Five years ago a major retailer conducted a survey and found that over 40% of the people who bought surround sound systems either didn't hook up the rear speakers or -- get this -- lined them up in the front of the room! I have been in the homes of otherwise intelligent, normal people who have five speakers lined up on the front wall by their TV. They just couldn't be bothered with placing the speakers in the rear, then snaking wires to the front. And what's most interesting is that none of these people seem to be suffering very much. When was the last time you heard someone say, "boy I sure miss having speakers in back of me?"

Which brings me to my "painter story." Seven years ago we had our living room repainted, and the painters had to disconnect the entire home theater system and cover it with tarps. A day or so after they reconnected everything, I realized there was nothing coming out of the rear speakers. So I decided to wait to see how long it took for any of my family members or friends to notice. After over a month of no-rear-speaker-sound, I disconnected the things and put them in the attic. They never did look right on top of a Stickley bookcase.

Industry statistics back me up. Every year there are fewer 5.1 surround sound systems sold. Part of this is what I call "MP3-dumbing-down." Everybody seems to be willing to settle for less fidelity these days. And trust me, the speakers built into LCD TVs are as low as fidelity gets.

Now here's the sales pitch. "All-in-one" or "sound bar" surround sound systems like the ones made by ZVOX are gaining in popularity as fast as multi-speaker systems are falling in popularity. That's because they deliver 95%+ of what people are looking for in a home theater system -- without all the expense, the complication, the speaker boxes and the wires.  For $200 to $600 you can get a high quality system with room-filling three-dimensional sound, crystal-clear vocal clarity and great bass. And that's exactly what most people want in a home theater -- not a bunch of speaker boxes and miles of wire.

Looking at the back panel of this surround sound receiver reminds us of those contests where you're supposed to guess how many jelly beans are in the giant jar. Quick, guess how many connecting jacks are there! We aren't really sure, because each time we try we lose count. But it looks like about 115 jacks - so you could connect 115 wires and cables to the back of the thing. That's a lot of wire. It's also a lot of copper. Industry experts now predict that in 2007 the world will use over 18 million tons of copper!

The wire basketball in back of my TV

Several years ago, when I still had a 5.1 surround system, we had our living room repainted. So the painters had to unplug the TV and sound system and move everything into the middle of the room to be covered with tarps. What I discovered in back of the TV was a bale of speaker and connecting wires significantly larger than a basketball...all tangled up with each other in a frightening, dusty mass. There were two connecting cords in the wire-ball that weren't connected to anything at either end! I decided I had to clean things up, so I disconnected all the wires and started from scratch. Two and a half hours later I finally had everything put back together and working.

The experience was very instructional and very aggravating. It was one of the defining moments that lead to the creation of ZVOX Audio.

I never met anyone who looked in back of his or her TV and said "I don't have enough wires back here." Everybody hates wires. They're expensive ($100 for a 3-foot HDMI cable!!!). They're messy. And inevitably, the get plugged into the wrong thing. My current home theater setup is far, far simpler. I use a ZVOX 325 home theater system with one connecting cable. A DVD player with one (HDMI) connecting cable. And a cable box with one (HDMI) connecting cable. If you add in four power cords (TV, ZVOX, DVD, Cable Box), and one cable connecting wire, my system has a total of eight wires in the back. And I'm working on ways to cut that down. I'll let you know when I figure it out.