Tribit StormBox Micro speaker review: A pocket-size Bluetooth speaker with surprisingly big sound

In excess of the many years Tribit has made some of the improved finances portable Bluetooth headphones and speakers, setting up with its XFree Tune and XSound Go, respectively. The latter speaker is nonetheless around and provides astonishingly superior seem for much less than $30. The larger MaxSound Furthermore ($60) provides you more bass and quantity and the StormBox ($52) is Tribit’s more economical just take on these well known speakers as the UE Boom and JBL Flip 5. Now it really is executing a finances model of Bose’s excellent SoundLink Micro speaker. The new design is referred to as the StormBox Micro and it really is a person of the best-sounding pocket-measurement speakers I’ve read.   

Read more: Most effective Bluetooth speakers of 2020

Measuring 3.87 by 3.87 by one.37 inches (seven.3 by seven.3 by 3.5 cm) and weighing nine.nine ounces (280 grams), the StormBox Micro has a somewhat larger sized footprint than the Bose, which weighs 10.2 ounces (290 grams). The StormBox Micro is IP67 dustproof and drinking water-resistant, which implies it can just take a dunk in shallow drinking water (the Bose is IPX7, which implies it hasn’t been examined against dust). Its battery lifetime is rated at up to 8 hrs at reasonable quantity degrees, vs . 6 hrs for the Bose. It has USB-C charging and it can also be made use of as a speakerphone.

Like the Bose SoundLink Micro, the Tribit StormBox Micro has an built-in rubber strap that allows you to clip the speaker to anything at all from a backpack to poles, tree branches, your bike’s handlebars or a belt loop on your pants. With its fabric masking, the speaker would not feel as resilient as the Bose, but it looks sturdily plenty of created. It must suit in most pockets as long as you aren’t sporting tight jeans.

Aside from its wonderful design, the SoundLink Micro stood out because it was ready to produce more bass than each individual speaker in its measurement class (and it also managed to have constrained distortion at higher volumes). And it really is the StormBox Micro’s bass and total quantity amount for its small measurement that let it to stand out. For case in point, it really is clearly excellent to the JBL Clip 3, which expenses around $fifty but is somewhat scaled-down.

The StormBox Micro does have its limits and distorts somewhat with specified tracks when you just take it to max quantity. But the stage is it appears significantly fuller than you’d be expecting from a speaker this measurement. You can also wirelessly pair up two of these minimal guys in social gathering mode for expanded seem. When joined in social gathering mode — it really is an effortless procedure — you can then switch to stereo mode with a person speaker serving as the still left speaker and the other as the suitable.

I fired up a Spotify playlist of tunes with tons of stereo separation (the aged standbys are Pink Floyd’s Cash, the Beatles’ In this article Comes the Sun and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody). The speakers are essentially employing the exact same engineering as legitimate wi-fi earbuds, and stereo seem undoubtedly appears improved than the mono seem you usually get from these minimal speakers. 

There is just not significantly else to say about the StormBox Micro. Ideally, it would value much less than $fifty. And we may possibly see that price shortly plenty of as Tribit’s currently shaved a number of bucks off the listing price on Amazon, bringing it down to $fifty six. That is a superior price for a quite superior minimal wi-fi speaker.