ZVOX 550 Soundbar
Product Description
Only 3.5-inch high, the ZVOX Z-Base 550 home theater system can be placed beneath your flat-panel TV — so you can have surround sound without adding a lot of clutter to your room. Created by legendary speaker designer Winslow Burhoe (founder of EPI Loudspeakers and Burhoe Acoustics), the 550 sounds absolutely terrific, reproducing music and movie soundtracks with lifelike accuracy. Voices are crystal clear. Bass from the built-in subwoofer is tight and solid. And the ZVOX PhaseCue virtual surround system delivers incredible three-dimensional sound. The entire system–speakers, amplifier, virtual surround technology and powered subwoofer–fits into the super-slim cabinet. The 550 is a true single-cabinet surround sound system. It doesn’t require anything else – no control console, no separate subwoofer cabinet, no other speakers, no speaker wires. With only one connecting cord and a one-page owner’s manual, it is truly “plug and play.” The cabinet is robustly constructed using fully-braced MDF (medium density fiberboard) — not plastic. Beautiful hand-lacquered high-gloss ebony end panels create a stylish look. Critics rave about the design and sound the Z-Base 550. “The best solution to date for simple home theater sound. The effect was more convincing than I’ve heard from two-speaker surround-emulation technologies such as SRS and Dolby Virtual Speaker. The Z-Base is as foolproof as a home theater audio system can get, and it delivers satisfying sound that won’t leave you wishing you’d instead bought a home theater in a box.” -Sound & Vision “The ZVOX 550 handles dialogue better than any soundbar speaker I’ve heard. If you want the simplest possible solution with the best sound, this is your ticket.” -Home Theater A slam-dunk win.” – CNET “An excellent one-cabinet system.” – Gizmodo
Features:
- The only surround sound system designed to act as a base platform for your flat-panel TV.
- Requires only one connecting cord.
- PhaseCue virtual surround system to give you rich, three-dimensional sound with movies or music.
- Designed to act as a base platform for most 26″ – 50″ flat-panel TVs
- “Tonally accurate sound and an astounding lack of modern technological trickery¿a purist’s speaker.¿ – Hartford Courant
Price At Amazon.com: $399.00
Average User Rating: 4.0
No of Reviews: 9
Click Below To Buy at Amazon.com
ZVOX 550 Soundbar
John T. Mcguire
17 Dec, 2009
Bought this Zvox 550 to replace a 14 year old Bose lifesyle system. Wasn’t sure if it would be up to snuff. Hooked it up real quick. Compared it back to back with the bose. The Zvox does a good job of doing a virtual surround sound. Used the first 12 minutes of transformers 2 to test the strange little sounds. Compared to the 14 year old bose the difference was negligible. Happy with the sound, great price for 399 and no more wires all over the place!
User Rating: 4 / 5
Brad P
17 Dec, 2009
I recently moved my “good” system from Family room to Rec room and needed a modest replacement in the Family room with a small footprint. The Zvox seemed perfect. After reading the reviews and the marketing material and specs from the company’s website, I figured this might be a great little system. I bought it while it was on sale at Amazon. With my Amazon Prime free 2-day shipping, it showed up amazingly quick as usual (under 24 hours). Although the package looked like UPS took out their frustrations on it (again, as usual).
Setup is fool proof and there are no options. Plug it in, connect your left and right RCA’s and go. Problem is, it really sounds no better than the built-in speakers on my 42″ Panasonic Plasma (circa 2004). Honestly, it doesn’t. There is a little more bass, due to the Zvox having a 5″ speaker in the bottom, but not enough to be worth anywhere near $400… I even did a blind listening test with members of my family where I switched between the Zvox and the TV speakers. 100% of the test listeners chose the built in TV speakers using both TV dialog and CD music as sources. My oldest daughter described the sound as “Empty” – I have to agree. I played with treble, sub, and “Phase que” levels (which is all that can be controlled) – did another blind listening test – no real improvement.
Basically, this unit delivers an upper midrange and an upper low range – not much in between. Not even close to a home theater experience and basically un-usable for music.
Verizon Fios users: You will NOT be able to control the Zvox with your Fios universal remote. The supplied codes don’t work. Plus, the Fios remote’s “learning mode” will not produce a code to control the volume either. I actually emailed Zvox support 2 days prior to purchase to ask this question. I didn’t get a reply, but bought anyway. Turns out, it’s now been a week and I still haven’t gotten a reply. So I guess their support’s not that great, at least around the Holidays..
Upon close inspection (the grills are removable), the Zvox had 5 tiny (about 1 1/2″ diameter) cheap-looking drivers (paper cones with paper domes) and 1 equally cheap looking 5″ “woofer”. Based on the audible treble distortion that was really obvious, I’d say the onboard amplifier circuitry is pretty bad too. The “phase que” surround emulation circuitry didn’t do anything for me except make the sound more “wierd”. Construction is pretty good – typical low/mid price speaker quality. Although I’m not sure I’d describe the end caps as “Piano Laquer finish” as the company’s description does. It’s shiny and black, but far from perfectly finishes and smooth…
All this took place in my family room, which isn’t small – about 14′ x 18′. So maybe I was expecting more. If you have a very small room, it may be worth a look – “your milage may vary” as they say. If you have a decent sized room, sit 6 feet or more from your TV, and have any kind of an ear for good sound – you’ll probably be disappointed.
User Rating: 2 / 5
J. Ramirez
17 Dec, 2009
This system is awesome. It was like going from AM to FM… no, to Satellite Radio. Movies and TV shows are way better now. It is amazing how LCD TVs have such poor quality speakers – this system is a must have.
I’ve tested it with sporting events, regular TV, and action flicks and the results are very, very satisfying. As other reviewers have pointed out, this is indeed not a substitute for a full-blown 5.1 or 7.1 home theater system. This is a nice compromise balancing ease of installation (literally less than three minutes from the box to fully-functional under your TV), aesthetics (it looks really, really nice), price and sound quality.
It also makes for a decent home stereo. Initially I had some sound quality issues playing CDs, but I figured out that it was because my DVD player (which I was using to play CDs) was connected to the TV set which in turn was connected to the Zbase. I bypassed the TV and connected the audio from the DVD player directly to the Zbase and this was the trick: great sound quality and it can play quite loud too.
User Rating: 5 / 5
K. Sanderson
17 Dec, 2009
I have owned this for over a week now and am impressed. This product has exceeded my expectations. I am very thankful Zvox put the thought and quality into this that it deserved.
I was a little dismayed at the cost, but looking around at comparable units it became clear that was my most realistic price point. I was hoping more for the price of the 325 system, but am glad I took the step up.
For those looking for something that is unobtrusive, simple to install and operate, yet demand good audio quality, this is the unit. My wife and I decided it was time to take the ‘HD plunge’ and get rid of our old tube TV and stereo system we had used for many years. I hated to lose the stereo, an older but high quality unit, because we used it both for TV and music, so I spent quite a bit of time selecting our new TV, stand, blu-ray, and sound system, comparing a lot of each of the components. We finally bought a Samsung UN46B8000 tv, a Sony blu-Ray player, and the Zvox 550.
Our living room is an odd shape, long and narrow with a fireplace along one wall, but completely open on the other side into the dining room and kitchen. It also has hardwood floors and windows on either side of the fireplace – a terrible place to try to put a 5.1 or 7.1 home theater set-up. We did not have the acoustic space for it, and had no desire to see wires and speakers all over the place either.
The 550 looks very classy with it’s black body and polished ends. It easily supports our TV, lending it a subtly daised appearance on the Bell’O stand we bought. I had resigned myself to the ‘blister button’ style remote described in other reviews, but to my delight when it was delivered it had a small but standard looking remote, with real buttons and a thicker, easier to hold shape. The unit even has an ‘Auto’ setting that causes it to turn itself on and off automatically by detecting an audio signal. Thank you Zvox!!!!
The sound is great. It is a very clear sound, with separate treble and bass controls on the remote, which I love, as there is no way to adjust these in the tv. As described in other reviews, the built in sub-woofer is quite reasonable, surprising me with it’s volume and definition while watching the new Transformers blu-ray, though there is also provision to connect an external sub if you want. The ‘Phase-cue’ does work, expanding the sound stage to make it seem one is listening to speakers much further apart than they really are. This is especially nice while listening to music, though for movies too much ‘phase-cue’ causes a loss of center channel definition. I appreciate the designers making the amount of phase-cue adjustable for the users preference on the remote. For my purposes the unit has PLENTY of volume, making it generally useful for tv or music, just as I wanted.
I highly recommend this to anyone who wants great sound, but without all the hassle and visual busy-ness of a full-blown audio system. I have found it well worth the price, and meeting or exceeding my expectations in every way.
User Rating: 5 / 5
P. Probst
17 Dec, 2009
I have had the ZVOX 550 base for several months now and I am more or less satisfied with it. I gave it 5 stars because I truly believe that is the correct rating. The more or less is because I would have preferred to have a 5.1 sound system, which the ZVOX is not. That said, the ZVOX 550 Base is quality all the way. Mine is a refurbed unit that I got from ZVOX for considerably less than what a new unit would cost. Mine sits under my 50 inch plasma and the combination looks great.
As other reviewers here and elsewhere have previously said, it is not a replacement -repeat, not a replacement- for a 5.1 system since it is a stereo speaker system. However, the speakers deliver exceptionally clear, rich, quality (and powerful) sound that is an excellent alternative to the TV’s built in speakers. I was particularly impressed with the amount of bass the 550 delivers, which was very substantial to my ears. You can also connect a separate subwoofer, which is in this case is done for a stereo set-up and not a 5.1 set-up.
The Phase Cue feature expands and reduces the stereo effect. In my experience, Phase Cue works best on movies, either played on a dvd player or when they are received in your home via satellite/fios/etc. in 5.1 (I have Directv) rather than for typical TV broadcasts. For movies, you really do notice that the front sound field is expanded several feet beyond the the TV so you do get semi-wrapped in the sound track. In addition to the great sound quality, I totally appreciated how easy it was to hook up. You shouldn’t have to spend any more than 5 minutes and possibly less than 2 minutes plugging in the power and hdmi connections. It will probably take longer to review the 1 page directions sheet. A couple more minutes changing the speaker settings in your TV’s menu and you’re ready to rock & roll! It was fantastic not having to spend hours trying to get all the connections made that one encounters with a separate AVR and multi-speaker system.
If you have a flat panel that weighs less than 100 lbs and want a simple, high quality upgrade to your TV’s speakers that also offers some flexibility, the solidly built ZVOX 550 Base is well worth considering. Check eBay for a refurbed unit from ZVOX if you’re looking to spend less than full price.
Added 9/23/09: Although the ZVOX 550 Base is easy to use and, as noted above, extremely easy to set up, a major flaw is the small ‘insensitive’ IR remote (for which I probably should have subtracted 1 star). This remote MUST be pointed precisely at the correct spot on the front panel and only from HEAD ON for the base unit to respond to a command. There is a blue light on the front panel of the base unit that will blink to acknowledge a command from the remote so there is visual as well as audio confirmation. I typically sit about 10-12 feet away. There is no response if the remote is even slightly off angle when I try to make an adjustment so I often have to physically move to have the proper line of sight to get a response. My understanding is that ZVOXAudio now has a replacement remote available, however I do not know whether or not it works off angle or is more sensitive than the remote it replaces. We can only hope that it corrects the shortcomings of the original remote.
9/25/09: I emailed ZVOX regarding my issue with the remote and they sent me the new version of the remote. The new remote only has volume controls and a mute button. You still need the original remote to control the Phase Cue feature. The new remote seems to have a larger ’sweet spot’ and works significantly better than the original remote so I am quite satisfied with its performance.
User Rating: 5 / 5