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22 FEB 2005 |
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Zvox 315 |
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One
relatively unsaid topic
regarding TV's is the quality of
the sound that comes from the
speakers built in your
television. The same can
be said for LCD monitors that
have built in speakers as well.
When buying a TV, people mainly
place a priority on the picture
quality rather than the sound.
If the picture quality on the TV
is good or excellent, there is
no doubt the TV will be
purchased as long as it is
affordable and sounds decent to
the consumer. Compared
with dedicated stereo or
home-theatre speakers, the sound
that comes from a TV is no
comparison.
Today, we will be having a look
at a unique solution that
attempts to provide a better
sound solution for your TV.
It is called the Zvox 315.
In general, it is a speaker that
you place on top of your
television to replace or go with
the built in speakers of your
TV. One might ask how it
can offer better sound.
For one thing, a dedicated
speaker can offer a much fuller
range of sound making things
sound richer and clearer.
In this review, we will answer
several questions that include
whether it sounds good and
whether it is easy to connect to
your TV, or even your computer! |
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The Zvox 315 came well packged in a large box.
This box will definitely catch one's eyes for
one simple reason: it has huge text and quotes
on the box. One of them says, "Blows away
the sound that's built into your TV."
We'll be the judge of that later. When
opening the box, the main speaker was held in
between some foam placement containers.
Included with the main speaker is the AC adapter
to provide power to the speaker and two cables.
One cable is a headphone to headphone jack, the
other is a headphone to RCA connector.
Because Zvox provided these two kinds of cables,
we can already assume that this can not only be
plugged into a TV, but it can be used with a
computer as well. |
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The speaker itself came in a silver
color. Note that there is a black
colored version of this speaker as well.
The speaker itself is flat, but does
take up quite a bit of space. It
is almost as big as a mini-tower desktop
computer or slightly larger than full
sized set top DVD player. The
front of the speaker has is covered with
a silver cloth. The speaker itself
may look like one large speaker, but in
actuality, it is composed of three full
range drivers and a subwoofer. The
drivers are 3.25 inches and the
subwoofer is 5.25 inches. |
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The back of the
speaker has all the volume, inputs, and
other controls of the speaker. To
the right of all the controls is a port
for the subwoofer. Immediately, I
noticed that putting the controls at the
back can be a disadvantage. It
will require stretching your hand to the
back of the speaker and finding the
right controls.
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The control panel is the main part of
the speaker which allows you to tune and
adjust the settings of the speaker.
There are two headphone jack sized
inputs. There is also a main
volume control, Phase Cue control, and
the subwoofer level. When power is
supplied to the unit, the LED will light
up indicating that it is powered.
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First, I used the Zvox with an older
television set. Since it was a rather large TV, all I had
to do was place the speaker right on top of it. Next, I
had to plug in all the necessary connections to enable the
speaker to work. This involves plugging in the AC adapter
and the input cable. When using the speaker with the TV,
you will be using the cable that has the left and right audio
connectors on your TV. The speaker was then connected and
ready to go. When turning on my TV with the Zvox 315 on, I
was amazed at the improved sound quality that TV sound had to
offer. Typically, the subwoofer of a speaker set sits on
the floor. In this case, it's part of the speaker. I
noticed that the bass of the sound actually did sound like a
subwoofer sitting on the floor. The speakers themselves
were quite impressive. In a large room, the speakers were
able to fill the room with sound easily. The PhaseCue
volume setting seems to set the "surround" sound.
Since the Zvox 315 does have headphone jacks, it can be used
with other devices such as a computer or a MP3 player.
Since the speaker is rather large, I tried placing the speaker
on my desk and placing my monitor on top of it. It still
took up too much space on my desk. When playing a song
through my computer, the sounds didn't seem balanced. When
using my typical test songs on speakers, I noticed that the main
voices or instruments were much quieter than the overall
background sounds. The Zvox 315 only seems to be a good
choice, if you really have low quality multimedia speakers for
your computer.
I had no problems with the
sound when connecting an MP3 player or CD player to the speaker.
The sound sounded just fine.
My only gripe
about the Zvox 315 is not the sound itself, but the controls.
We all know how the volume of the TV is changed frequently with
the use of the TV remote. In this case, you will need to
get up from your seat and adjust the volume controls manually on
the back of the speaker. If Zvox had allowed some way of
changing the volume of the product without getting up from the
seat, then this product would have been much better.
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The Zvox 315 is a very capable unit that
seems ideal for TV's that have poor sound. Although it can
be used in other applications as well such as the computer, I
think it works best with a TV and a MP3 player or CD player
second best. The Zvox provides room-filling sound with
three speakers and a subwoofer all contained into a single unit.
I really had no complaints at all about the sound. The
Zvox 315 is only lacking some type of remote control of the
volume since people tend to change the volume of the television
frequently. Overall, at the price of $199.99, this is a
good product to get if you are looking to improve the sound of
your TV, but don't quite have the space for surround sound.
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Reviewed by
ronald@digitalreviews.net |
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