I’ve lived with the ZVOX 420 for over 6 months now, and overall it has been a bit disappointing. I’d tried a few other approaches to fixing the awful sound on my new TV, but ZVOX had the promise of ‘Great Sound Made Simple’ so I had one shipped all the way from the US.
Turns out it’s not so simple after all. I thought I’d share my thoughts. This isn’t a review of the product, more a complaint about how annoying it is.
I have an Intelliplug, which turns on the power to most of my video devices when the TV is turned on. It’s a great idea. Turning things on is really easy – one press of the TV power button on the remote turns on the power, another press of the same button turns on the TV and you’re up and running. None of the humming, glowing, whirring beasts are taking power or costing money when the TV is off.
The ZVOX 420 doesn’t like it.
The ZVOX 420 doesn’t like being turned off.
When the power comes on, the ZVOX 420 takes a huff and turns itself off. It even tells you on its digital readout ‘OFF’.
Even now I’m amazed that someone thought that turning ON the power should be a sign that the unit should switch itself OFF. It’s not something that’s accidental, it’s not an oversight, someone has deliberately programmed this thing so that when power is restored to the unit it shows ‘OFF’ on the display and powers down. It’s like someone decided it should say “Hey, great! We have power now! Let's switch ourselves off!”
It would get worse if I followed ZVOX's support advice of leaving it powered on all the time and have it learn the TV remote’s power on/off code. Then we’d be in the following loop:
- Intelliplug off, TV off, ZVOX off.
- Press TV remote power button.
- Intelliplug on, TV off, ZVOX on.
- Press TV remote power button again.
- Intelliplug on, TV on, ZVOX off.
- Press TV remote power button.
- Intelliplug on, TV off, ZVOX on.
- Press TV remote power button again.
- Intelliplug on, TV on, ZVOX off.
- …
Pressing the power button on the remote just repeats steps 2-5. Either the TV is on, or the ZVOX is on, but never both. (This cycle of only-one-but-never-both is much less fun than it sounds.)
I didn’t follow that advice. Nor did I choose to use the horrible little remote that came with the unit.
In the end I settled for having the ZVOX plugged in to the Intelliplug, and using the TV remote to turn it on and off. That does mean a delay of a few seconds every time I turn the TV on, while I wait for the ZVOX to gleefully insist on turning itself off and (only once it has finished) become responsive to the ON signal. And that’s annoying.
Every single time I turn on my TV, I’m annoyed at the ZVOX 420.
There are some nice bits to the ZVOX unit. I like that the display turns itself off after a few seconds, so there are no bright LEDs in your vision when you’re watching something dark on the TV. I wish more companies did that – I’ve taken to putting black tape over the pointless LEDs on some products.
The sound is OK, too. I’m not an audiophile and I was deliberately choosing not to go for a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound system, but the sound is fine, and much, much better than the TV on its own. There is sometimes some distortion when I’m playing things through the Boxee, but that may be due to the Boxee rather than the ZVOX.
But overall I’m just disappointed. Every time I turn on the TV I have to stop, pause, curse the stupidity of whoever thought turning OFF the moment it got power was a good idea, then turn the ZVOX on.
Every. Single. Time.
I did email support at ZVOX, and they said the deliberate turning-off-when-power-comes-on is to ensure compliance with ‘surprisingly varied safety and power consumption regulations imposed on a product available worldwide’, and told me how little power it draws when it’s in standby.
I don’t care what the product does in other countries, or other houses. I just know what I want it to do in my house. I want it to turn on when I turn it on, not turn off when I turn it on. And it makes little difference to me how little power it draws in standby when I never want it to be in standby at all. I just want it to turn on and off properly.