifully without turning it muddy. Night Mode is outstanding, stripping out the heavy bass while keeping all the clarity, perfect for late-night TV when I don’t want to wake the house or annoy the neighbours. The dialogue enhancement is equally impressive, fixing the terrible audio mixes you often get from streaming apps. Overall I’m honestly shocked a soundbar at this price can perform like this. After weeks of trial and error, this is everything I hoped for and it’s brilliant!. Add all that, the fact you can buy additional speakers/subwoofer should you wish at a later time, which I’ll be doing once I move house. If you’re unsure what to get, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Just buy it!!

I bought this soundbar to replace an old Sony amplifier feeding Dolby surround sound to five speakers. It is easy to set up and provides a neat alternative to speaker wires heading in all directions. With the built-in sub-woofers the soundbar gives a fuller sound range than the old set-up for which I never added a separate sub-woofer. The soundbar however gives a less obvious spread of sound to left and right. I had not researched the significance of Dolby Atmos and it seems that movies or music that provide this type of sound signal are not that freely available. As a result, I have only used it with 6.1 Dolby sound from DVDs. I do not have a Blue Ray player. Maybe in time Dolby Atmos will become more freely available on streamed services. Having said that, the sound output is good. The remote has settings for Movie, Music and Night. A major attraction for my wife and me is the Dialogue Enhancer. This can be set to Low, Medium or High. We certainly find that we are less often saying to each other, "What was that he said?" We are both 80-ish. Another plus is the facility for linking the soundbar with a TV using HDMI eARC/ARC. This makes the DVD/Soundbar/TV connection much easier. It also means that the TV remote will adjust the volume level on the Soundbar. There is also the option to connect to the soundbar via an Optical cable or via Bluetooth. There is a USB port but I think this is only usable for servicing, not for input. At an offer price of £160, this soundbar is good value and Denon has a good reputation.

Amazing sound even at low levels, movies, night and music presets. Low, med and high presets to fine tuning your listening. Hdmi, optical, Bluetooth and aux inputs. I connected my old phone by Bluetooth, instantly, on my other newer phone it needs a Denon app to work, search for the right one. The Pure sound is more neutral if you don't want the bass. Also you can tweak the bass to your preference. No wifi on this unit so i don't know whether it will work with other platforms. Exceptional product, i can't believe it is only 40 watts, 2 tweeters, 2 midrange speakers, 2 built in (sub) woofers , oh yes you can add a sub if you want but I don't think is needed. Arc, eArc work straightaway, CEC allows you to seamlessly control the volume from either the tv remote or from the Denon one, even switch on or off. Very very pleased with my purchase, high quality at this price. Joe

Fantastic soundbar. Got at a good deal price of £159.00. Study with a bit of weight to it so looks and feels good quality. It’s deep enough to put bits and bobs on or an ornament or Echo etc. This one had a lot of 5 & 4 star reviews. More than others I looked at…..and I read hundreds of soundbar reviews before taking the plunge on this one. This is fantastic for non-techy people like me, as this literally came out the box as a plug & play. I connected up the HDMI(ARC) lead to the back of cute tv (mines a 85” Samsung TV), plugged it in, switched on the t.v and it all connected. The tv recognised the soundbar straight away. No QR codes, no apps just connected. Brilliant. The sound is brilliant. You’ve got to remember this is a soundbar and not a surround sound system. I didn’t want speakers dotted everywhere with leads trailing etc. Too much of a faff. The sound from this soundbar really makes a huge difference and really enhances the poor quality of my tv internal speakers. No faffing about with tv volume in addition. On my old soundbar I had to turn tv volume down to zero and turn soo ever speaker up. Not with this one. It auto responds to our TV remote too. The only thing it doesn’t now do is display 1-?? On the volume display on the tv, so Jo longer know what volume number it’s on. It just displays an up or down arrow when you’re adjusting the volume. Thus doesn’t make any odds to me. I don’t need to know what volume number I’m on. Another advantage to this soundbar is that it’s Dolby. Brilliant sound clarity and the volume on thus can go way higher in volume than my tv speakers. I can’t get the soundbar to its highest volume, it’s way too deafening. We’re in a semi so not appropriate cuz of having neighbours joined. I now just turn our tv off and leave the soundbar on standby. This way the tv and soundbar come in together every time. It also holds the volume to the last position it was in when you switch it off. You have 3 different tones movie, night & music and adjustment of low, medium and high within each of these options, along with making the bass higher or lower. I’m not that particular to sound quality at all, but this is so good. Terrific improvement to tv watching. I can’t rate it highly enough. Came very well tested in good box with good packaging to protect in transit. Really love this. Highly recommend.

Revised review five months after purchase Initially I thought this was fantastic value as I bought it for £159.99 during the Spring Prime offer. This soundbar was really easy to set up - I just connected the HDMI cable to my Sony TV's eARC socket and it worked right away. The sound is fantastic - I can hear every word now, instead of mumbling in TV dramas and films. The remote has a volume control, bass control and various presets like music and night. This soundbar is very good value if you wait for an offer. Five months later, the soundbar is no longer connecting to my TV. I've tried resetting it, different cables and followed the troubleshooting guide but could not get it working. This is so disappointing after only five months. I guess it was too good to be true and that's why other soundbars cost £500. I contacted Amazon to return it for a refund. I have decided to buy a new TV with better sound instead, as the small remote was too lightweight and annoying.

Bought to replace Bose TV speaker. After trying Sony and Azatom brands that had to be returned, this speaker is a breath of fresh air. My living room size is 5mtr x 4mtr and this soundbar fills the room with sound and a nice deep rumble from the downward fireing bass speakers easily. The speech clarity setting works very well. The only down side is the Dolby Atmos. I know it's only trying to mimic Dolby Atmos with clever wizardry but in my opinion it does'nt quite cut it and I just don't feel the ilusion of being surrounded by the sound. I do have to say Films still sound fantastic, (Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning is amazing) and broadcast TV sounds very good as well. I am far from being disapointed with this soundbar and would recommend buying it as long as Atmos is not at the top of your list. Giving 5 stars purely on the fact that the soundbar sounds great even if the Atmos could be a bit of a letdown for some people. Hope this review was helpful.

Really good sounding soundbar. Looks great with the fabric front. Feels really well built and the size is good too. It fits neatly in font if our TV and is HUGE step up from TV speaker with decent bass levels. Not only do movies and music sound better but it’s great for all the TV we watch. HDMI arc works seamlessly but we’ve got it through an optical cable which is great too with no latency issues. The remote is responsive and simple to use. Nice to have Bluetooth functionality for music as well. Bargain!

I thought I’d buy this Denon soundbar to replace my old Panasonic one which was great but it was older so you couldn’t get 4K through the hdmi arc. First impressions out of the box were that it was well built as you’d expect from Denon, I the proceeded to place it in front of my tv flush with the front of my unit and it fitted perfectly. Then just an easy connection via the hdmi arc with the cable included in the box, which was a nice touch as you never seem to get an hdmi cable with anything these days! It comes with a nice little remote too, but with using it through the arc the TV remote works too. So everything is now connected I fired it up and was immediately impressed with the crystal clear sound and powerful bass! My last one came with a subwoofer but this one doesn’t but I’m glad as I was needing to free up some space, but I don’t miss it with this one as the bass is good. Definitely worth £250, and if the price goes down further I’d recommend you grab it if you’re in dire need of some great sound.