Review on Experience Home Theater Like Never Before With ZVOX SoundBase 770 Sound Bar by Philip Brianne

UPDATE #5 (02/04/2017) - The IR sensor is FINE!I am updating this review because I am a royal dope; after replacing the IR sensor that ZVox sent me, I never bothered testing with the original ZVox remote and kept using the Vizio remote I had.My wife and I had gotten to the point where we were going to throw the ZVox away because of the frustration with the IR sensor (up. up up up up up up. up [vol goes up +1]).In a moment of rare intelligence I decided to order a replacement Vizio remote before we did anything drastic because they cheap on eBay and the one we had always had sticky/strange button feels. almost like a manufacturing problem with it.The new remote arrived and the IR sensor in the Zvox WORKS FINE. No more "press vol-up 20x to get +1 increase".I am editing my review to remove all those pieces and sending an apology to ZVOX. I feel really dumb. This sound base works wonderfully.================= SEE MOST RECENT UPDATE ABOVE =====================UPDATE #4 (08/22/15) -- After a number of months dealing with the faulty IR receiver, I finally decided to email ZVOX and see if there is ANYTHING that could be done to help that didn't include me moving my 100+ lbs TV and then packing the 70lbs ZVOX back up -- fortunately Customer support said, if I felt comfortable with it, they could mail me a new IR receiver, some special picking tools used to remove the front grate and instructions on how to replace the IR panel -- I was more than happy to give this a try and received a box with the replacement receiver and tools 3 days later (Saturday).In probably 15mins I had replaced the IR receiver and it works much much better -- I will say that the ZVOX remote itself seems to be much better than the VIZIO one in issuing quick successive commands (UP-UP-UP) but this has nothing to do with the IR receiver which works great with or without the grate on (I tested both incase performance was better with it off I was going to consider leaving it off).Really happy with ZVOX customer service -- didn't expect them to provide a fix that included the customer doing minor repairs but was REALLY happy they did -- these things aren't easy to package up and mail around :)Updated review to 5/5 because:+1 - as mentioned multiple times, the audio quality is excellent - now that the IR receiver is fixed I can just enjoy the device.+1 - for unorthodoxically (word?) good customer support.-----------------------------------------------------------This is my 2nd ZVOX in 4 years -- bought the previous one for parents and their 55" Vizio - it was a god-send to help dialog clarity and overall sound clarity as my dad is hard of hearing and keeping the Vizio set at 95% volume all the time wasn't helping.I'm even more impressed with this 770 that I got myself to pair with my Vizio P702ui-B3 - I figured ZVOX would knock the high and mid-range out of the park as they've done that with the previous devices, but I had serious doubts around the "big theater sound" claim when it came to bass.I took it out of the box, set it up and put on 5th element with the bass up around +3 and color me surprised, it's a really nice/deep/clean experience, not messy bass.Ok. all that said. I love this device, but good LORD, ZVOX continues to stick the IR receiver **behind** the speaker mesh in the front, what that does is obstruct it's ability to pickup a clean IR signal consistently. "what does that mean?" you ask, it means you point your controller (or even their controller) at the sound bar and need to hit VOL/Mute/Power multiple times for it to register -- and depending on your angle of approach (i.e. off to the side) you may need to hit those buttons 2-8x for them to finally register ONCE.Want to adjust the volume from 20 down to 12 because someone just came in the room and told you to "turn it down?" -- on average, in this exact case, I found myself pressing the 'VOL DOWN' button on my Vizio remote probably 20x before I finally dropped the volume those 8 levels.Using the native ZVOX remote doesn't change anything. it's just as bad.The usability frustration caused by this design makes me want to punch baby ducks, because I otherwise like the device so much. If ZVOX made an aux IR receiver I could plug into the base station I would do it in a heart beat.The same thing, to a lesser degree, happens on my parents 570 (but they sit back a ways and are more or less pointed right at it).So far I'm dealing with the frustration, if it gets worse I'll have to return this which really bothers me because otherwise it's exactly what I want.If for some reason you don't have IR issues and need great sound quality, this is a no-brainer, it really sounds wonderful and dialog is crystal clear.UPDATE #1 - Quick addendum, when I originally bought my parents the 570 I found notes of people online complaining about the same issue (IR reception) and one of the workarounds was to cut out some of the speaker mesh infront of the IR receiver. I never needed to do this for my parents as it mostly works (see above) but going back through my notes I had forgotten about this potential workaround, which I will most likely do for myself because I otherwise enjoy the device so much.But let's put this in perspective. I shouldn't need to do this, hence the 3-stars. So take everything I said with a grain of salt and see what is important to you.UPDATE #2 - So I took a Dremel and cut out the mesh infront of the IR sensor as I mentioned above -- the IR reception seems 50% better, but I still need to press the volume Up/Down 2-4x for a single increment to register.If I hold the remote directly against the sensor, it works perfectly. If I hold it directly inline about 5' back, it exhibits the frustrating behavior of needing to click many more times to get the same response. The behavior between my Vizio P-series remote and the included ZVOX remote is identical, neither performs better than the other.What is odd is if I hit the vol buttons very quickly (sort of spamming the ZVOX) that seems to offer a more consistent behavior. which is really odd, almost like 3x clicks is equal to 1 volume adjustments. It doesn't seem sporatic either, if I just clicking like a mad-man while pointing at the box, in a somewhat consistent behavior it will increase/decrease the volume.I have no idea if this is a defective unit or this is just how they behave, but it's semi-maddening.The audio quality is still great though and since I've ruined the mesh I doubt I can return it.UPDATE #3 - I've attached a picture of what I did to the mesh.