Cord cutting continues to get more and more popular, and not always because it's cheaper than staying tethered to your cable company. There are tons of services that deliver higher quality content, including more choices for 4K HDR content and Dolby Atmos audio.

But if you're upgrading your content, you'll probably need to upgrade your home theater components, too. Newer equipment can handle all of those newer formats, and from a company like Denon, you're getting some killer smart features with the better video/sound quality. Read on and we'll talk about how you can make your living room just a little more intelligent with Denon's AVR-S940H.

Design

We won't waste a ton of time talking about the design of a receiver like this, since, well, they're pretty boring. It's a black box that sits under your TV with a few knobs and buttons. There's a knob for volume control and switching through sources on your receiver, plus some buttons to quickly jump to favorited sources.

There's a power button in the bottom left, a headphone jack for private listening, and a USB port and front-facing HDMI port for quickly using devices and media that you might not want plugged in all the time. There are also a few buttons for tuning radio stations, changing sound modes, and a few more less-often used switches.

Personally I'd argue that physical buttons for each of the receivers inputs would make a little more sense, and use knobs for things like tuning the radio, but you'll also most likely be using the remote or your phone 99% of the time, anyway, so that's a very minor nitpick.

Denon uses a very brightly lit LCD panel to let you know what input you're currently on and what audio is being passed through the receiver. If you're checking to see if you're actually getting a Dolby Atmos signal, this screen is what you're looking for.

The on-screen display for navigating options and settings is pretty functional here, although a little lower-res than you'd like to see on something advertised as handling 4K HDR signal. It's another one of those minor nitpick things, but you never fully get used to seeing a a blocky, barely HD looking HUD over your crisp, extremely high-resolution content. It gets the job done, though, and that's probably what's most important.

The remote is relatively well designed with the navigation buttons and quick select buttons all towards the bottom of the remote, but where I typically hold the remote the volume buttons are just slightly out of reach. Moving those down would've been a smart move, in my opinion. The remote also feels a little light and plasticky, but at least I never question its durability.

On the back of the receiver you'll find a whopping 7 HDMI inputs (and don't forget about that one on the front) plus a slew of connection options for all of your speakers and other older devices. There's a second HDMI out for a second display, too, which could be good for a projector or other secondary device that you might be using in your setup. Most people will probably just be using those HDMI ports for their devices and the speaker terminals, which support up to a 7.1 system. I had mine configured in 5.1.2 for Dolby Atmos for this review going forward.

Performance

Audio and video performance are going to be way more important than the design of a box, however. If the slimmest, prettiest box in the world sounds terrible, you're probably not going to hang on to it for very long. Fortunately, for its unassuming design and modest price point, the AVR-S940H holds up extremely well.

The receiver pumps out 90 watts per channel, and that's plenty of power for most living rooms. You might struggle to fill up enormous rooms, but I tested everything in a very open living room with high ceilings and had no volume issues. While the receiver is a little bright sounding, it doesn't have any problem punching out low end and keeping action movies and music from muddying together. The receiver does support High-Res audio, so if you're planning on using this to handle your lossless collection of music (or to stream from Tidal) it's a pretty great option.

A big advantage to audio quality comes from Audyssey, the EQ and calibration software Denon uses for their receivers. During setup you'll be prompted to use the included microphone to record frequencies in several different spots around your room, and Audyssey takes all of that data and calibrates and levels out your speakers to avoid any echoes or just bad sounding spots in your listening area. Coming from Onkyo's admittedly mediocre AccuEQ software, Audyssey makes a huge difference in sound quality. It tipped the surround sound performance from good to great, which is impressive considering this is closer to an entry-level receiver, not something crazy high-end.

But again, Audyssey does seem to prioritize clarity which can lead to some brighter sounding speakers. Be careful about pairing things up with already bright sounding speakers.

The S940H can handle pretty much all current video standards, too, including 4K at 60fps, plus HDR10, Dolby Vision, and HLG. There's not much HLG content right now, but Dolby Vision is all over Netflix. Zero issues playing any of that content, either. Dolby Vision looks fantastic if everything in your setup supports it.

All of your standard high-end audio codecs are supported as well, including pretty much everything from Dolby. THX is absent here, although that THX certification seems a little less coveted than it used to be. Regular Dolby Surround is supported, which shouldn't come as a surprise, but the receiver supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. Those are two formats that you'll probably hear a little more about as content becomes more common, but we'll explain a little bit about how those work.

Dolby Atmos is something you've probably seen in marketing materials or on a retail showroom and fundamentally changes how speakers handle audio “channels” during movies and TV shows. Instead of sounds being assigned to specific “channels” around the room, each sound is considered an “object” and can be placed around the room, and the receiver or decoder figures out where to place those sounds in a mix. Atmos allows for placing those objects above you, too, so if you set up some Atmos upward firing speakers (or install them in your ceiling) you'll be able to hear those helicopters flying overhead or rain on your roof. It's really cool.

DTS:X is a similar format for movies and content that uses DTS's offerings instead of Dolby's, and DTS Neural:X is more or less the same thing, but for content with fewer channels. It takes existing content and upmixes it to try and add that overhead sound and fill in any speakers that wouldn't natively work during that particular movie or show. If you're watching a YouTube video mixed in 2.0, for example, but you have a 7.1 or 5.1.2 setup, DTS Neural:X intelligently tries to assign objects and sounds to those extra speakers that are otherwise going unused. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes that does depend on the quality of the receiver handling the upmixing. Denon has done an okay job here, and I think the upmixing sounds alright, although I very rarely specifically choose to use it. If you're really into having sound all around you it's great, but sound quality seems to be slightly worse than just dealing with standard surround sound or stereo mixes, which is probably to be expected with this kind of post-processing.

Smart Features

But hey, it's 2019, and if you can't connect a device to your WiFi network today, it's boring. Denon didn't skimp on the important parts of the receiver, so now it's time to talk about how this thing can integrate into your home theater system and add some spice to your digital setup.

The most exciting feature, in my opinion, is voice assistant control. There are plenty of soundbars and smart boxes and things in a home theater that can be controlled through a voice assistant, but the higher-end components (like receivers) have been late to the party. Denon's entire lineup here offers voice control via Amazon's Alexa, so as long as you have an Echo or your phone somewhere nearby you can just yell out commands to control your setup. This includes telling Alexa to stream music from Pandora or Spotify, or just to change the input so you can swap over to your Xbox after you're done watching TV. It finally tips enthusiast hardware into the same ballpark as some cheaper stuff, and it's great.

If you set up a wireless audio system using Denon's HEOS speakers, you can use Alexa to control audio throughout your house, too. HEOS speakers are totally wireless and just use your receiver as a base, so if you're itching for something like Sonos but maybe a little better sounding, Denon is delivering a competitive alternative.

Google Assistant also works for controlling music, but not much else. More improvements are on the way for 2019, although Denon wasn't able to share an exact timeline for that just yet.

For streaming music directly you've got a ton of options with the AVR-S940H. Like everything else on the market today, it works with Spotify Connect, so if you're a Spotify subscriber everything is pretty much plug-and-play. The receiver features AirPlay 2 for anyone in Apple's ecosystem, and Bluetooth is a fallback for everything else. It does not feature Google Cast support, which is really disappointing considering there's some real Google Assistant support, but I think Denon is relying on HEOS to fill in that gap.

HEOS works kind of like Sonos, so you'll be required to install the app on your phone and play and control your music from there. The app supports a good chunk of popular music services, including Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, Amazon Music, and SiriusXM, plus smaller options from TuneIn, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, Deezer, and Rhapsody. Google Play Music/YouTube Music and Apple Music are two notable exceptions here, and there's also no support for some other enthusiast services like Qobuz or Roon. You can play your local music, though, so that's a plus.

In a group setting, though, HEOS does offer a really cool party mix setting where everyone on your network can add songs to a playlist and queue up jams. Combine that with a few HEOS wireless speakers around your house and you've got something really cool on your hands.

Worth it?

If you're looking for a golden standard in receivers without spending a ton of money, it's hard to argue that Denon didn't accomplish this completely. Most people don't have huge living rooms, and more people have an Alexa device than Google Home. Spotify's more popular than pretty much everything else, and Denon has crammed all of those popular features in here. Audyssey works extremely well and is incredibly easy to set up, and those things are going to carry the most weight for most people.

If you're nitpicking there are some things that I think could be improved; I wish it was just a little warmer sounding, I wish it had a built-in Google Cast option, and I wish HEOS supported a few more music streaming services, since I'm not heavily invested into Spotify. But you shouldn't let what something doesn't do detract from what it does do, and Denon's AVR-S940H does do a lot well.

Whether you're looking to step up your equipment to start taking advantage of newer audio and video formats or you just want to start building up a whole-home system with high quality audio and music all over your house, you'd be hard pressed to find more bang for your buck anywhere else.

Buy it now: Denon, Amazon