3.0 de 5 estrellas
Good loudspeaker, solid bluetooth, bass is lacking, be mindful of return policy
Reseñado en los Estados Unidos el 24 de octubre de 2018
Update: this speaker pairs fantastically with the Cerwin-Vega CVE-18s if you want to resolve the lack of low bass output. Read my separate review of the CV for more detail on that.
Review: There are obviously a huge number of bluetooth speakers out there, from all kinds of random manufacturers you've never heard of, who may or may not be around the following week. I was looking for a very solid speaker for a home gym, so I won't have to worry about it for a long time, and which will deliver great sound. Price didn't rank that high in the pecking order; the few things I considered to be of top importance were sound quality (with an emphasis on bass), physical build quality, bluetooth streaming, and reliability. There are 'similar' speakers from no-names for half the price, or less, and the reviews seemed to follow the pricing downward.
My musical tastes are fairly odd; reggae, EDM, metal and 90's bass (Magic Mike, Techmaster, Bass Patrol, etc.), so bass is important, even if we aren't talking about "fifteens in yo' trunk" level bass. The lower end speakers all seem to drone on and on about wattage, which is a pointless metric given speaker efficiency and driver resistance factor into that heavily; they also rarely give a frequency response range, let alone a curve, which is the most useful information. Cheaper speakers are hard to find with larger bass drivers / woofers. As you go up the price curve, the size starts getting larger, and perhaps some frequency ranges show up. I'm familiar with the Electro-Voice name from pro music speakers, and a roughly similar Cerwin-Vega product was double the price of this unit. I decided I'd be willing to spend the nearly double it would cost to go with the EV name over the no-name for a 15"-driver speaker, if it meant quality and reliability.
So far I'm happy, but I wouldn't call it overly impressed, and that's why the three stars. This is a made in China unit with some pros and cons, but other than the EV name and not looking like a goofy bowling alley DJ rig, it is not exactly game changing. So, first my three complaints, followed by the positives:
1) First and foremost, the return policy on this unit is that you can't. If you try to return it, you'll be met with this message: "This item isn't eligible for return. This item can’t be returned since it requires special transportation and handling which we can’t provide." I did not find this displayed in an obvious way when buying, and this speaker may not meet everyone's needs, so buyer beware; you may be stuck with it regardless of whether or not it suits your needs.
2) It is nearly double the price of similar products. I get that it has the EV name, and that it seems to be a high quality build, but unlike EV products from decades past, it's made in China like most everything these days, and it simply doesn't deliver double the value. The bass driver is nothing special; stamped frame, short travel, commodity speaker.
3) Bass response falls off VERY sharply below 60 Hz. You can see this in the frequency response curve in the manual. I can't post the link due to review guidelines, but if you search for Electro-Voice ZLX-15BT in the search engine of your choice, you'll end up on the EV website where there's a PDF link to the manual.
If your intent is to use this speaker for old school 90's boom, DJ Magic Mike would not be impressed, nor am I. So, not good for that type of music, and it's really not very good for many types of hip-hop either if not accompanied by a sub. So, if you're doing something like DJ'ing a party, you definitely will require a dedicated subwoofer. Fortunately it does have a full range XLR output which will mix stereo input, so as long as you have a powered sub with internal crossover, you can probably get away with just this speaker and the sub, vs needing a mixer.
Okay, with that out of the way, the good. First up are the physical aspects. This loudspeaker uses a plastic shell with three integrated handles. It's solid, weighs about 35 pounds, looks good from the outside. However, the screws are simply self threading into the plastic; they're not bolted or otherwise reinforced in any way, so this is not a piece of equipment you want a road crew tossing around. I didn't knock it for this, it's just a fact you need to know and be mindful of. Looks-wise, it's great. Most of the similar speakers look completely stupid with LED lights, gaudy name plates, like they just came out of a Fast and the Furious movie; none of that here, basic black, small EV logo.
Controls are easy to use and clearly labeled on the back. Watch out first time turning it on, master volume on mine was -0dB and very loud when my phone started playing through it. That said, quick and easy bluetooth pairing, which is perfect for my use case in a home gym. There's a cheap-o bass / treble eq, but no further adjustment beyond four presets for music, club, voice, "live". Music and club boost the response at the low end of the curve, but it's still effectively dead below 60 Hz.
Sound quality for all but low bass is pretty good. It's certainly not a studio monitor, but it's not bad; it falls right in the middle as far as loudspeakers go. That of course factored into my rating; it's not significantly better than cheaper options. It's better, but to the point that you get an effective return on your investment, perhaps not.
There is a two year warranty, which is about two years more than most of the cheaper junk with 90 day warranties.
I'm certainly not displeased with it, and the warranty is nice, but I think if not for the no-return policy it would be on its way back. Should it ever need warranty service, I'm likely going to be spending a lot to ship this 35-pound item to the service folks, and between that and the added costs, I could likely have just purchased a second instance of a cheaper unit should the first fail. Additionally, the savings from a cheaper unit I'd have put towards a subwoofer, which I'm now likely going to buy anyway.
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