ZVOX Is Now Top-Selling Home Theater System At Imaginary Electronics Store, "The Buy More."

A little over a year ago we were pleasantly surprised when the folks who produce the NBC TV show Chuck asked us to supply ZVOX surround sound systems for use as props. Since then we've set our DVRs to record every episode, so we can slo-mo the scenes where you can see our stuff. We particularly like the episode where a "Buy More" clerk, fantasizing about the cute new "Nerd Herd" employee, starts making out with a ZVOX carton. 

When we started ZVOX in 2003, it was a challenge to get retailers -- real or fictional -- to take us seriously. They were so committed to the formula of "five speakers + subwoofer + receiver = big sale + happy customer" that they couldn't think "inside the box." Now when we approach retailers they seem to treat us like visionaries because we were pushing simple home theater before it was cool. And simple home theater is cool. Our new 575 IncrediBase system challenges the performance of a good five-speaker surround sound system -- but without all the boxes and wires.

We firmly believe that in a few more years, traditional 5.1 surround sound systems will be considered exotic -- something only hard core home theater buffs would buy. Sort of in the same category as vacuum tube amplifiers and expensive turntables for audiophiles.

The future of home theater sound...is simple.

Slow Tech Home Theater.

I admit it – I am a sucker for fast-changing high tech products. I own three iPods and and iPhone. My laptop computer, now two years old, is hopelessly out of date, soon to be replaced by a faster, fancier, lighter model. I just ordered an LED backlit LCD TV to replace my three year old HD flat panel.


So now that I’ve finished the full-disclosure about my addiction to fast-tech, let’s move on to “slow tech,” which I define as “products that maintain their appealing usefulness for a period of five years or longer.” Here’s a short list of examples:

• The lightweight curved-handled snow shovel I just used to clear my driveway. The curved handle is a brilliant idea. We’ve had it for about six years. Looks like it should last another 20 unless I accidentally run over it.

• My white Krups coffee grinder. It’s got to be 20 years old and works as well as it did the day we bought it. Ann liked it so much she went out and bought a new one about a year ago, but it doesn’t work any better than the old one – so we keep using the old one.

• My Tivoli Model One table radio. Henry Kloss gave it to me as a Christmas present the year before he died. It’s small, simple, stylish and sounds good. As long as FM stations keep broadcasting, I’ll hang on to it.

• Our Jenn-Air countertop electric grille. Of all the appliances installed when we remodeled our kitchen in 1984, this is the only survivor. Still works like a champ and hasn’t gone out of style.

• My Cambridge SoundWorks 740 table radio. I know. Two table radios on the list – and that doesn’t count my 37 year old Advent Model 400 which I gave away to a friend 30 years ago and which still works very well, thank you very much. The 740 is my bedroom sound system (we do not allow television in the bedroom), and it does its job perfectly. It deserves to be on this list.

• Although we’ve only had it a few weeks, I suspect that our new Dyson ball vacuum cleaner will make this list. Its design is simple and clever at the same time, and it seems to be very robustly constructed. I’ll bet we’re still using it ten years from now.

And now, the shameless pitch for ZVOX:

Another new addition that should make the list is my ZVOX IncrediBase 575 system. I installed the original prototype 575 as my living room home theater system last summer, and it’s hard to imagine replacing it any time soon. It’s stylish in a simple way – visually integrating with the TV so you basically don’t notice that it’s there. It sounds remarkably good. And most importantly, its technology won’t go out of date. Five, ten, even twenty years from now the 575’s technology won’t be out of date. And I’ll bet it will still work fine, look fine and sound great. One reason for this is our ears. They are analog devices. They hear sound waves created by other analog devices – speakers. There is no way to digitize this final stage of the listening process, so it is not very likely that some new technology will pop up making our speakers hopelessly uncool. Of course we can be sure that several companies will claim to have created this new technology. But those people are even more shameless than I.

A new definition of the value of technology: the dollars-per-year equation.

I tend to buy a new laptop computer every two years. I usually pay around $700. So keeping up with laptop computer technology costs me about $350 per year – less than $30 a month. Not a bad deal.

My iPhone 3GS cost me $300, plus about $70 a month. And I’m guessing that in two years, there’ll be a cooler one that I have to have. So having an iPhone costs me about $82.50 a month. Expensive but, for me, worth it.

The ZVOX 575 is our most expensive system. 700 bucks. But it should reasonably last 20 years and stay stylish and fully functional – just like my Krups coffee grinder. $700 divided by 240 months is $2.91 per month. If I replace it after 10 years, that’s still less than $6 a month.

All of this reminds me of my favorite bumper sticker of all time. I saw it in the early 1970s on a Volkswagen Beetle. It said, simply:

I MAY BE SLOW, BUT
I’M AHEAD OF YOU.
Further reading:
Slow-Tech: Manifesto For An Overwound World, by Andrew Price. http://www.andrewpricebooks.com/

Home Theater Movie Night – The Cure For Mid-Winter Cabin Fever

Winter in New England is often synonymous with isolation and cabin fever. I write this as a sit in my home on a Monday morning, avoiding going into the office because it is snowing outside and we just watched a police car go by our house traveling in a manner that is best described as “sideways.” With weather like this it’s really tempting to just hunker down and stay inside, by ourselves, until maybe April.


But I’ve reached a point in my life where I KNOW that isolation is not good for me. I don’t belong to a church. I don’t enjoy going out to watch sporting events. And since I stopped drinking, I don’t go hang out with people in bars.

So I have a suggestion. For myself, and for you. Invite two or more friends over to your house to watch a movie. Make some popcorn or order takeout. Or maybe even make a big pot of chili. Try to pick a movie that will get people talking. I’m doing it this upcoming Friday night at 7PM. The Big Lebowski. It’s going to be fun. Everybody will get in a “Dude” frame of mind and say “shut the f*ck up Donny.” I’ve already got a great HDTV and a ZVOX home theater system, so all it will cost me the $9.99 I paid for the Anniversary Edition DVD of the movie and about $20 for chili materials, corn chips and soda. And it will be a little easier to make it to April.

Harmony Remote Controls - Why We Like Them.

Three facts about people and home theater systems: 1. Nobody has ever looked in back of their TV and said "I wish I had more wires back here." 2. Nobody ever picked up an owner's manual and said "Gee, I wish there were more pages of instructions." 3. Nobody has ever looked at their coffee table and said "I wish I had another remote control to put here." Regarding number one -- ZVOX home theater systems use only one connecting cord and no speaker wires. Regarding number two, we have never sold a product with an owner's manual that exceeded one page. Regarding number three, we really like Harmony brand remotes because they allow us to consolidate the functions of a number of remotes in one unit that is easy to program. Let us repeat -- easy to program. You simply plug the Harmony remote into your PC with the supplied USB cord and go to the Harmony web site. There they walk you through a programming process -- you basically just enter the brand and model number of everything connected to your TV (ZVOX is listed under "amplifier"). When you're done the LCD display screen on the remote lights up and tells you what to do. Very slick. Harmony remotes aren't perfect -- sometimes they require more steps than is required, for example, by my FIOS remote. But they're pretty close to perfect. Nice feel, fit and finish. Powerful IR that works from far away and off-axis. And best of all, pretty simple. We like!
Here are a couple of places that offer good deals on Harmony remotes:
PC Richard
Amazon

The Wonders of HD: Re-Discovering the Fifth Element

When I was at Cambridge SoundWorks in the late 1990s, one of my favorite home theater demo movies was Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, with Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldham, Ian Holm and Chris Tucker (as "Ruby Rhod"). The colors, staging, explosive sound effects and great music brought out the best in a TV and surround sound system. I have probably seen the "Diva scene" of the movie over 50 times -- and the entire movie a dozen times.

So it came as something of a surprise the other day that, when I came across it on HBO in HD, that I simply couldn't stop watching it. While all movies are better in HD, some movies are hugely improved. Besson's thematic use of color -- some scenes are orange, some are yellow -- and his incredible scene compositions, are sooo much more enjoyable in HD! What a treat.

If you've never seen the movie, do so. If you've seen it six times, see it again on Blu Ray or an HD broadcast. And make sure you've got a great audio system connected. The soundtrack is as good as the visuals -- and your TV speakers are not going to be able to keep up with it. We believe that no TV made in the past five years should be listened to -- their built-in speakers are dreadful. Get a $1500+ 5.1 surround sound system...or a ZVOX system....or hook up a boom box or the cheap set of amplified speakers that came with the last PC you bought. Anything is better than the 30 cent speakers they stuck in your flat-panel TV.

Is Video Killing Music? What You Can Do About It.

OK. I confess. I don't listen to music nearly as much as I used to. I find myself spending my spare time watching TV shows and movies, reading, and going on line. I used to spend a lot of that time just listening. In the '70s a party meant some beer, some pot and a really good stereo with great speakers. We lived for music. What happened?

1. Video got powerful. I grew up in a midwestern town with two TV channels, both of which showed fairly awful programs. Listening to great music was much better than watching crappy TV. I remember vividly watching my first episode of Saturday Night Live, thinking "Wow, this is really good." Now I've got a Netflix subscription and 500+ channels of video -- many of which are actually watchable. So I watch. 
2. Radio lost its grip. In my teens, my brothers and I would listen to far-away AM radio stations so we could hear good music. Hearing "Jumping Jack Flash" for the first time was a rush. The radio was how we stayed on top of what was happening. Now it seems like most radio stations are programmed by four guys in Texas. I'm grateful for WERS, my favorite Boston college station. Without it, I'd be listening exclusively to news, talk, Garrison and stupid quiz shows on NPR. 
3. I got old. Who knew this would happen? But not a lot of new music does much for me.
   

So the questions are, "How can I bring music back into my life?" and "Do I want to?" Well, I do want to, and here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to email five people I know, sending them five recommendations of music I think they should listen to. Then I'm going to ask them to do the same for me. I suggest you-all do the same thing -- and also enter your suggestions as responses to this blog. There's great music out there. Some new. Lots old. We just need each other's help finding it...and remembering it.

Tom's Five Suggestions

1. John Prine and Iris Dement, In Spite of Ourselves 
2. Johnny Cash, If You Could Read My Mind 
3. Captain Beefheart, Ice Cream For Crow 
4. Joni Mitchell, California 
5. Janis Joplin, Summertime
   

In-Wall Speakers: No Sir, We Don't Like Them

Somebody has to put a stop to this in-wall speaker madness. Here's my attempt.

For years, installing in-wall speakers has become more and more popular. Thus more and more people spend too much money for inferior sound.

A simple at-home demonstration will illustrate my point. Ask a friend or family member to stand with their backs (and heads) against the wall, and then speak in a loud, clear voice. Or better yet, ask them to sing! Then, as they are talking/singing, ask them to take one step away from the wall. Notice how the sound of their voice becomes much more clear, more open, more natural? That's because a human, or a loudspeaker, inherently sounds better when it's not jammed up against a wall -- or worse yet, jammed inside a wall. The way sound behaves when it emanates from its source too close to a wall is not good. This is why you always see audiophile-quality speakers parked out into the room, a good couple of feet away from the wall.

For years companies have worked on ways of solving this problem. And there are some decent in-wall (or sorta-in-wall/sorta-out-of-wall) speakers on the market. But they tend to be pretty pricey, and the sonic results variable. And then there's the cost of installing those in-wall speakers and their wires. Yipes! It can easily end up costing you $1,000-$2,000 to have a pair of high quality in-wall speakers installed in a room. So be prepared to pay a lot for this kind of sound system and to settle for less sound quality than you really want.

Go wireless with Roku, Squeezebox, Sonos or Apple...and maybe a little ZVOX. 

If you want music throughout your house, you don't need to string all those wires. The companies listed above all have pretty great wireless audio solutions that will cost about the same or less than wired audio systems. Then connect them to a small amp and a pair of good bookshelf speakers (that can be wall-mounted), and you'll get much better sound than in-walls. Or connect your Sonos/Roku/Squeezebox/Apple-Airport to a ZVOX single-cabinet sound system. Then life is very simple, sounds very good, and doesn't cost nearly so much.