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Foxbat
Supporting Founder Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in General Home Theater Equipment
I have been listening to the pair of Denon Home 150 wireless speakers for a few hours now, and I must say, they are a great little pair of speakers. I brought them up over in the Amazon Deliveries thread in The Pub, but felt an actual review would be better placed here.

I got my speakers in time for the weekend. One thing I like is their ability to be paired as a left-right grouping. One thing I am disappointed in is using them with my Denon AVR with HEOS, I haven't found an easy way to control the portable speakers from the Denon. Using the HEOS App is okay, but I was hoping I could run it through my entertainment center.

On their own, though, these are impressive little units. Once paired, the volume control in the top panel controls the volume for both, and the proximity detector causes the touch controls to light up when you bring your hand near.

One other thing I like is the HEOS app support for most music streaming services. Once the stream has started, you don't need the App to pause or control the volume. I was even able to play music in one room, unplug the speakers, move them into another room, and after they powered up, press play on the top control to start the music up again. Right now, the supported audio streaming services include Amazon, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Mood Mix, Napster, Pandora, Rhapsody, SiriusXM, SoundCloud, Spotify, TIDAL, and TuneIn.

I was hoping that this product wouldn't be like the other Smart Speakers on the market, but there are two microphone holes located on the speaker's control panel. There isn't much in the Owners Manual about voice control, other than using Alexa or Siri to control through your respective control mechanisms. There are some limitations with Apple, so, for example, I can create automations through HomeKit to perform operations with my Denon AVR, but not with these new Denon Home 150 speakers.

According to Denon, "*The Denon Home 150 speaker has microphones built-in for new features to be added via firmware update in 2020. We will not enable this microphone without your explicit permission." So, possible Voice Assistant integration possible, but "not yet". The App doesn't have any Microphone control GUI yet, so I guess I trust they aren't streaming my various inner monologues that I let out from time to time.

Using Siri to AirPlay to these speakers through my iOS devices is supported, but only if they haven't been linked together in the HEOS App. Also, I haven't seen any way to play stereo when using AirPlay 2, just being able to play the same audio content to both speakers at once.

If you have a compatible home media server you can also add that as a source in the HEOS App. I need to play with that more as I should be able to see my music collection but haven't got it configured yet.

Also, I was not able to get the speakers to pair with my WiFi immediately, but part of that is the MAC restrictions on my router. Also, I had to activate the 2.4 GHz radio even though the speakers support 5 GHz as well. It is possible to connect the Home 150 via an Ethernet cable and the WiFi connection can be set differently than your App's device connection. The App does need to "see" the devices, which may require them be present in the same IP subnet for those with VLANs or Guest WiFi networks.
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Foxbat
I've been using these Denon Home 150 speakers paired for stereo to listen to SiriusXM ClassicRewind and the radio station up north near to our vacation getaway. There are three touch areas, 1, 2, and 3, that act like radio presets. You use the HEOS App to configure the audio you want to listen to, then touch and hold the preset number you want to assign to that channel. You can use different streaming services, the physical 3.5mm input, Bluetooth, a NAS server; anything that you can set up with the App will play from the speaker without needing to open up the App.

So, in the morning, I move my hand towards the Home 150 speaker, touch the "2" preset, and after the speaker wakes up, and it contacts its stereo twin, on comes my TuneIn jazz station.

I picked this over the HomePod for the connectivity openness and the lack of voice recognition. Someone asked me why not Sonos? After their decision to brick older devices, that left me cold. These have a physical analog input, plus the Bluetooth, plus a physical NIC. The software licenses are all GNU and open source, so they should be supported One way or another down the road. Fingers crossed!

I had seen these before at full MSRP, but I got an email 2 weeks ago with a 25% off sale code which made it worth my while to get two without seeming like it was too big a risk. Plus, I had points I needed to use up so it was closer to 40% off. ;)
Foxbat
Just a quick update: I found that plugging in the analog 3.5mm cable allows you to play audio in stereo (if your HEOS speakers are configured for stereo). So, you could have two analog sources plugged into each stereo group speaker and use the App to select the appropriate input. I'm not saying that you would want to do this, but you could.

For testing, I used the headphone out from my Win10 test box and played a Band Geek YouTube Yes cover. It sounded pretty awesome, better bass than my Sony HT box connected to my TV that I used for a monitor. The separation was far superior since the speakers were 8' apart (the Sony HT enclosure

I also managed to properly format a USB thumb drive (seems to want FAT or FAT32) with a Music and Podcasts folder. The App then allowed me to play my stored content, with some annoying caveats. The biggest is there is no way to move through a podcast MP3, so you're always starting at the beginning. That makes it hard to pause or stop a podcast and come back later to pick it up at the same point.

Also, each selection of a song pops up a menu of choices, play now, play next, add to the end of the queue, or reset the queue and play next. So, be careful where you press or your curated queue could vanish.

But my day to day is listening to my local Jazz station via TuneIn. On the weekends I switch to The Best Radio Station on the Planet, WVBI (also via TuneIn).
Foxbat
Just a quick post to note that the HEOS App has been updated to new Look and Feel (plus adds support on iOS for Day/Night mode), but the big add is Amazon's Alexa. Maybe Scott can report more on that.

I also see plans for supporting Apple Music (please, no Siri!) and perhaps Google Assistant, but no word on when.

I'm pretty happy with the Home 150 pair in the Master Bedroom, but over the year there have been a couple of times I needed to pull the plug on them.

One time the right speaker was powered-off but was making a fan-like whirring buzz. Two times they were not responding to the touch pad on top of the speaker. And after the latest Firmware Update to add Alexa, I had to break the pairing and re-pair them in the App to get them to work as a Stereo Pair again.
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Foxbat
I have been using the Denon Home 150 speakers joined in a stereo pair since my last report, and Saturday morning I awoke to find that they had received a firmware update overnight, and I needed to update my iOS apps as well. When I checked the "What's New?" section, Denon has finally added AirPlay support for Stereo-paired HEOS speakers.

The individual Home speakers were AirPlay compatible, but until this weekend made the pair targets as well, they were a two-world solution. I fired up Apple Radio on my iPhone and used the Home 150s as the target and voila! Stereo music from my phone, sounding great.

Next test this morning, I changed my AppleTV to play to the Home 150s located on either side of my new LG 48" OLED. I have the full sound and expansive space I wasn't getting with the LG's internal speakers. And, it's in-sync with the picture. Thank you, Denon!
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Can't help but wonder if a worker overlooked checking the harness. I rarely ride a roller coaster anymore but when I do I check the harness myself pretty aggressively.
Can't imagine what the son is going through.

22 Replies · 166 views
Jimbo
Back on the Goliath Roller Coaster ... I'm interested to find more details as well ...
Like where on the track did this happen (somewhere I read that it was on the climb up the top), which is impossible ...

They really need to take that ride and add at the very least, seatbelts ...

The Park is opening back up on Friday, the ride will Not be opening ... personally, I would keep it closed until different type of restraints can be designed and installed (over the winter).

I find it hard to believe that this ride is even allowed to be running with the restraints that exist at the moment, there are other rides that use the same type and they have been shut down across the country.

You got to believe that every ride has at least 2 types of restraint systems in place.

I wonder what and when we will hear from the Manufacturer ... and whatever governing bodies control these ...

Just think, this is a Major Amusement Park .... I would not have any problem getting on the Roller Coasters I have rode ...

Imagine what these County Fairs and others like them, I would not be caught Dead on one of them ... they get put up and tore down every other week, where is the safety for those rides ... No Thank You.
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Jimbo
navychop
I would not be caught Dead on one of them

Yet IF you were on one, you might be caught dead.
dishstaller
Had no idea there were that many redundancies built into those restraints.
Jimbo
Had no idea there were that many redundancies built into those restraints.
It makes sense, however, I would want more types of restraints, so if one doesn't work, the other does ... the restraints coming over the shoulder I would have expected ... with a Seat belt as last resort.

Fwiw, I inquired with what they use on Coasters at Cedar Point, various Coasters, different restraints according to what the car and track requires ...

NONE of the Coasters at CP use THAT particular system :)
I'm glad to see ...
dishstaller
with a Seat belt as last resort.
According to the article, when you see a seat belt on a ride like this, it is basically used as a way of making sure the rider isn't too large/fat to safely ride the ride.
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in Internet Television (IPTV) Discussion Forum
Wasn't exactly sure where to post this. Just had a customer come in inquiring about internet. He has HughesNet and had heard good things about mine. He asked if we provided email addresses and it kinda caught me off guard. I said he should be able to keep whatever email he had been using....my sister in law is still using a BellSouth email addy and they haven't been around here for many years. He said he had gotten a letter from HughesNet stating that they had until Nov 16th to save, move, forward, whatever, their Hughesnet emails because they would lose them after that date.

I have never heard of a company simply mass-deleting email accounts (the customer still has his HughesNet service). From what I understand, in the past, the company who was ditching their email service simply sold the customer base to a company like Google.

Anyone else getting this letter. He said he would show it to me tomorrow when I go out there and set up his internet.
2 Replies · 45 views
Foxbat
Doing a Google of the HughesNet Email notice, it seems that HughesNet has been trying to eliminate hosting emails since 2019. And with HughesNet filing Chapter 11 back in August, it would be a smart move to switch to a more stable Email provider. Even AT&T farmed out their Email to Yahoo! years ago.

SpaceX's Starlink and the Cellular 5G Home Internet solutions have pretty much relegated HughesNet and its high latency, low bandwidth Internet service to History. If Earth had shorter days, maybe a Geostationary Internet Solution might have stood a fighting chance…
dishstaller
Well, I helped him set up a gmail acct....I actually wanted to see what the new process is for setting up a gmail acct since it had been years since I set mine up. Anyway, I showed him how to forward the emails he wanted to keep over.
Former member 209992
Last reply · posted in SatelliteGuys Support Center
For some reason, the satelliteguys.us site is loading a lot slower than usual on both Chrome on my Asus laptop and Safari on my iPhone.
I'm also seeing longer appearances of the blue bar at the top and the "3 blue bars" loading symbol.
Is anyone else also having the same problem? Thanks in advance.
521 Replies · 17809 views
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Scott Greczkowski
Ok the update is complete. :)
Foxbat
Scott, I was having major issues getting connected around noon ET. Looks fine now. I captured a Safari session that was showing high CPU utilization in the Rendering of the page, like 90+%. I have a JSON file I created that I could share.
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Scott Greczkowski
Been using the site at that time and saw no issues. A quick look at the logs shows nothing strange.
Foxbat
Yeah. It's probably something going on with the MacBook as my iPhone has been pretty snappy.
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Scott Greczkowski
I have been optimizing the site the past few days... and got us here now. :) We are rocking now!

Screenshot 2026-10-15 144737.webp
H
Last reply · posted in FTA Receiver / Equipment Support
I just received 6 receiver 2 port mini Multiswitch and it work great, no external power need it, and you can connect 6 receiver instead of 4 on most Mini Multiswitches... If anyone is interested in where they can get one PM me....
IMG_1786.webp
2 Replies · 39 views
Titanium
Have you tested using external power? Over the years, have found unpowered polarity switching to be unreliable. Especially problematic when used with DiSEqC motors or switch stacking.
H
No I have not. I just got it the other day and it is connected to six receivers working just fine. What I do is non power mini multi-switches work best with LNBF's and with LNB's
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
· posted in TWiT Tech Podcast Network
0 Replies · 4 views
TheRatPatrol
Last reply · posted in TV Shows
Anyone else watch this show? Any guesses as to what was in the box Gibbs gave to Abby that was on her desk? It look liked it was glowing.

I also heard that someone was leaving the show at the end of this season. Any guesses as to who thats going to be?
2129 Replies · 214617 views
TheRatPatrol
Wait, Tony is the director now? Apologies, I stopped watching a while ago.
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Jimbo
Wait, Tony is the director now? Apologies, I stopped watching a while ago.
Was Gibbs still there when you quit watching ?
If so, A Lot has happened ....

It's been pretty good all along , once you get use to Gibbs being gone.
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Jimbo

Howard ...
You don't like Tony, or Tony as the Director (he's only been there for 30 seconds now) or you don't like NCIS ?
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Howard Simmons
Howard ...
You don't like Tony, or Tony as the Director (he's only been there for 30 seconds now) or you don't like NCIS ?
Tony as the director.🙄
Jimbo
Tony as the director.🙄
Would you rather have LaRoche ???
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
· posted in TWiT Tech Podcast Network
0 Replies · 6 views
dishstaller
Pub Member / Supporter Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
I bought the fixed color version of these bulbs for my store several years ago...work great and no more replacing ballast. Finally had one go out and when I went back to Amazon I saw that now they come in selectable versions so no more guess work as to what color light would do best in a certain area. They are now double OR single ended...used to be strictly one way or the other. If any of you are looking at replacing the old style 4 or 8 ft bulbs, you might want to give these a try. The 8 footers are BRIGHT. I put 5 in my shooting/target shed and you can get a decent tan if you are in there long enough.

1 Replies · 21 views
Foxbat
When we re-lamped my in-Laws' house for sale last year, we were able to get all the Edison bulbs and a few fixtures with switch-selectable Color Temperature. We tried a few and settled on 3000°K as the best fit for the house. Matching the lighting in all the rooms made for an inviting experience. The Shop was the only place that we went with 4000°K for the LED 4' fixtures.

The house was sold within a month of going on the market, so we must have done something right.

The other advantage is if the new owners decide that they prefer a warmer light, they can unscrew the bulbs (I think it was close to 70 bulbs) and set them to the 2500K/2700K settings.

I'll have to check these out. Thanks!
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