About five years ago, we bought a nice 4K TV. We’d originally planned to buy a speaker system or sound bar to go with it, but we felt that the built-in speakers were “good enough” and that an upgrade wasn’t urgently needed. We were wrong. This sound bar represents a huge upgrade from the built-in speakers. Bass is much punchier and it’s a lot easier to understand speech in shows and movies. The sound quality is superb, the price was reasonable and it was extremely easy to set up. This thing is great. My only real gripe is that the included remote isn’t great. It looks and feels cheap and because of the way the sound bar is designed, you need to point it at just the right area for it to actually take effect. But this is mostly a minor annoyance and isn’t worth taking a star off of — though maybe a half star would be appropriate if it were possible. Anyway, if you’re looking for a big upgrade from TV speakers and don’t want to spend a fortune, I can’t recommend this enough.

The ZVOX SB500 is a great sounding sound bar. The sound quality is much fuller and richer than what comes out of the new high-end 65 inch 4K TV I recently purchased. The SB500 also has an input to connect a sub-woofer, but it is really not needed as the bass that comes out of this unit is surprisingly sufficient. I also enjoy the AccuVoice feature which does make the vocals easier to perceive even at a low level. With that said, it is significant to note that (in my opinion), a sound bar (any sound bar) is not intended to be a replacement for a full audio system. If you want to have a true 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound experience, you should be looking at a high-end receiver with separate front, center, and rear speakers. For the record, I also own such a system, but normally only use it for movies or music I want to be enveloped in. But for day to day television viewing, I prefer the SB500 which is easy to set up, easy to use, and sounds great for what a sound bar is intended for. One last thing, the Customer Service at ZVOX is great! They answer the phone quickly when called, are knowledgeable and understandable. I would recommend this sound bar just for the quality of their customer support.

I own a Sonos system, and I considered the Sonos soundbar for my television set. The price difference got me to the ZVox, which was sturdily constructed, had great sound (equal to Sonos, which I love) and came in at $200 cheaper. The interface is a bit clunky with a cheap plastic remote, which could easily be upgraded by the manufacturer, but I do like the ability to play music via Bluetooth through the soundbar. While not the most sophisticated device aesthetically, it gets the job done, has great sound, give the aura of home theater without the price.

When watching movies on my TV these days, I often need clearer dialog. I'm at that age (60's) and my old Denon soundbar, even with voice mode selected, forced me to have subtitles almost always turned on for movies. Dialog clarity is supposed to be a strong point for ZVOX, so I picked the SB500. I also tried out at home 2 other soundbars from Polk and Yamaha with voice enhancement in my price range under $400 (on sale), but the ZVOX SB500 won out. It's certainly a noticeable improvement for movie dialog, but doesn't quite work miracles for me (superior to the others, though) - really depends on the particular pitch range that you have issues with and the program material itself. Many contemporary movies are just engineered for sound effects over dialog, so even with the ZVOX, there are still a few times when I feel a need to flip on the subtitles (YMMV). Still, there's a noticeable improvement and less dependency on subtitles, and that's what I was looking for. The voice enhancement feature can initially sound harsh or sharp, but based on what I've heard on other soundbars with a voice mode, this is just the way the technology works by boosting highs and mids. The ZVOX has separate equalizer adjustments for bass and treble, so the sound can be further tuned to better suit me and I find this feature to be extremely desirable and useful. The bass output is really quite good and clean, and yes, it can be felt, which is somewhat surprising for a standalone soundbar with no external subwoofer (but there's a port to physically connect one if you wish). But if you want monster bass that feels like it's turning you inside out and about to blow your roof off, you'd need to hook up an external sub (I haven't felt a compelling need to try that yet). The build quality is excellent and the appearance is solid and exceptional. The unit is somewhat tall and if placed directly in front of the TV, it most likely will block the receiver for the TV remote. But there's an option to lay it down on its back, which is how I have it. The only drawback to this position is the visual display is facing upwards, so you have to stand near the unit to see what's displayed. Too bad there isn't a secondary display for this position. Music playback is good (for a soundbar) and benefits from the equalizer adjustments. Again, the ZVOX doesn't work miracles with crystal clear dialog on every last movie that I've watched, but it's a welcome improvement over my old soundbar and overall I'm satisfied and pleased with this product.

The sound is good and the voices sound much clearer than my TV, but I don't think it's the best choice for the room I have it in (large open space). Would be perfect for a smaller room.