For Better TV Sound, Add a Bar

Sound bars use arrays of precisely arranged, tiny little speakers, along with digital sound processing magic, to create the illusion of surround sound with just one box. Sound bars are usually flat and long, sit directly under a TV and usually take just a few cables to install.

Yamaha (YAMCY Quote) made the first sound bar of decent quality a few years back. Now many makers compete to offer streamlined home audio sound systems. These include Bowers & Wilkens (BWI Quote), Sony and many others. It is becoming a rare hot area in today's dour electronics market.

I have been testing a new entrant in the sound-bar game, the Z-BASE 550 ($499) from ZVOX Audio. The Swampscott, Mass.-based company makes a nice line of desktop sounds systems that compete with Bose, Boston Acoustics and others.

Easy sound: Put the TV on top of the Z-BASE, plug in a stereo sound connector and power it up.

I have always liked the company's innovation and low prices.

What you get: The Z-BASE 550 offers that fancy new TV of yours a reasonably fast and cheap audio makeover. I tested the unit with a $440 Viewsonic 26-inch TV, a classic, no-sound-to-speak-of flat panel LCD that bargain hunters are lovin' these days. The setup was dead easy: Put the TV on top of the Z-BASE, plug in a stereo sound connector and power it up. And poof! I had a better-sounding TV instantly. ZVOX does a nice job with a simple remote control that lets users manipulate volume, tone levels and the level of illusion of surround-ness that the system creates.