Tribit StormBox 2 Review
Excellent water resistance and battery life at a sensible price
Verdict
This speaker provides excellent water resistance and battery life at a sensible price. It sounds good too, at least after some EQ tweaking. The Tribit StormBox 2’s standard mode is bass-light and trebly, making bigger-name rivals a better fit for true zero-effort audio.
Pros
- Good value
- Great water resistance
- Sounds powerful with EQ
Cons
- Default sound mode is bass-light
- Lacks some useful flourishes of pricier speakers
- Needs custom EQ effort for the best sound
Key Features
- Up to 24 hour battery lifeDespite being fairly small, the StormBox 2 can last up to 24 hours, and perhaps even longer at lower volumes.
- IP67 water resistanceRain, and even a dunk in water, is no problem for the StormBox 2.
- Aux inputThis speaker does not have Wi-Fi or advanced features but it will accept a wired aux input.
Introduction
The Tribit StormBox 2 is one of the better alternatives to a JBL Flip 6, a UE Boom 3 or, nearer its same ballpark, the Anker Soundcore 3.
Just like Anker, Tribit is out to compete with the biggest names, and with a lower price to boot.
The Tribit StormBox 2 is a little stormer of a speaker. It doesn’t look or feel cheap, it has long battery life, excellent water resistance, and it sounds good. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it can sound good.
I think many will find the StormBox 2 too bass-light in its default mode. For music, anyway. And to get the best out of it, some manual work on the EQ is required, which just doesn’t apply to the best of the JBL range.
Design
- 588g
- 18cm tall
- IPX7 water resistance
Tribit came to prominence, in my mind at least, with the StormBox Micro. It’s a small speaker with an unusual design concept, a rubbery strap you can use to attach the Micro to a rucksack or bike handlebar.
The Tribit StormBox 2 is a little more conventional by comparison, kinda like a cross between the UE Boom 3 and the JBL Flip series. It has the visually assertive on-body controls of UE, a shape much more like the JBL Flip.
We’re not looking at as original a speaker as the StormBox Micro, then, but it does look and feel roughy a match for the bigger, pricier names.
The Tribit StormBox 2 is IPX7 water resistant, meaning you could drop the entire speaker in water without issue. Its fabric outer looks good and feels tough. The carabiner-ready strap is handy, and there’s simply a more coherent and deliberate sense of design here than in some of the no-name alternatives you’ll find littering Amazon.
It’s not quite equal with the pricier models, though. You might expect a big-name speaker of this style to use a tough rubberised finish for the upper and lower parts. The Tribit StormBox 2 end sections are simply matt plastic, with some small rubber feet on the bottom.
Rubbery finishes are more forgiving of a tumble down a rocky hillside, for example. But then again none of the plastics here feel thin or flimsy.
The Tribit StormBox 2 has a fairly old-school approach to water resistance, employing a chunky rubber bung to cover the USB-C charge point and 3.5mm aux input. Water-resistant-by-design sockets would be better, of course, but at this price I’m not going to hold it against Tribit.
I think this size of speaker is ideal for holidays and weekends away. It’s large enough for serious sound output, not so large it ends up demanding too much space in an airplane cabin carry-on bag. It’s 18cm tall. And at each end sits a passive radiator, a form of bass reinforcement driver.
Features
- Up to 24 hours battery life
- Stereo pairing
- Bluetooth (SBC codec)
The Tribit StormBox 2 is a relatively simple Bluetooth speaker. It doesn’t have Wi-Fi, a microphone for handsfree calls or smart assistant support.
There’s not even any advanced codec support either, just basic SBC.
It’s not entirely without extras, though. The StormBox 2 can be stereo-paired with another of these speakers, and there’s a companion phone app. This lets you use additional custom EQ profiles, and create your own.
You can access one of these EQ profiles, XBass, using a shortcut button on the back. And, handily, this button can also be set to toggle another profile if there’s something else you prefer.
There are four of these buttons on the back (power, Bluetooth, XBass and Stereo pairing) they all light up in white when active.
As you would guess, the big front symbols are buttons too. They change volume, and let you play/pause and change tracks.
The Tribit StormBox 2 also provides excellent battery life. Tribit claims 24 hours at 60% volume, using the default sound mode. I haven’t found the need to go that high when casually listening to music. 40-50% will do just fine, and in that mode I listened for four hours straight and only saw the battery reporting drop 10%. You unfortunately don’t get granular battery level reporting here.
Sound Quality
- Sounds a little thin and brittle fresh out of the box
- Xbass preset provides more of a classic Bluetooth speaker sound
- Custom EQ required for the best results
The Tribit StormBox 2 uses two 48mm active drivers, which sit on each side of the speaker. There’s no driver pointing straight at you, when you’re looking towards those big + and – controls on the front.
This is an arrangement similar to that of the UE Boom 3. Tribit says it gets you 360-degree sound, which is a bit of a stretch, but it’s certainly not too fussy about positioning.
At its best the Tribit StormBox 2 sounds great. I’ve been primarily putting it up against the UE Boom 3 and my personal old-school budget benchmark for affordable Bluetooth speakers, the Jam Heavy Metal.
The Tribit StormBox 2 can make the more expensive Boom 3 sound boxy and flat, with a limited and unambitious bass floor. It is capable of better separation, a greater sense of scale, more sonic sparkle and of providing a more authoritative bass punch.
Can you tell there’s a “but” coming?
I’m not the biggest fan of Tribit’s approach to tuning. In the default sound mode, the StormBox is barely allowed to use its passive radiators. There’s very little low bass, leading to the speaker sounding transistor-radio-like compared to other good Bluetooth speakers.
Switching the XBass mode on lets the speaker’s low-end come to life. The whole point of these passive radiator-equipped Bluetooth speakers is in their ability to sound far larger than they are, for convenient, satisfying sound. The default mode doesn’t get you this.
I don’t think the XBass is the ideal solution, though, as there remains too much of a treble focus that leaves the mid-range the one school kid not invited to the birthday party. The UE Boom 3 brings this out in comparison, as a speaker with more of a middy focus than most.
I’ve spent a few hours fiddling around with the StormBox 2 EQ and have got it to a place where it sounds fab for an affordable speaker. But the UE Boom 3 still takes the win for mid-range coherence, even if it can’t sound nearly as lively as the Tribit.
I should also say that while I don’t much like the Tribit StormBox 2 “thin” default sound mode at all for music, it is pretty great for talk radio and podcasts. It almost completely eradicates the bassy bloat that can cling to voices through these small Bluetooth speakers.
What EQ settings should you use for music? I recommend boosting the 80Hz dial significantly, pulling up the 1.2k and 2.5k mid-range sliders a bunch then dialling down 9k and 13k to calm down the treble a bit. And don’t pull up to 300Hz slider too much, in order to avoid mugginess. But, as ever, trust your ears.
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Should you buy it?
Buy if you want a water resistant speaker on a budget
IPX7 water resistance and 24-hour battery life are features to be cherished at this reasonable price, matching the big guns.
Don’t buy if you want zero-fuss perfect sound
The StormBox 2 sounds quite thin out of the box. You need to explore its EQ presets, and ideally make your own, to get the best audio quality here, unlike with a UE or JBL speaker.
Final Thoughts
The Tribit StormBox 2 is a great little affordable Bluetooth speaker that looks good, lasts a long while off a charge. And it keeps things simple to provide the sense you’re only paying for what you really want.
It sounds good too, but you don’t get remotely the best out of it without customising the EQ. Default tuning is bass-light and is too treble-focused, which isn’t usually what folks shopping for a no-nonsense portable speaker are after.
If fiddling around in the companion app doesn’t sound like your idea of fun, you may be better off looking for a cheap deal on a JBL Flip 5 or Flip 6.
How we test
We test every wireless speaker we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Tested across several weeks
Tested with real world use
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FAQs
It has IPX7 water resistance, fit for rain or submersion in fresh water.
A 3.5mm input sits on the back under a rubber bung.
It’s rated for up to 24 hours of use, and may last even a little longer at low volumes.
Full specs
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Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
