Here goes my 1 year review of the OB-4.
Just my honest opinion. YMMV, as they say. So take this review with a good ol’ pinch of salt.
Been using the OB-4 extensively for the past year. And my user experience was not good at all.
Positives :
the design is sleek and classy. this thing goes literally anywhere and still fits the surroundings
the interface is sleek. love it, hate it, it still manages to have a screen without a screen, clicky boutons à la TE and intuitive ease of use (kind of)
the loop function is both fun and (at times) practical
all the on board options (ambient mode, metronome, mantra, etc) are fresh option to have in a BT speaker
the BT connection is reliable and stable
the line-in option is always great to have
the sound is rich enough and the OB-4 can get quite loud without distorting too early
the radio is a great feature for such a speaker
the spinning wheel is a really nice touch and makes for a fun moment when you try it out
Cons :
the design makes it prone to falls and shocks. it is not the most stable design at all
the material used for the whole body is easy to scratch
the handle is not practical at all and, although stylish, makes the speaker hard to balance. it also doesn’t really work as the manual advertises. the radio reception is always bad. and when you want to use the handle as a stand, you either get the speakers towards the table or can’t charge it. and the handle will not hold much if you try to adjust anything while it’s positioned on it
the radio reception is bad. like, really bad
battery life is nowhere near as advertised and the cable is a joke : too short and a tight fit that makes it really hard to put in place and dislodge
the sound is rich but not full : way too many basses, not enough his.
no loop exports is a joke, at this price point
the power button is a risky choice since it’s probe to be easily broken at some point. it doesn’t scream sturdy and reliable by any means
same goes for the spinning wheel : it feels a bit flimsy and way too easy to break if you’re not careful enough
the OB-4 is not stereo. and that is the pricey icing on an otherwise pretty cheap cake, if you ask me. I may be wrong - correct me if need be. but it’s dual mono at the very best
Issues :
my main issue is the horrendous noisy digital hum that occurs when playing any sound at any level. I’ve been using the OB-4 for music sketching and it’s just unusable. anytime I’d play a synth note from any source (tried more than 20 different options, not counting the radio, spotify, etc) I get some residual digital noise after my sound dies. it’s a known issue and TE just doesn’t seem to be able to fix it
the radio never worked properly. when trying the get reception, it just detects about 25% of what any other piece of radio-capable gear is able to get. really bad design here
it’s easy to move your volume and touch the spinning wheel without knowing, thus inducing a latency in what you play. happened to me way too many times. it’s unpractical at best
the OB-4 manages to lose battery life even when turned-off. dunno what makes this possible, but it happens
last but not least, the price/quality ratio is a joke. the OB-4 is not worth half its price. the digital noise only is unacceptable. support acknowledged it, and they promised to fix this in a future firmware update. but clearly, it is nowhere near a future fix (more than 4 firmware updates happened since I’ve had the OB-4 and nothing happened)
the resale value is…how can I put this delicately?…a joke. a bad joke. at least, the op1 series has a real resell value. but the OB-4 is known as an overpriced BT speaker and makes a resale very hard
All in all, and this is probably just me, I’m disappointed.
Audio issues, bad reception, flimsy and unbalanced design, false advertising (talking about cases of use and battery life mostly), no Loop export, etc…
This thing is a mess. On paper, it had everything I was looking for. And I really tried to love it.
But it’s an overpriced BT speaker with fun options.
I wouldn’t recommend it at any rate.
And I’m pretty sure it has its fans.
Pretty sure it can deliver, depending on what you expect from it.
But from a musician/audiophile point of view, this thing is a pricey unstable brick that delivers a muffled bassy sound for about 6 to 8 hours of charge (on a medium setting for BT playback).
Probably the worst TE product I’ve tried so far.
I’ll admit this review was triggered by the JohnLennon Edition’s asking price.
Selling a broken machine for this price is just TE-peak marketing.
There are some cool features. And should TE update it to a better v2, this could be a new standard for BT speakers.
But this v1 iteration is flawed.
Hope this helps others in choosing wisely where to put their money when trying to find a good, reliable speaker option.
wow great write up and thanks for this. ive used my ob4 extensively too for about 1.25 years id say but my experience has been pretty much the opposite. i know its subjective but the sound quality is so dang good imo. i listen mostly to jazz, hiphop, and electronic/chiptune/op1 music so maybe that could be part of it.
i agree about the handle being a risky way to use it since that hinge is smooth and easy to then have the ob4 fall flat, but ive never actually had that happen yet and i use it that way a lot, having it facing speakers upward makes the sound diffuse in a nice way. also if you are worried, you can actually push the handle all the way back and lean it that way! so its less of a tilt but then its rock solid on the ground without being laid flat on the ground.
i dont get the audio hiss/artifacts you are talking about. its got the slightlest slightest hiss at the max volume but that is perfectly normal. my sonus faber concertino’s are 2k per speaker and they also have this and they are handmade in italy. can you share a video or sound example of this?
the battery life ive found to be good. but ive heard folks generally get varied battery life with some TE products so that’s a shame. their QC def isn’t great overall bc their manufacturing just seems to always have some issues. i get quite a lot of battery life though. i use it about 2 hours per day and i charge it a little less than once per week.
crap i should say though that the motorized knobs def seem not sturdy though. that’s my biggest critique of it. they are so cool and great to use, ive used them to loop and slow down jazz lines when im practicing and trying to transcribe and its been an incredibly useful tool. but every several months i have to run the “calibration” routine from the manual bc the volume knob stops working, but the calibration does work like a charm every time. i dont know what to make of it but thats the one thing that has me worried about its longevity.
edit: it is definitely stereo. out of curiosity, what gives you the impression that it isn’t? when i send anything hard L or hard R, i clearly hear each side isolated with the true L ch or R ch. for such a small footprint, the fact that it has any stereo spread at all is pretty miraculous, usually stereo spread requires two speakers. sometimes you see really wide speakers too.
@Heyes I can feel you 100%
I don’t understand why everyone sais that this is such a great speaker. The residual noise/ subharmonic distortion drives me crazy. I had tons of discussions with TE about it but they dont seem to care. At least @jacobs gave me some hope as he seems to know that this issue exists. Lets hope for a fix.
Radio reception is horrible as well at my unit. When using radio and volume above 10o clock, i hear a ticking noise which is annoying.
About stereo, i think it only is true stereo when using Bluetooth or Line In. FM is always mono.
FM is mono yep that is true. i dont get the subharmonic distortion. can you share an example of this with us? to my ears the speaker sounds incredibly good for its size.
it most audible when using a sawtooth oscillator at low volume feeding into the analog input. When using my iPhone, just one or two volume bars. Then alternate the frequency between 50 and 500Hz and vary the volume on the OB-4 from 0 to about 30%. With certain combinations, a subharmonic appears which is half of the base frequency. So when your sawtooth is 100Hz the subharmonic is 50Hz.
I do not get this effect when using a sine wave or square wave.
wow that is crazy. that is clearly audible. thanks for sharing this. i dunno what to make of it. out of pure curiosity im going to try to reproduce this on mine. given ive never noticed this before, i feel as though this its a little like when i was a kid and i told my parents it hurts if i twist my arm in such and such a way, and they simply said, dont do that. in other words, are we bending over backwards to expose real defects that bear no actual consequence on user experience? its subjective since we all use the speakers differently i suppose.
nevertheless, ill report back to see if i can reproduce this im super curious now.
Just to make it clear, the example in the video is the most reproducible way i could find to show that the issue exists and should be audible for everyone in this scenario.
However, I hear these artifacts no matter which content i play back. Weather it is audiobook, music, or playing with the OP-1.
It just drives me crazy so I only use the OB-4 for loud volumes and when there is lot of background noise so i cannot hear the distortion.
anytime I’d play a synth note from any source (tried more than 20 different options, not counting the radio, spotify, etc) I get some residual digital noise after my sound dies. it’s a known issue and TE just doesn’t seem to be able to fix it
I also reported similar issue to TE. The line-in is noisy in itself anyway. TE said I should send the device back to where I bought it. I was asking why if it was a recurring issue with the device. Then they asked hadn’t been the ambient mode turned on? At that point I finished the conversation with them.
TE was really helpful with my issues with my unit, though it conveniently happened right after the annoyingly short warranty window. My battery life definitely cut to 48hrs maximum. At the same time, my ortho remote had stopped working correctly, mainly just when pressing and turning for tape speed adjustment. Weird stuff would happen. I must say, I had dropped my OR a couple times…
They sent me a new Ortho Remote, though it was clearly a newer model, in Red, which was nice but it felt cheaper than the Black puck which was heavier and thicker actually. Then they recommended if my battery life wasn’t cracking up, that I send it in. But I haven’t decided to do that as I don’t know the cost of replacing the battery, and it’s not that big of a deal right now. BUT, I will say as it’s dead way more often than it used to be, I use it a lot less. When I do use it for the fun stuff it’s just magical though. My only gripes are: I really want a new disk mode to mess around with, the Karma mode is so stupid to me. And I don’t like how they implemented tape speed adjustments for loops in the new update, I’m constantly saving loops I didn’t mean to save, or I’m accidentally losing the speed I had the loop in by trying to save etc. It had a better, dare I say perfect, flow to it before with the button combos.
