About 3 years ago I experienced auditory damage as a result of an MRI procedure, during which I was not given adequate ear protection. Since then, my hearing has been declining, and I found TV watching frustrating, because I missed so much, particularly during movies on Netflix. I bought a Bose Solo 5 soundbar, which has a simple on/off feature that enhances dialogue, and for a while, it helped. Then, that, too, lost its usefulness as my hearing worsened. Sometimes I'd have to back up several times on my DVR to catch a key word or phrase, and if that failed, I'd have to turn the volume up really high. It made me feel old, which I am not.Recently I saw the ZVOX soundbars advertised, read reviews of them on Amazon and also by independent review sites, and was greatly encouraged. The AV157 seemed to be the best suited for my needs, and $179 seemed like a fair price--certainly less expensive than hearing aids.I took down the Bose and set up the ZVOX last night. Out of the box, I was a bit skeptical, because the unit is so small-- about 2/3 the size of the Bose soundbar. But already, I can say without qualification that the ZVOX ties for first place, along with my Dyson Absolute stick vacuum cleaner, as the most useful and life-enhancing purchase I have made in a long time.I am a moderately technically savvy female, and had no difficulty setting it up, though it takes no particular skill. The directions are annoyingly on one huge, double sided piece of paper instead of a booklet, but they are written in good English and are easy to follow. The soundbar is essentially "plug and play." First, I attached the power cord and plugged it into an outlet. The Bose soundbar also had connected to the TV with an optical digital toslink, so initially, I didn't use the one provided by ZVOX. But I wasn't happy with the sound quality, and noticed that the cable on the ZVOX was about twice the thickness of the Bose cable. So I switched to the new one, and the improvement was amazing. When I disconnected the Bose cable, the sound reverted to the TV sound, and it sounded like a it was coming from the crystal radio I built with my dad as a 6th-grade science project. What a difference! (So if you have a non-ZVOX optical connector, don't use it.)I am pleased with the remote. It's simple and small, so there's less clutter. (The Bose came with a monstrous remote that controlled everything but the refrigerator, and I disliked it immensely.) As described, it has a few simple controls--for volume, mute, Accuvoice, Surround Sound, and Other (which is for adjusting treble and bass).Accuvoice has 6 levels of what I'll call "clarity of dialogue." To get the additional 6, you hold down the Accuvoice button for several seconds, and it switches over to "Super." I didn't find much difference between the first and second sets of functions, though, and settled on one (Accuvoice 5) that worked for me without being unpleasantly shrill. The crispness of dialogue seems to vary with the TV show or movie, and interestingly, did not degrade the quality of sound on the Music Choice stations. I am able to turn the volume down to "normal" volume, and can still understand every spoken word. The background sounds (and sometimes background music) are toned down, but is still there; it's just no longer distracting. I haven't tried the treble/bass adjustments, and frankly, don't have a need to do so, because I'm so happy with the current sound quality.So, although the description says there are 12 settings, when you add the three options for virtual Surround Sound, there really are 36 options! This feature is surprisingly good, and I am incredulous at the quality of sound that come out of a little 17" piece of technology.One other feature that I like is that the preset, default setting is that the soundbar turns off when the TV is turned off. (This can be changed, so that it can be turned off and on manually.) I like this better than the Bose, for which I had to turn the sound on and off separately. The thing I don't like, however, is that there's no indicator light on the unit that shows whether it's on or off.A package insert boldly states that if you're having difficulty with the unit, don't send it back, call ZVOX. But I have had no problems, so I cannot rate the quality of Tech Support.Overall, I could not be happier with this purchase. It makes me wish, though, that the ZVOX 157 had been available while my mother was still alive. She was severely hearing impaired, even wearing high-tech hearing aids, and it would have made her evenings of TV watching so much more enjoyable.One final note. I bought this soundbar 4 days ago (6/21/21). Tonight I recommended it to a neighbor, whose husband (in his late 70's) has such difficulty hearing that he watches all TV with subtitles on. When I looked on Amazon, the price had gone from $179 to $249, from the same seller and for no apparent reason. This is not OK, and I'm going to phone Amazon for an explanation.

This sound bar is exactly what every hearing impaired person needs, to hear and understand dialogue while watching TV. I had wanted to buy a ZVOX for over a year after seeing an advertisement, but wondered if it really would help. I originally only wanted the ZVOX to block out the loud background sounds that blares over the voices, which is very annoying. This works great as promised. However, I recently started watching some Netflix British shows, and found I couldn't catch a lot of what they were saying, so had to use the CC (closed caption) feature to hear British accents dialogue better. So, I finally gave in and bought the Acuvoice AV157, which has an extra feature, "SuperVoice", when extra clarity of voice is needed for those hearing impaired, which gives "Extreme Voice Clarity". This feature has 6 levels to choose from, which gives individual richness to the voices, and allows for different levels of background sounds, fine tuned to your individual needs. I am very satisfied with the whole system! The installation is very simple. Two plugs, one for the sound bar, one for the TV. That's it. (Analog and digital cables included). I have to admit, the first unit I received would not connect. I called Customer Service, a person answered right away, walked me through different checks to see what the issue might be. He determined it might be a defective unit. He sent a return label via email within minutes, and stated it would be returned free of charge and a new unit sent as soon as they received notice the defective unit was being shipped. They wouldn't wait until they had the defective unit, it would quickly be sent out. I received the new unit quickly, hooked up the unit to the tv, and it worked immediately. The different features are readily understandable and simple to navigate, included on the pamphlet. There is also an opportunity to link your "normal" remote so you can still use it to turn, regular up and down volume, without having to use the ZVOX remote. Therefore, you only need to use the ZVOX remote when changing features as need be. I highly recommend this particular AV157 due to it's extra features the other models don't have. But if you don't have hearing issues, one of the other models may be fine. I am so pleased with this sound bar, I am going to order a second one for the bedroom TV.

Ok so I’m not old. Early 40s. I have no hearing loss but I can be pretty sensitive to sound. I got so mad with our tv/soundbar when we are watching movies. The sound effects are so freaking loud and the dialogue is always so quiet (we don’t have a surround sound set up, and don’t really have the room for it either). Anyway, we were forever scrambling to turn the tv down when something happened in a show, like an explosion/gunshots/car chase or whatever. It was driving me up the wall. Not to mention when ads come on and they are so much louder too. Anyway, this speaker is pretty great. The dialogue is forward in the sound, so it means we don’t have to constantly be changing the volume. I will say movies are slightly less ‘immersive feeling’ initially, but I stopped noticing the lowered bass after about 15min. This speaker truly is great for making the tv less annoying.It was simple to connect to Bluetooth and get everything started. It’s pretty small and unobtrusive and worth every penny.

BEST INVESTMENT EVER!!I was so tired of not hearing the dialog, with the loud soundtracks and even louder commercials. With the ZVOX I can clearly hear everything said, the commercials don't get louder and the soundtracks are alot softer.HOWEVER, Amazon thought it was a great idea to ship my $200 speaker in its original box with no additional packaging. So my $200 speaker sits on my porch for everyone driving by. Meanwhile, they ship my $12 vitamins in 2 boxes with packaging. Make it make sense!

Finally! A sound bar that really does make dialogue easy to hear for us. We've have tried so many solutions over the years and none worked. We gave up and used closed captioning all the time but my husband couldn't read quickly enough to keep up. This sound bar really works. We love it. No more reading, just listening. And so easy to set up. Great directions.

Below the line below I wrote earlier today.Have come up with more problems since then. It became unresponsive to the cable remote AND the remote that came with the speaker. I moved the speaker slightly while troubleshooting and it went out. I had to unplug it and plug it back in to get it to respond. This thing is going back. Too much to tinker with for an elderly person.===============================The algorithm... AccuVoice, which enhances voices, works most of the time, but for some TV programs, the voices obviously switch levels between loud and soft when the TV program without the voice enhancement wouldn't do that. (On the game show, America Says, the host's voice keeps switching back and forth, so I have it set on the lowest AC1, which has minimal to no enhancement) People with more hearing loss than what we have might find that a minor issue for the things they like to watch.Alternate remote... So, this is set up for an elderly person that isn't going to understand using two remotes. I was very happy to set up the current cable remote to change volume and mute, just like we've been doing for years. It was easy to change, the directions were great, BUT to turn off the system, the remote cycles thru CBL, TV, AUX, and DVD. This cycle doesn't work with the ZVOX speaker because when the TV turns on, the sound signal thru the optical cable turns the ZVOX speaker on. When the remote cycles to the AUX power signal, it turns the speaker that off right after it the speaker turned on. The result is the speaker is off, when starting the system. This speaker is for an ELDERLY person that won't understand a different way of operating the TV, so this is a major minus for us.Using it with Alexa... It's problematic. The speaker has to switch from TV to Alexa -- by the time the ZVOX speaker figures out Alexa is saying something, she's already said the first two or three words, and we didn't even hear it. Another problem is the sound level of Alexa. I have to have Alexa set on 10 in order to get a reasonable volume out of the ZVOX speaker. Even so, the Alexa sound is considerably lower than the TV volume we are using. I would expect better control here.A problem that just happened... the speaker spontaneously turned off.Customer Service... The CSA I got wasn't the best. I asked how to switch my ZVOX input setting to BOTH. His immediate responses was, "You don't want to do that!" BUT I want to use it with the TV and Alexa, and I remember that the directions said can be done. It further explained that when Alexa is talking, the TV sound is lowered. The agent didn't know anything about this and had to put me on hold. Meanwhile, I read thru the pamphlet that came with the speaker, and found the paragraph that explained how to set it up with an Alexa. (I just couldn't find it before calling for some reason)After all the above, the sound from the TV is easier to hear -- maybe because it's directed forward and is just a clearer sound vs the old TV speakers. The sound from Alexa is compromised, unless you are listening to music or a book. It's not the best for short answers to questions. e.g. I ask "Alexa, what's the time?" The answer we hear is 11pm, when it's 1:11pm. We missed the first part of the answer while the speaker was switching from TV to Alexa. NOT good.

Makes words louder and clear, lowers background music & Commercials. Well worth the $200. No more ( can only hear background but not voices). Amazing

Didn’t really work for my hearing difficulties

Superb Clarity of speech Soundbox well made packaged no other manufacturer approached including Bose could not guarantee better speech clarity with Bose over twice the price I was so pleased within 2hours two of my friends had bought one also own recommendation the clarity and choice is superb and put tv sound to shame having to rely on bounced sound off walls cmon tv manufacturers get to grips with a huge problem for the elderly the sound quality from Tv cannot compare with this soundbox I don’t have to rely on tv wordscript any more or keep returning backwards to catch what someone on tv has said .A great product Zvox worth every penny and so easy to handle after set up lots of serious brownie points here 👏🙏

It works great, my (90+ year old) grandparents can finally hear what people are saying again on tv. I will be recommending it to anyone that is struggling to hear what is being said on tv. I am so glad ZVOX have addressed this common issue.

Il compito principale di questo apparecchio è di “enfatizzare” il parlato per chi ha una lieve diminuzione dell’udito, e questo funziona. Ha numerosi settaggi che vanno provati per trovare il migliore risultato. Ovviamente non ci si devono aspettare miracoli, ma il risultato c’è, anche se alcuni settaggi penalizzano il suono “di contorno”. In generale migliora sensibilmente l’audio di televisori piatti, ed è abbastanza potente per un salone di medie dimensioni, ma non è adatto per chi vuole film dall’audio spettacolare. Io, comunque, ne sono molto soddisfatto per il miglioramento della voce.

Teuren Soundbars in Sachen Verständlichkeit deutlich überlegen, sehr zufrieden.Schön wäre eine Lautstärkeregelung über die TV-Fernbedienung.Es ist mir unerklärlich, dass im Zeitalter der Inklusion die Nebengeräusche nicht einfach in einem Tonkanal im TV abgestellt werden können, Hintergrundgedudel und Originalton auf Chinesisch ist in einer Dokumentation nicht zielführend. Die Film"komponisten" einfach entlassen, das senkt die GEZ-Gebühren.

Très facile à installer. Fonctionne parfaitement avec Apple TV. Nous permet d’écouter des dialogues qui était devenu pour nous inaudible. Je recommande ce produit à tous les petits vieux dur de la feuille.