Denon DHT-FS3

Reviewed by

Steve Guttenberg

and

John P. Falcone

on 10/30/2008

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Considering the DHT-FS3's upper-end MSRP, audio connectivity is good but not exceptional. There are two stereo analog inputs (red/white RCA jacks), three digital inputs (one coaxial, two optical) and a dock control input for use with Denon's AS-D1R iPod dock (sold separately). There's a 3.5mm headphone jack on the front panel and Dolby Headphone processing that simulates surround sound over stereo headphones.

We were surprised to see that the DHT-FS3 not only lacks HDMI switching, but it also doesn't offer any video switching at all. That means you'll have to run your sources' audio connections to the Denon, and the corresponding video outputs to the TV, and switch both inputs simultaneously (when moving from, say, a Blu-ray player to cable box). That can be accomplished automatically via a universal remote macro, but it's still an annoyance that needs to be accounted for.

Performance
The Mission: Impossible III Blu-ray wasted no time demonstrating the DHT-FS3's strengths and weaknesses. This little speaker belts out a big, room-filling sound. Not so much as to put sound behind us, but the sound stretched from wall-to-wall and out into the room. The big soundstage was as available for listeners at either end of the couch as it was from the center of the couch. Only Yamaha's Digital Sound Projectors do as well in that regard.

The scene with Tom Cruise and Phillip Seymour Hoffman locked in a battle of wills on a transport jet sounded amazing, especially when Cruise flips Hoffman upside down, dangling him outside the plane. The blast of turbulent air buffeting Hoffman was intense and was projected well into our room.

We next compared the DHT-FS3 with Marantz's ES7001 single speaker surround home theater system. The Marantz is a whole lot bigger and double the weight of the Denon, but doesn't come with its own subwoofer. The first thing we heard from the Denon is that it projected a bigger and more precisely defined surround field than the Marantz. The Denon was tonally thinner and scaled back the impact on battle scene explosions and gunfire in the Black Hawk Down Blu-ray. When the Black Hawk helicopter crashes and its rotor blades are ripped off, the Denon lets you hear each one as a separate sonic event. The Marantz blurs the sounds together, but portrays the same scene with greater visceral force. The Marantz also boasts superior connectivity, including HDMI switching for two sources.

The Legend: Live at Montreux concert Blu-ray starring Eric Clapton, David Sanborn, and Joe Sample sounded hollow and bright when played in Dolby Digital, but switching to Stereo nixed that problem. It wasn't a subtle difference, more like the Denon's processing didn't work with the Blu-ray's surround mix (most Blu-rays and DVDs sounded best in surround, but not all of them). We also felt the Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Revisited CD was much better-sounding in stereo than surround.

We tried the Dolby Headphone processing with our Klipsch Image in-ear headphones while watching the Master and Commander Blu-ray. The processing really does work, and we could hear some degree of surround over the headphones. Sound quality was good, but the big naval battle scenes were dynamically lackluster. Perhaps with larger full-size headphones that objection would be overruled.

Overall, the Denon DHT-FS3 delivers relatively impressive sound quality for a single-speaker system. We just wish the company had ratcheted up the feature list given the growing list of competing devices that cost less and deliver more (built-in DVD players, included iPod docks, better video connectivity).