When Sound & Vision reviewed the original ZVOX 315 sound system in October 2004, the notion of a single-box surround sound solution for movies and music was utterly revolutionary. The 315 so strongly answered a market need and performed so well that we honored it that year with one of our Reviewers' Choice (now called Editors' Choice) awards.
Interestingly, the 315 didn't use any hocus-pocus digital processing to perform its magic — just good, basic speaker design. The center channel-style cabinet housed three small front drivers, with the outer two angled slightly out. You plugged in the analog stereo signal from your TV or DVD player, and the middle driver would put out left-plus-right channel information — in other words, mono. That's pretty much what you get from the center channel in any digital surround system, and it's hugely effective for anchoring dialogue to the screen.
Meanwhile, ZVOX's designer, Winslow Burhoe (who gained fame in the '70s with his speakers for EPI), tapped an ancient and proven form of analog spatial processing to deliver some semblance of surround sound: He fed the two outer drivers left-minus-right and right-minus-left channel information so they would deliver more of the "out-of-phase" content in the signal, which typically amounts to ambience in movies or crowd noise in concert videos or sports events. A PhaseCue control adjusted the output of the two outer drivers, allowing you to control the degree of effect. Add to this some clever internal design to reduce cabinet size and a small dedicated woofer that fires from a port in the back, and you've got something that can seriously embarrass any built-in TV speakers.
Not surprisingly, the 315 has proved venerable: It's still available from ZVOX at the same $200 price at which it was introduced. Still, the company wasn't content to remain a one-trick pony; it spent 2006 filling out its line with two new models. The ZVOX Mini debuted last spring, also at $200, offering a considerably smaller cabinet that can be carried with your iPod in an optional custom shoulder bag and run off a rechargeable battery — what ZVOX calls its "PortaParty" package.
|
The Short Form
|
| Price: $350 / zvoxaudio.com / 781-599-5493 |
|
Snapshot
|
| Though it can't replace a component home theater system, this all-in-one sound solution makes a compact, powerful upgrade for TV and movie watching. |
|
Plus
|
|
•Compact size •Easy installation •Accurate midrange reproduction •Plays loud (for a small speaker system) •Decent bass extension (for a small system) |
|
Minus
|
|
•Slightly subdued highs •PhaseCue processing can't pass for true surround sound |
|
Key Features
|
|
•3 x 3.25-in forward-firing drivers; 6 x 4-in powered woofer •Credit-card remote control for volume/mute •Automatic signal-sensing on/off control •Volume, PhaseCue, subwoofer controls •High-grade MDF cabinet •Connections: 3 minijack in, 1 minijack subwoofer out •17 x 5 x 17 in |
The ZVOX 325 sound system further benefits from a slightly larger bandpass cabinet — it retains the 315's 17-inch component-matching width but is a half-inch taller and 2 inches deeper. It has a much more powerful and sophisticated amp as well, said not only to deliver twice the power of the 315 to the critical center driver but also to provide some "contouring" of the sound to extract better sound. You'll pay for these improvements, of course: The 325 carries a price of $350, a not inconsiderable premium over the original.
SETUP Pulling the 325 from the box, it was hard not to notice the substantial heft of its MDF (medium-density fiberboard) cabinet — no cheap, ringing plastic case here! The outside is coated with a nice rubberized finish (in black or silver), and the underside has nonslip rubber feet. With a little finagling I had just enough depth atop my old 42-inch rear–projection HDTV to give the ZVOX stable footing, but with today's lithe flat-panel and microdisplay sets, most folks will put it on a shelf below the screen.
Setup is quite simple; all the instructions for hookup and operation are contained on one side of an 8.5 x 11-inch card. Besides a connector for plugging in its 12-volt power brick, the ZVOX 325 has but two minijacks on its back panel. The first (Input 1) is the primary stereo audio input, for which ZVOX supplies both an RCA-to-miniplug cord for hooking up a TV or traditional components, as well as a miniplug-to-miniplug cable for directly connecting an iPod dock or PC. The second minijack on the back can function as either a second input or an output for a separate powered subwoofer; when it is used as an input, Input 1 is automatically muted. Likewise, the primary input is overridden whenever you use the third input, a convenience minijack on the front panel good for temporary hookup of a portable music player. In addition to the volume and PhaseCue controls on the front panel, there's a subwoofer volume knob on the back to help fine-tune the bass output.
I tried a couple of different ways of rigging the unit. In most instances, ZVOX recommends plugging the mini-plug-to-RCA cable into the stereo output on your TV, then using the TV's menu to turn off the TV's internal speakers and turn on its variable output mode. This enables you to control the volume of the 325 with your regular TV or set-top box remote.
I used this setup for most day-to-day viewing but discovered that it limited the system's dynamics and maximum volume somewhat. So, for more critical evaluations I directly connected the ZVOX 325 to the analog RCA audio outputs from my digital cable box or, for music or DVD playback, those of my DVD or CD player. This requires use of the ZVOX remote or the system's front-panel controls to adjust volume.
PERFORMANCE After living with the ZVOX 325 as my TV sound system for a while (and being duly impressed), I got a better fix on its sound by checking its performance against that of my day-to-day theater system, set at various times to its stereo and three-channel stereo modes (the latter activates the left, right, and center speakers, with the center reproducing left + right, just as the ZVOX does). I also compared the 325's "surround" performance on some movies to my system's full-tilt 5.1 multichannel surround mode. The speakers for this system are tiny bookshelf monitors mated with a 10-inch subwoofer, but it's a well-regarded 5.1-channel speaker kit that retailed for about $800 when it came out some years back. These were fed by audio separates (overkill, I admit), including an amp rated at 100 watts per channel. I placed the left and right speakers atop the TV, a few inches to either side of the 325, and the compact center speaker went right on top of it. So it wasn't a question in my mind of which would perform better, but just how much compromise the ZVOX would entail.
Because this testing took place during the holidays, I watched a lot of college football (go Scarlet Knights!) and committed several excellent high-def holiday concerts to my DVR. On sports the ZVOX 325 generally sounded great, providing excellent dynamics for the crowd outbursts that marked big plays and substantial volume and authority to fill my 15 x 20-foot den. The PhaseCue control proved effective for bringing out the crowd noise and widening the soundstage to create a more engaging experience than my regular TV speakers provide, though turning it up too much tended to make the commentators' voices sound reverberant, hollow, and indistinct. I experimented with this control but rarely found myself setting it much higher than its 9 or 10 o'clock position. The same was true on music and concert tracks, where I preferred only a modest touch of PhaseCue to help widen the stereo image, lest it begin to affect the accuracy and intelligibility of vocals.
Concert videos were a lovely listen on the 325. The piano in a Suzy Bogguss performance at Garrison Keillor's New Year's Eve concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium came through with natural attack and decay, and the fiddle accompaniment sounded sweet and free of stridency. String bass came across a touch boomy even after I played with the subwoofer level control, suggesting that ZVOX may have designed in a little bump in the upper bass to give the impression of deeper response, but while experimenting I noticed this was exacerbated somewhat by my TV's corner placement. Either way, the bump added a touch of fullness to most program material that was usually welcome and not objectionable. Audience applause and a bit of the Ryman hall acoustic came through nicely thanks to that judicious application of the PhaseCue control.
Likewise, guitar plucks in a Barenaked Ladies performance of the song "Snowman" during their own holiday show were distinct and full, and the lead vocals and rich harmonies of this tune filled the room engagingly. Compared with my day-to-day system in stereo or three-channel stereo mode, the ZVOX rolled off the highs somewhat — the metallic shimmer of the drummer's brushwork lost some detail, for example. And the 325 sounded fuller in the upper bass than my regular sub/sat system, which clearly went lower and had greater dynamic impact when the song's chorus or other breaks kicked in. But the ZVOX still put some serious low-end energy into the room — its bass performance is the best I've heard from any of the single-box solutions. And I was pleasantly surprised by its midrange accuracy, the most critical chore for any sound system.
Plugging in my CD player, I cued up a few demanding music tracks to see what the ZVOX would do. A studio recording of holiday pop songs from the iconic '70s duo America reconfirmed for me the 325's strengths and weaknesses. Thanks to the system's slightly subdued highs, the sleigh bells that help open the track "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" lacked the full decay that gave them greater body on my everyday system, though again, the band's smooth, harmonious vocals were well-reproduced, and the ZVOX did a good job of delineating different instrumental lines even when playing loudly.
A fine jazz track I played, "Molten Swing" from Reference Recordings' Big Band Basie with the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble, starts on a bouncy piano riff with cymbal accompaniment that gets interrupted by a blast of Clark Terry's trumpet that practically leaps from the speakers. This recording has very well-defined cymbals and delivers a very good sense of depth from just a closely spaced stereo pair. By comparison, the ZVOX had nice piano rendition with perhaps a bit less spaciousness and roundness around the notes, a bit less shimmer and metallic quality on the cymbals, and, not unexpectedly, not quite the same dynamic blast from the trumpet as my day-to-day speakers backed up by a massive power amp were able to produce. But the 325 was impressive nonetheless, delivering this track with musicality and authority. Throughout my listening, it really cranked when I asked it to and started sounding strained only when repeatedly forced to hit measured sound-level peaks of 90 dB or higher in my room. That's plenty damn loud for this kind of system and a real feat for any speaker with such tiny drivers.
Finally, I checked out a couple of movies to gauge the system's ability to throw surround sound, including the animated Tom Hanks vehicle Polar Express (no pun intended). This soundtrack is filled with thrilling surround effects as the rumbling train makes its way to the North Pole through the wind and a blinding snowstorm. Cranking up the PhaseCue control threw a wider-than-usual image up front and gave some sense of the frigid and frighteningly exposed environment atop the speeding train. But, alas, the ZVOX 325 just can't perform like a full-tilt digital surround system that steers distinct information to rear speakers and creates a full 360º sonic envelope around the listener. ZVOX does suggest you experiment with any virtual surround modes in your TV or source device to enhance the effect, though. Either way, the 325's wide soundstage, powerful output, and (for its size) impressive bass extension made for an engaging movie experience that vastly eclipsed what built-in TV speakers can provide.
BOTTOM LINE For serious enthusiasts, the ZVOX 325 makes a fine, easy-to-install option — if not the perfect solution — for a bedroom, second home, or even a dorm room or small apartment, where it can function as both an awesome TV system and a music system for a PC loaded with MP3s or iTunes. As for me, I've gotten used to having it connected to my TV for that 75% of the time I'm not doing serious movie or TV viewing and just don't want to bother turning on my surround sound system. Being able to really hear the instruments and bass in the soundtracks of shows makes for an enormous quality-of-life improvement, and once you've heard what the ZVOX can do, it will be hard to go back to even the best built-in TV speakers. While there's no replacing a full-tilt surround sound system or high-performance audio system with a single-box system, when one box is all you care to spare, the ZVOX 325 does an admirable job with both movies and music that will surely impress.
Back to Homepage
What's New on S&V