Stereophile: One-Box Surround from Zvox

Sure, now he’s smiling. But when Zvox Audio’s Tom Hannaher introduced their new model 425 all-in-one-box surround sound system at a press conference on the first day of the show, he was most distressed about the fact that while the prototype unit had worked fine before he brought it to the room that the press conference was in, in the press conference room it would not make a sound at all. I was going to suggest that he take it back to the original room to see if it worked there, but I restrained myself, thinking that he probably would not appreciate the humor in my suggestion. As it turned out, my facetious suggestion was more correct I realized. On the second day of the show, back in the original room, they plugged in the 425 prior to opening it up to see if they could see anything amiss —and, lo and behold, it worked perfectly. Gremlins, I guess. I had a listen to it myself, and found the sound surprisingly full and natural for a product of this type.

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Reader Comments

Posted Sun May13, 2007, 6:42 AM — By allmodcons

Interesting product but one I fear that is past its time -the system accepts only analog inputs. Perhaps a great way improve a bedroom or office TV but in an age when even video game consoles have digital outputs an analog only system is a bit limiting. Product appears to be a one box Hafler matrix solution with three closely spaced driver in the middle and two side firing,out of phase drivers. The demo I witnessed on Fri seemed to work OK, the soundstage was definitely broadened but I did not get any sort of wrap around effect.

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