It's convenient: just place the Z-Base 580 under your HDTV, plug in the one cable, and you're set. It's also "green:" the Class D amp uses less power, to help save the environment and your money. The 5 high-performance speakers and 2 powered subs pump out clear, three-dimensional sound.
Now you can get room-filling home theater sound - without a room full of speakers and wires. The ZVOX Z-Base 580 is a complete surround sound system - including dual powered subwoofers - all in one cabinet. Just place the 580 on a piece of furniture, place your flat-panel TV on top of the ZVOX system, connect one wire...you've installed a high-performance home theater system in under 10 minutes. The sound quality of the ZVOX 580 is comparable to that of much more expensive multi-speaker systems. It includes five high-performance speakers and dual 6.5" powered subwoofers for window-rattling bass. The ZVOX PhaseCue II virtual surround sound system creates three-dimensional sound without the need for multiple speakers throughout the room. Movies come to life with vibrant, realistic, high-impact sound. Music sounds accurate and natural. And vocals on TV shows come through with incredible clarity.
Great Sound
The most important feature for any home theater system is high quality sound. The 580 uses a new amplifier design with extremely accurate frequency response and a warm, natural sound and surprisingly powerful bass. It uses dual 6.5" powered subwoofers in a spacious cabinet (equal in interior volume to a 14" x 14" x 14" subwoofer box). The result is accurate, window-rattling bass down to 34Hz. No other all-in-one home theater system even comes close.
PhaseCue® II Virtual Surround Sound
The 580 uses ZVOX's proprietary PhaseCue II virtual surround processing to give you rich, three-dimensional sound with movies or music. With music, PhaseCue II creates a very wide soundstage - it literally sounds like you are listening to speakers eight feet apart from each other. When listening to a good movie, the soundtrack will envelop you - putting you in the middle of the action. While no virtual surround system - including ours - will give you the surround effects of a good 5.1 system, the ZVOX 580 does a remarkable job. Sound & Vision magazine calls our PhaseCue system "remarkably ingenious."
Green Design. The 580 uses a highly-efficient Class D digital amplifier
Even playing at quite loud volumes, it usually uses less than 10 watts of total power. And standby power usage tends to hover around 0.1 watts - making it one of the "greenest" audio systems ever made.
Setting A New Standard For Vocal Clarity
ZVOX systems are known for their remarkable vocal clarity. The 580 adds a stunning new feature: Dialog Emphasis (DE). When you push the "DE" button on the remote control you engage a circuit that mimics the functions of a hearing aid. The frequencies used by human voices are emphasized and compressed, while other frequencies are minimized. We don't know of any other speaker system that provides such an easy-to-use and effective method for improving the intelligibility of television dialog.
It Uses Your Remote Control
The new Z-Base 580 system can be programmed to respond to your remote control. The illuminated display walks you through a less-than-a-minute programming cycle. Then your TV remote...or cable box remote...or satellite receiver remote...or ANY remote...can control volume, mute, power and input functions of the ZVOX system.
Taming Commercials That Are Too Loud
If you've ever been blasted out of your chair by a too-loud commercial - or by a cable channel that's twice as loud as another channel - you'll love the new Output Leveling (OL) feature on the ZVOX 580. Just push the OL button and a sophisticated compression processor takes over, making soft sounds louder and loud sounds softer, so there are fewer jarring moments when switching channels or when commercials come on. This system also helps by boosting the audio levels from a DVD or Blu Ray player that is not loud enough.
Disappearing Display
The 580 features a four-digit display located behind the speaker grille that shows the current setting for volume, bass, treble and PhaseCue II® (virtual surround) - and also shows when you have engaged the Mute, Output Leveling (OL) or Dialog Emphasis (DE) features. A few seconds after you stop using your remote (or front panel) controls, the display disappears completely.
Multiple Inputs...including front-panel connection for iPod® and other portable devices
The 580 has two analog audio inputs, one optical (Toslink) digital input, one coaxial digital input - plus a front panel 3.5mm analog stereo input for convenient connection of your iPod or other portable audio device. Any specific input can be selected using either the remote control or the slim-line module below the speaker grille.
Wood (MDF) Cabinet With Hand-Lacquered Side Panels
The 580 features a hand-built cabinet of MDF (medium density fiberboard) with beautiful hand-lacquered high-gloss end panels. Its low-profile design blends perfectly with flat-panel TVs. Most people don't even notice the ZVOX 580...until they hear it.