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James

Site owner at Canadianomad

I sold everything 8 years ago to play professional sports & explore the world. After living in 7 countries, I made this to share everything. 100% authentic and strange!

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As one of the biggest ‘fanboys’ of Minirigs, I am actually quite disappointed.

They are so close to having an outstanding product, but it’s just a step backwards from the 3.

Some of the key updates the Minirig 4 included

• USB-C charging with 30W PD (finally!)
• 50W RMS power (compared to 40W RMS on Minirig 3)
• New software
• Other small changes

While the differences seem marginal, I think these small changes were really well needed since USB-C is the global standard now and the powerbank/PD charging function is a huge step up in user experience.

But user experience is where it starts falling apart..

For years the Minirig speakers have been known as one of the absolute best Bluetooth speakers ever made.

I mean, I’ve had over 10 Minirigs in my lifetime and have loved them. But now it’s just disheartening…

The upgrades were well needed, but they dropped the ball so hard. The first problem: The connectivity is worse

The Minirig 3s already had some connection stability issues which, while manageable, got somehow worse in the Minirig 4s.

• Range from phone seems shorter
• Not automatically reconnecting after losing range or having a phone call
• Sound dropping intermittently.
• Other small bugs and ‘features’

The Minirig 3s only needed to get USB-C and better connection stability to be the GOAT. Instead we got a gyroscopic sensor, a microphone, cheaper feeling buttons, an Aliexpress sounding startup tone, and worse aux-subwoofer connection.

Who on earth actually uses their speaker as a phone, instead of a phone??

Minirig 4 durability

Just as my Minirigs have survived nailing pavement at 30km/hr tumbling off my car with little more than a scuff – they have been physically very durable and strong units.

One thing that annoyed me though is the relocation of the port for aux-out to the subwoofer – now it’s on the bottom aux port, which, makes attaching a cable annoying with the case on as the case now no longer can sit perfectly while plugged in.

This annoyance culminated into a real issue as the ill-fitting case put so much pressure on my nice aux cable that it broke the aux tip off inside the Minirig… I had to pry it out with tweezers so the Minirig is still fine, but RIP to one of my very nice aux cables..!

Regardless, I know they won’t compromise durability and the photos suggest what looks like a PA speaker – stuff known to be rock solid and bulletproof. I’m sure the new Minirig 4 will be even tougher and hopefully even waterproof!

Minirig 4 sound

The Minirig 4’s in my opinion do sound nicer than the Minirig 3s, which is quite an impressive achievement in itself! The sound is truly fantastic and with better clarity and lower extension and max volume than the Minirig 3.

Having an on-speaker volume adjustment was also a really great addition and one of the best parts about the new upgrade as fine-tuning sound became better.

The Minirig Subwoofer really rounds it off and completes the sound profile and the duo is in my opinion the current #1 best-sounding Bluetooth speakers, bar none.

But. It’s quite annoying that only the bottom aux port now outputs to subwoofer. This means it’s a weird squeeze and annoying experience doing aux-out with the cases on, which, my Minrigs live in their cases. Another genuinely annoying downgrade.

Too, an accompanying Minirig Subwoofer 4 is really overdue now – having the dated barrel charger on the Minirig Subwoofer 3 means you still have to carry that flimsy, crappy cable around.

The reason Minirigs sound better than any other speaker on the market is placement. Being able to get the units at ear-level and the sub on the floor will just always have better fidelity than any individual units.

So actually yes, the Minirig 4s do sound better than the Minirig 3s, but, all the accompanying small downgrades across the board make me wish I still had my Minirig 3s…

Is the Minirig 3 still good?

I remember selling my Minirig 2 to hop on the Minirig 3 hypetrain as soon as it launched. I was hesitant to go for the Minirig 4s as I wanted to see real reviews come out. Many complained of some connectivity issues, so I waited.

And I patiently 9 months until I got the 4s, assuming the software has been cleaned up.

Nope.

It’s almost comical how much they have improved the speaker in relatively meaningless ways (microphone, gyroscope, etc) but didn’t fix the single most important thing… connection reliability.

Will there be a Minirig Subwoofer 4?

Typically Minirigs has always released a contemporary subwoofer match for their update of Minirig, however it’s now 9 months later and so word or sign of the Subwoofer 4! This is actually kind of annoying now since I have 2 Subwoofer 3s which charge with the legacy barrel plug, which, is just annoying since you still need to carry that charger…

Here is a list of all the battery-powered subwoofers on the market today – there ain’t many!

Discussion

We’re going to see a new Minirig 4 quite soon!

It’s clear the company takes their time to heavily research and develop everything as well as possible. This is of course very good and patience is the best thing that we as fans can do.

The Minirig 3 & Sub3 topped my list of the Best Bluetooth Speakers ever list for a good reason and I was so excited for an update, but, it seems this update addressed none of the fundamental flaws we all saw, and instead, they got even worse and more expensive…

For more in-depth feelings on the previous generation, read my Minirig 3 review or Minirig Subwoofer 3 review. I go into tons of nerdy detail.

While I’m sure these issues can be resolved with software fixed, the fact they haven’t put software updates since launch itself is quite disheartening to say the least… there’s nothing like hosting a party of 50 people and the Minirigs cutting out every 12 seconds, disrupting the entire flow of the music, nonstop…

I hope they fix this, anyways, thanks for reading!

Peace 🙂