Joined in 2023 
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CEOL-N11DAB is built for optimum sound performance with a custom-made two-way speaker configuration that improves clarity and musical accuracy. You will hear every instrument clearly with enthusiast quality. INTUITIVE TOUCH PANEL. A frequency sweep indicated that (in our listening room) the system was reproducing tones down into the 30s of hertz, finding its full strength in the 60s and 70s and rising impressively smoothly from there. Since the speakers are rear-ported, positioning will affect this somewhat, but can also be usefully employed to tweak it. It's freedom of music. It's part of the HEOS multi-room family. It's improved TV-Sound. It's a great CD-Player. For everybody CEOL is something different. Find out what it is for you. ALL YOU NEED IS HEOS.
This system has external inputs, though not a vast number – just one analogue RCA pair at line level (no phono input/stage for a turntable), though two useful optical digital inputs, one of which might be used for sound from your TV. (We are great fans of having stereo speakers like those of the N11 combo either side of your TV, or under it, as in the image overleaf, in preference to an often intrusive soundbar in front of it.) We began our listening with internet radio, which uses the excellent TuneIn platform, which in the UK has been hobbled by record company legal action so that it can’t play anything other than UK stations, but which is, as yet, free of such interference here in Australia. Indeed it is our favourite radio platform, the only one to offer our local community radio station along with quite a few others – 100,000 stations, says TuneIn, along with 5.7 million podcasts, so if it’s your first time playing with internet radio, this should keep you busy for a while.The CEOL N11DAB does so very much that it might be easier to describe what it doesn’t do. So – it doesn’t play vinyl. Or cassettes. Or AM radio.
We very much appreciate that HEOS is properly localised and doesn’t show services which aren’t available to Australia (as do most rivals, to the ongoing irritation of users). All of your music at your fingertips. Connect to your favourite music sources via Wi-Fi with HEOS Built-in, AirPlay2 or via Bluetooth®. With a 110-year legacy of audio mastery, the Denon CEOL N11DAB delivers high quality sound, no matter how you listen. IMPROVE YOUR TV-SOUND. We continued to some Tidal streaming; there’s no unfolding of MQA Masters here for high-res streaming (as rival streaming system BluOS offers), but it’s arguable whether high-res is going to improve the excellent sound we enjoyed, whether punching up some bouncy REM or delivering the drifting flow of Philip Glass’s Closing. There was a limit to the size of bass the speakers could deliver, but the deep underlying organ note under Closing was certainly present, if not fully resonant. There are various ways to tweak the sound quality, most easily accessed from the HEOS ‘now playing’ screen. This has a left-right balance control, plus EQ offering treble and bass sliders, and a ‘Super Dynamic Bass’ option, which certainly thumps up the low end, at the expense of a slight softening of higher frequencies; this was too much for us with internet radio, indeed it’s a sign of good sonic design that we spent nearly all of our CEOL listening with the ‘Source Direct’ option engaged, thereby hopefully getting the cleanest path to music.
EXCEPTIONAL SOUND DESIGN.
HEOS also delivers multiroom operation. Put another HEOS-compatible player elsewhere in your home and the ‘Rooms’ section of the HEOS app makes it ever so simple to have the same music playing to several or to all HEOS devices at once, whether they be HEOS-equipped soundbars, wireless speakers, even monumental AV receivers. You can also play the inputs of one device over the network to other HEOS devices, but – importantly – only the analogue inputs, not digital ones. We nearly forgot the CD player, so sidelined has this format become in our lives today. But those with silver to spin can be assured that this source was a highlight in terms of clarity and dynamics. The Painted Ladies’ version of Vic Simms’ Poor Folks Happiness drove forth with a full bassline, vocals and guitars well defined. As for more traditional sources there are screw-in antennas for the twin radio tuners onboard the Denon, delivering FM and digital DAB+ radio in addition to the internet radio delivered by HEOS. There’s no AM here, but all AM stations are almost certainly available at better quality via internet or DAB+ radio. Denon presents two brand new headphons at the IFA 2023: the new True Wireless In-Ears under the names "PerL" and "PerL Pro" are said to impress especially with elaborate sound personalization using "Masimo Adaptive Acoustic Technology". The High End also revealed that there will be a "1700" series from Denon, featuring at least an integrated amplifier with a price of around 2,000 euros.
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