ZVOX AccuVoice AV100 Compact TV Soundbar Speaker with 6 Levels of Voice Boost, Espresso

To start with, my need for a speech-enhancing speaker is to improve the voice fidelity of talk programs that fill much of my TV viewing time. The loss of high-frequency hearing in my aging years has made it increasingly difficult to follow voice communication. Although I've invested in a pair of expensive hearing aids, they only marginally improve the fidelity of TV dialog and have a number of other response distractions. Based on its good reviews, I purchased a ZVOX AV100 unit and tried it out on a small dining-room TV with marginal audio quality. Wow! What a huge improvement in dialog comprehension. I then purchased another AV100 for our family-room TV. Tremendous improvement! For me the # 4 level of enhancement is just right. However, my biggest need was for our Living-room TV that was equipped with an expensive sound system that includes a large subwoofer coupled with two satellite speakers (each with a 3" cone midrange driver coupled with a dome tweeter). Even with adjustments to its frequency response, this system was far poorer in voice comprehension to the ZVOX AV100 unit. Unfortunately, the AV100 unit doesn't really fit into my living-room TV setup, so my question was: how to introduce the excellent voice enhancement features of the AV100 into my living-room TV sound system. When one of the AV100 units was on sale, I decided to purchase one to experiment with in my Living-room TV sound system. As an engineer with a lot of experience with audio systems, my goal was to see if I could capture the excellent speech-enhancement features of the AV100 and marry them with the physical advantages of my existing speaker system. In examining the AV100 system I found that it contains two small 1.5" cone drivers in a common housing with a passive element to assist its lower frequency response. This did not offer an easy route to merging its speakers into my bigger sound system. As an alternative, I examined using the AV100's excellent all-digital amplifier/digital-signal-processor (DSP) to directly drive my large subwoofer-with-satellites sound system, replacing my existing amplifier. Its tiny circuit board didn't offer much encouragement, but after carefully checking its electrical compatibility, I gave it a try. WOW! great speech diction and great volume capability from my existing sound system, plus much better and broader frequency response than with the AV100 unit by itself. For my use, I removed the AV100s speakers, added professional-quality banana output jacks, and repositioned the AV100's IR/LED remote control interface unit so it could be viewed behind an existing speaker grill. I was very impressed with the overall construction quality of the AV100 unit and did my best to not degrade it. I'm not suggesting that this is the way an average person should proceed, but I am strongly suggesting that ZVOX consider adding such a stand-alone voice enhancing amplifier for those older folks that like a bigger sound system that needs voice enhancement. It's clear from running tests on the AV100 and using it for two years now, it really does some really special and useful diction enhancements. Far better than conventional hearing aids or TV tone controls. Addressing a second issue, that of poor fidelity Zoom calls, I recently added a sound board to my new W11 PC in hopes of cleaning up the voice dialog of Zoom calls. With rather disappointing results to date, I'd very much welcome a ZVOX enabled sound board for my PC...very much needed! Bottom Line: The ZVOX AV 100 offers some very enabling speech-enhancing capabilities ...highly recommended!

The product arrived today (Wed 11th Dc 24). fitted with a two pin plug instead of the UK three pin plug!!!!

Very simple to set up. I used the supplied optical cable (recommended). I am hard of hearing and have tried other sound-enhancing devices. I was not sure about the ZVOX because it is not a large sound bar, It's only 10 inches in length and less than 2.5 inches in height and depth. It can be placed either below the TV or on top. I like to use a small universal shelf that clips on the top of the TV. The sound bar sits nicely on the shelf although it is light enough to use industrial Velcro to attach it on top of the TV if desired. The sound quality is surprisingly good for enhancing audio dialog (speech). Between the volume control and the 6 level, Accuvoice control button on the remote, speech can be adjusted to about any desired setting from lower to higher frequencies. I find it to be what I needed and choose it over a standard soundbar that can't easily be adjusted for people who are hard of hearing. I keep it at about 50% volume and can now hear clearly even without my hearing aids. I recommend this product to anyone looking for a soundbar to enhance the overall quality of speech (dialog) for all TV programs or movies.

Great sound. Works really well

The effectiveness of this soundbar depends solely on your personal level of hearing loss. In my case, which is moderately severe, it wasn't much help since the volume had to be increased to a level that was disturbing to others.