At a Glance
Expert’s Rating
Our Verdict
We’ve heard better, but the Tribit StormBox does a nice job of offering a number of the things we look for in a budget Bluetooth speaker. There’s good build quality including waterproofing, along with decent sound and strong battery life.
Best Prices Today: Tribit StormBox
Not everyone has hundreds of pounds to spend on a Bluetooth speaker, but Tribit is on hand to offer something with decent build and sound quality yet an affordable price. Here’s our review of the Tribit StormBox.
Previously, this speaker was called ‘XBoom’ but has been renamed to StormBox .
Price & Availability
It’s not the cheapest of cheap Bluetooth speakers, but at £69/$69 it’s won’t take much saving up to afford one.
Design & Build
The Tribit StormBox has a fairly typical design for a Bluetooth speaker. It’s a tall cylinder that’s slightly squared off.
Huge white buttons are both easy to see and use and the shape means that it will fit into place like cup holders and the like. There’s also a loop at the top so you can carry it easily and hang it up.
Build quality is decent, considering the relatively cheap price. It’s mostly fabric covered with rubbery plastic ends that grip surfaces.
On the back are buttons for things like XBass and Bluetooth. On either end you can see exposed passive bass radiators.
What’s quite impressive at this price is that the Tribit StormBox is waterproof with an IPX7 rating, so it can fall into a swimming pool without worry.
Sound Quality & Features
As the name suggests, the Tribit StormBox aims to offer 360 degree sound like many rivals. This means you can place it anywhere and not worry about which way the audio is being directed.
While this happens to a fair extent, it’s not the best example of 360 sounds we’ve seen. You’re main decision is whether to stand it up on end – which means one bass radiator is facing down – or on it’s side. The former can really help with bass depending on the surface.
We haven’t been able to try it with only one review sample, but if you buy two Tribit says you can connect them to create ‘Wireless Daisy Chain’. This appears to be simply a repeat rather than a proper stereo pair.
Other than those radiators on either end, there are two 45mm drivers which output 12W each.
There’s a reasonable amount of power on offer, although you might want to make use of that daisy chain feature for larger parties. Most users will want to keep the XBass feature switched on as the sound is better for it.
Otherwise, the Tribit StormBox makes for a decent enough speaker for sound quality. It’s not the best we’ve tested under £100, though. There’s generally a good frequency response but there are a few dead spots in the range.
This might not be very noticeable to the average listener but to those more in-tune it will sound like there’s some parts missing a little, a bit like tuning a radio manually and not quite locking onto the signal.
In terms of battery life, you should get up to 20 hours of playback which is decent.
Specs
Tribit StormBox: Specs
- 2 x 45mm, 2 x Passive radiator
- 2 x 12W
- XBass
- Bluetooth version 4.2
- Up to 20 hours battery
- IPX7 Waterproof
- 68 x 180 x 68mm
- 545g
Best Prices Today: Tribit StormBox
Author: Chris Martin, Managing Editor, Tech Advisor
Tech Advisor Managing Editor Chris got his break as a reporter at infamous site The Inquirer and has been with us for more than 12 years. With a BA degree in Music Technology, audio is his specialism, but over the years he has reviewed all kinds of gadgets, from smartwatches to mesh Wi-Fi to coffee machines.
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