Bose T4S ToneMatch Mixer/Audio Processor

I’ve been using a Bose Tonematch T1 for about 3 years and found it to be a hell of a lot of compact mixer for not a lot of money. Simple to use, excellent sound and on-board FX, great quality in every respect driving the Bose L1 Model 2 with a B2 bass bin or in-house recording.



I was thinking of upgrading for the T1 mixer to the T4s and the thing that tipped it in Bose favour was the in-built WAV/MP3 player that the T4s sports… If only it WORKED!



Initially out of a selection of over 100 WAV/MP3 files, 4 files refused to play, reporting the error on the T4s display as “File Not Playable”. Interesting perhaps that these files only displayed the “File Not Playable” error in WAV format. The same files in MP3 format did not show at all! And so, I performed a firmware update using the Bose firmware updater utility. And now… it doesn’t play ANY files on the ‘USB A Playback’ facility in addition to many of the files in the folder NOT being displayed at all!



Consequently, if Bose cannot resolve this issue in the next few days the T4s will be returned for a full refund.



That aside, and assuming the USB A Playback facility will be fixed… This little mixer is ‘almost’ perfect but not quite. I perform as a solo vocalist using backing tracks in WAV or MP3 format and currently I have to use an external audio media player, such as a PC, Laptop, Tablet, SmartPhone etc.



Given that the T4s is stereo it also meant I could dispense with a few other peripheral devices and mange foldback much easier. How disappointing it was to discover that the USB A Playback is not routable! It’s fixed routed to the main output. This limitation causes monitor mixing issues for me personally but I am able to work around it!



So far so good, however… 50% of the reason I went for the T4s was because of the built-in mp3/wav player. PERFECT, mixer clipped to my mike stand and my mp3/wav player is right there too. But it’s virtually unusable because there is no “turn off auto play the next track”! Stop it before it starts playing the next tract you might think… yes, only if I edit all of my backing tracks to add empty time to the end of all of the tracks to make it possible to stop one before the next starts!



GREAT piece of kit, GREAT value for money. The one I have at the moment is obviously faulty, and there are some very silly letdowns in respect of its routability limitations. The ‘USB B’ (to-from PC) IS routable, why not ‘USB A’? I will at some point update this regarding the outcome of the USB A Player fault.



And if Bose ever read this... If this T4s is under the heading of "professional audio" then maybe it should follow more closely to professional audio mixing platforms. Add "Auto-play on/off" to the USB A player and make its output fully routable and it would be PERFECT. And, rename "PHONES" to "MONITOR" then in keeping with that label, it should be possible to route any mix of all and any input output channels to the monitor output (he says hopefully).