Senior Director of Software at HEOS discusses the platform’s origins, evolution, and future
Question:
Can you give us a brief run-down of the history of HEOS?
Anders:
The origins of HEOS go back to a company called Avega Systems, which was founded in Sydney, Australia. Avega was acquired by Altec Lansing at the end of 2010, and then D&M acquired the Sydney team at the end of 2012.
The HEOS brand itself launched in June 2014. The first HEOS products were three wireless speakers: HEOS 3, HEOS 5, and HEOS 7. They all carried the HEOS brand as the primary logo, with a “by Denon” sub-branding.
The industrial design of the HEOS 7 came from Altec Lansing—D&M, the holding company of Denon and Marantz at the time, acquired not just the platform but also some existing speaker design plans. Those early HEOS speakers had a distinctive teardrop/oval industrial design, which helped them stand out.
Shortly after, we launched HEOS 1, a smaller portable speaker with a battery. Then we moved into components:
HEOS Link
HEOS Amp
The HEOS Amp was essentially the 2014 equivalent of what is now the Marantz MODEL M1—you could think of it as the forebear of that product. We also brought out the HEOS Drive, which was the predecessor to the Marantz M4, and a number of soundbars, including home cinema products and even a lifestyle AVR.
From about 2014–2016, we built out that first wave of dedicated HEOS-branded hardware.
Question:
When did HEOS move into AVRs, and how did that change the direction of the brand?
Anders:
The big step came in 2016, when we decided the time was right to bring the HEOS platform into AVRs. HEOS was our opportunity to differentiate our AVRs and offer something much better than the competition—especially in terms of ease of use and multi-room capabilities. We did a big engineering push to integrate HEOS into AVRs and launched at the end of 2016 with multiple models for Marantz.
That point also marks a shift in brand strategy. Up to then, we had been launching HEOS-branded products. After HEOS entered AVRs, we gradually stopped launching new HEOS-branded hardware and instead positioned HEOS as an ingredient brand—what we now call “Powered by HEOS”.
Question:
Can you explain in very simple terms what HEOS is and what its primary benefit is to a user?
Anders:
At its core, HEOS is a multi-room audio platform.
From the very beginning—right back in the Avega startup days—the technology was about how to synchronize audio across multiple devices so they could play in perfect sync around the home. Technically, that involved things like using Wi‑Fi beacons and various timing mechanisms, but the user-facing idea was simple: music in every room, playing together or independently, with minimal friction.
Back in the mid-2000s, people were starting to rip CDs to digital formats—often low-bitrate MP3s—then playing them from PCs. We saw an opportunity to build audio equipment that could play that digital content in multiple rooms easily.
As streaming services appeared, they became a huge part of the value proposition. So today, the user benefit is really:
Easy access to streaming content and services; the ability to control and distribute audio around the home, and a unified app and platform experience across multiple products and rooms.
Over time, especially given the brands we support—Marantz and Denon—we’ve deliberately moved from lower quality, compressed audio as the norm to high-quality streaming audio. We want to be at the high end of the spectrum: maintaining the convenience of streaming and multi-room, but with audio quality that matches the expectations of premium hi-fi brands.
Question:
How do you think HEOS helps differentiate Marantz products in an increasingly crowded market? How does it help Marantz stand out?
Anders:
People buy Marantz for many reasons—its sound signature, its hi‑fi heritage, and these days, its industrial design as well. Those elements remain the core drivers for choosing Marantz. But to compete seriously today, even a heritage hi‑fi brand needs a compelling set of features and functionality—streaming, multi-room, app control, integration, etc.
That’s where HEOS comes in.
It ensures Marantz stays competitive in the modern musical world. It offers a high-quality, modern streaming and multi-room experience without relying on the generic, licensed platforms that many brands use.
Originally, D&M’s move to HEOS was a conscious step away from an older, less user-friendly licensed platform that other brands were also using. HEOS allowed Denon and Marantz to stand apart, rather than just being one more vendor using a slightly tweaked version of the same software.
Because Marantz has such a strong reputation for sound quality, HEOS has to match that standard. The platform is built and tuned to support high-quality streaming audio, not just tick-box connectivity.
So, HEOS helps Marantz stay true to its hi‑fi heritage while still delivering the type of connected, feature-rich experience that modern customers expect.
Question:
HEOS has seen a lot of updates recently—like U31, U37, and U37.1. What does your development process look like? How do you decide what to change or add?
Anders:
We gather feedback from a lot of different sources and feed it into a structured backlog process.
Key inputs include:
Regional dealers and sales representatives:
They’re close to the market and hear directly from customers and retailers about what’s needed, what’s missing, and what’s working well.
Customer Support teams:
I personally spend a lot of time talking with our support teams. They’re on the front line when it comes to customer pain points, recurring issues, and frustrations. Often, what shows up as a “pain point” is actually the absence of a feature or a limitation in how something works.
User feedback channels:
We look at app store reviews, online forums (like Reddit), and other public feedback. These often surface specific requests—such as longer playlists, changes to the Now Playing experience, or other usability improvements.
We try to collect this input across all major regions—what’s important in Europe might be less critical in North America, and Asia can be quite different again in terms of services and use cases.
All of this funnels into our backlog, and every two weeks, we hold an internal session with the main stakeholders. From there, we decide what goes into upcoming releases, balancing platform-wide improvements, product-specific support and short-term fixes vs. longer-term strategic features.
It’s an iterative process, but it’s grounded strongly in real-world feedback from users, dealers, and support.
Question:
In our last chat you mentioned how often priorities change. Can you explain a bit more about how you manage features across different releases?
Anders:
We work in a very agile way. Priorities and focus can change quite easily, and that’s by design. Even if we say, “This feature will go into this specific release,” we keep reassessing as we get closer. Sometimes that means shifting a feature back a release and bringing something else forward. It’s an ongoing process of assessing priorities and mapping them to upcoming releases.
Question:
Looking at recent versions—what would you pick out as the biggest innovations for users?
Anders:
There isn’t just one standout feature, to be honest. About two years ago, we did a major overhaul of the app, which was a big milestone, and since then, we’ve been polishing it. We’ve done a lot of performance improvements and further tweaks based on customer feedback from that redesign, especially around the home screen and its customization options. So, it’s been a cycle of “big overhaul, then lots of incremental refinements.”
Question:
You recently added Qobuz support. That’s been requested for a while—how did that unfold?
Anders:
Qobuz has been highly requested from the field for many years. It was always on the roadmap but kept ending up a bit lower in priority while we covered other major items. Eventually, we reached the point where it was right for us. At the same time, Qobuz announced Qobuz Connect. So, we decided to support both approaches, Connect and HEOS in-app.
Qobuz, and HEOS, launched Connect in May last year, and then our in‑app version followed about two months later. Supporting it both via Connect and in‑app gives users options.
Question:
Spotify’s lossless announcement has been hanging over the industry for what feels like forever. Has that created any extra work for you?
Anders:
Spotify has talked about lossless—originally “Spotify HiFi”— for a very long time. We originally implemented Spotify lossless support around three years ago. Since then, it’s mostly been a case of waiting for Spotify to launch into market.
I work closely with Spotify, so we’re in regular contact. The heavy lifting on our side was done years ago; this time around, it was more about monitoring, testing, and making sure everything behaved correctly as they started rolling it out to users.
Question:
From a HEOS point of view, what are the real challenges when you move into lossless and higher‑resolution formats?
Anders:
For something like Spotify lossless, the challenge is actually quite modest. With lossless/FLAC the bandwidth is still relatively low, and the processing requirements aren’t huge. Spotify moved from Ogg Vorbis to FLAC, and FLAC is actually easier to decode from a processing perspective.
The real challenges come with true high‑resolution formats—like 24‑bit/192 kHz PCM or high‑rate DSD (11.2 MHz and above). Now you’re dealing with very large data streams and significantly higher processing loads. That’s where it gets demanding, especially when you combine that with multi‑room distribution. Sending that kind of data to multiple devices in sync across a home is non‑trivial.
We also have to decide what level of support each hardware generation can realistically deliver. HEOS has multiple hardware generations, and, like with PCs, every new generation is more powerful. So, the capabilities differ.
Question:
Backward compatibility is a hot topic; how do you decide how far back to support?
Anders:
It’s something we’re always debating: “How far back do we go?” The original HEOS products from 2014–2015 use what we call the HS1, our first‑generation HEOS hardware. We no longer add new features to those products.
They still function and we aim to keep them compatible in multi‑room groups, but they don’t get new services. So, for example, the Qobuz integration we just talked about—HS1 speakers are not able to play back Qobuz by themselves. You can still play music on them, and you can group them with a newer device that can play Qobuz, but they can’t do it on their own.
We’ve also started to be more selective with new features like Roon Ready. Over the last 18 months, we’ve been rolling out Roon Ready support, but we’ve chosen not to bring it to many older models due to technical constraints.
That said, the first AVR we launched with HEOS back in 2016 is still getting updates and new features. So, we’re currently supporting products that are nine years old.
Question:
We’ve spoken a lot about streaming services, but multi‑room is a huge part of the story. How does HEOS handle multi‑room synchronization and latency across different rooms and speakers?
Anders:
The core synchronization technology is now very mature for us. It’s not something we’re reinventing all the time—it’s an established part of the platform. Our focus with new products is largely making sure they follow that architecture correctly.
The Marantz Horizon is a good example. It’s the first product that uses a software DSP, running on the HEOS module itself rather than in a separate dedicated DSP component. That introduces new challenges which we need to manage carefully.
We’ve put a lot of effort into dealing with those complexities, but importantly, it doesn’t change the core synchronisation algorithm. That part is stable and proven. We have internal benchmarks for latency and synchronization performance, and we design and tune new products to meet those requirements.
Question:
Looking ahead, what’s the long-term vision for HEOS?
Anders:
If I had to summarize a wider goal, it would be for HEOS to be recognized as the leading player in wireless audio streaming and multi-room. HEOS should be a name that defines the wireless audio space.
At the same time, we don’t want to overshadow Marantz and our other audio brands. HEOS is there to enable it, not replace it. Among reviewers, enthusiasts, and the specialist community, HEOS is already well known, but in the more mainstream market, there’s still room for greater recognition.
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