A simple, down to earth system from Mint to address your music needs and nothing else.

Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Simple set up, compact, user friendly remote.

Thumbs Down:

iPhone must enter airplane mode while it is being used for music, little stereo separation.

Inside the Trunk:

USB transmitters, the speaker dock, USB dongle.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Mint Studio is a set of speaker system which lets you hear music through iPod or iPhone. You can also connect it to a external source of audio or you can stream music from a computer. It comes with a sleek 16 button remote that is no-nonsense material and doesn’t have anything on it to confuse you.

Razzle Dazzle:

Mint Studio Speaker System is cute system, it is sized as big as a loaf of bread. The remote bundled along with it is also simple and user friendly.

Inside Dope:

We haven’t tested speaker systems for quite a long time in our test centers so we were happy to finally find one on our tables when we came to work the next day.

Mint Studio Speaker System is a simple looking but provides the features that you expect from it. The sound quality is also pleasing.

With Mint Studio Speaker System you can connect your iPod or iPhone to the dock and listen to the songs. There is a remote that gives you the freedom to control the play back from a distance. With the iPhone you will have to enter the device in airplane mode so that it doesn’t interfer with the device.

Most cell phones are these days equipped with ‘Airplane mode’. When you activate this control you cannot send or receive calls, text messages and you cannot do browsing or use any other communication based feature on the phone. But you can use the phone to play games, store reminders or listen to music. People are asked to switch off their phones or enter the phone in Air plane mode because the signals of the phone might clash with those of the communication system of the aircraft.

You will have to enter you iPhone in air plane mode while you are using this device to listen to music, so you will not be able to receive or make calls in that period.  And you can also pair up your iPod with this speaker set. We liked this feature where in you can use the songs on the iPod and listen to them without the headphones or lots of people can listen to music through the speaker system.

Mint Studio Speaker System has controls on the dock. They are positioned on the left side of the dock to give the face a clutter free feel. There are four blue LED lit icon indicators which let you know which function is active, but these are too tiny and you won’t be able to see these clearly from a distance.

Mint Studio Speaker System comes with a remote control that is sleek, tiny and credit card sized. And you can switch between the three modes using this remote. The remote is very neat with just 16 buttons over it and is very comfortable to hold in hand and use. You can even control your iPod or iPhone because it gives you buttons for pausing and skipping tracks.

There are three modes on the speaker system, the first being the iPod/iPhone connectivity. Other than this you can connect the system to an external source of audio player and using this output for listening to it. The third function is that you can connect a computer wirelessly to this device and listen to audio from it.

There is USB dongle which is supplied along with the set. You will have to connect this device to computer and then play songs on the computer. The sound card of the computer gets disabled automatically and the songs you play can be heard on the speaker set. When you are done just remove the USB device and the sound card of the computer will be active again.

The USB device automatically installs itself on Windows as well as Mac computers and there is no fuss with detection and installation files.

Mint now lets you attach up to three total speakers to a single USB dongle. These additional units will set you back by $100 each and come with an iPod dock onboard as well. Just set the external speaker to “wireless” mode and it will automatically pick up the signal. Mint says the dongle will broadcast up to 100 feet with an unobstructed view.

In homes living situation, you can depend on about 50 feet. A USB extender is included in the packaging which is supposed to improve signal quality, but we didn’t notice much of a difference when we used it.

The sound quality of the Mint Studio Speaker System is excellent and we were quite happy with what we were listening. Heavy metal freaks will balk that the sound doesn’t get too loud but then it is very clear and sharp. Louder the volume, more the distortion. You will notice that distortion is more on songs that have more bass.

Nitty Gritty:

We found this set great for listening to music. The remote was good, pairing up the system to a PC was easy and excellent sound quality. What else do you need? There are some issues like was a little low and the iPhone must enter Airplane mode if you want to use it to listen to music. But it didn’t bother us too much. According to us this is excellent speaker system but if you think other wise, an alternative for you is Sony CMT-BX50BTi. But Sony’s set is bigger as compared to Mint and your PC would need either built-in Bluetooth A2DP support or a similar dongle for the audio streaming.

Random Posts