Using and Customizing the Mondo Mint System

Once the system was put together, listening to music was as simple as turning it on and selecting the proper input. Mondo has made it very easy to get sound through the Mint System and the same eight buttons which are located on the top of the main amplifier (power, input selection and volume/mute control) are also accessible on the credit-card-sized remote. I put several sources through the system, including an iPod, Creative Zen Touch MP3 player, iTunes (via USB) and a CD player (via the 1/8-inch mini input). I found that I was unable to get USB audio to work from my computer. I tried a few things and then visited the website for support. The support pages of the site are part helpful user guide, part marketing, and part spam-filled, (apparently) unmoderated blogs. After digging around I found some helpful info on restarting the application after switching the audio device. Of course, I also found a great place to buy male enhancement drugs. There is also an email address and toll-free phone number you can call to get additional help. According to the website:

"Whether PC or Mac, using iTunes or Windows Media Player – it doesn’t matter. There’s no special software, drivers or configuration needed. Plug it in and It just works."

Well they were right. But I did have to select the Mondo Digital Music Station in my Sounds and Audio Devices control panel. I also had to quit and restart iTunes or Windows Media Player if it was open when I switched the audio device (which they indicated on the website). After I learned from my mistakes I would say that for the most part it's plug and play. On my laptop, for example, I didn't have to change the control panel settings, I merely restarted the audio application I was using and out came the sound.

Customizing the Sound

The PR person for Mondo USA emailed me with a handy application that allows customization of the sound and functions of the Mondo Mint. It was very much like a receiver editor that you can, on occasion, acquire for Yamaha or Denon products. Adjustments can be made for Tone, Loudness, Volume between inputs and default input - among others. An Advanced Settings menu allows additional adjustments to Dynamic Range compression (DRC) and a Mixer and Filter control for filtering high and low frequencies through a variety of 2nd or 4th order crossover methodologies (Butterworth, LinkwitzRiley, Bessel, etc).

I quickly found that the speakers sounded most accurate at an almost flat loudness setting, however putting the gain at 1dB at 80Hz resulted in a potentially more pleasing sound given that no subwoofer existed. The default setting is 2dB and of course the amount of gain varies as the overall volume drops.

Unfortunately at the time of review I couldn't find this application listed on the Mondo website or even mentioned in any of the materials I received in the Mondo Mint packaging. Mondo claims it will post the app on their website shortly, allowing users to download it. If it is not readily available on the website by the time of this review publication, please follow up by emailing them and requesting the application be made available to users.