The Tribit StormBox Blast portable Bluetooth speaker is made of ABS/plastic and is very solid. It is strong, powerful, sufficiently balanced, easy to carry, and should provide excellent battery life.

The StormBox Blast is a retro-style boombox, rectangular in shape and finished in dark gray and black. This Bluetooth-enabled device weighs 12 pounds. It is 8.9 inches tall, 15.9 inches wide and 6.4 inches deep. The body of this speaker is made of black plastic. The durable carrying handle protects the buttons that control StormBox Blast’s operation. The perforated grill on the back of the unit is centered on a rubber gasket that conceals the speaker’s inputs and outputs.

These are a charging input, a USB-C port used to charge other devices, and a 3.5 mm auxiliary input. Two sets of LED lights run along the front left and right edges of StormBox Blast. Another pair of lights illuminates two speakers. These LEDs can be configured to flash to music or to turn off if not needed. Power of 90W is delivered to a pair of 30W woofers and two 15W tweeters. Passive radiators are installed on the sides of the device.

StormBox Blast takes an old idea for large portable music devices and updates it for the 21st century: equip it with a pen. Measuring 14.4 x 4.1 x 3.1 inches and weighing 11.7 pounds, the speaker weighs too much to be truly portable, but the thick handle on top makes it at least easy to carry. Even with these dimensions, it is more portable than the 14.3 x 7.5 x 7.5 inch, 13 lb. UE Hyperboom. The speaker is enclosed in a black plastic casing and has metal grilles on the front and back. Multi-color LED lights illuminate on the sides of the front, while white lights illuminate behind the two speakers.

You can choose from different lighting options (rainbow or solid color) and turn off the lights (mostly). Although the backlight is a fun addition, light-sensitive people should avoid this speaker: even when you turn off the light show, the LEDs continue to flash when you change the volume or start playing a song. The StormBox Blast has an IPX7 waterproof rating, which means it can be submerged in water up to 1 meter deep for up to 30 minutes, so you can take it to the pool with you without fear of frying the electronics if it gets submerged.

Let’s start with the physical connections, because on the back of the Tribit you will find three ports protected by a rubber cover: a power cable, a USB-C output for charging the device, and a 3.5 mm auxiliary input for wired listening. Bluetooth 5.3 is built-in for two-device pairing and a wireless range of 40 meters, but unfortunately no support for aptX or AAC codecs is provided; according to the specifications, the protocols are A2DP and AVRCP, also known as the simpler Bluetooth streaming standard.

Surprisingly, in today’s market, Stormbox Blast may not be the best candidate for beach listening, as it is IPX7 compliant, meaning it is only waterproof, not water and dust resistant. Great for a pool party, maybe not for mud. Also, there are no built-in microphones or voice assistance, unlike, say, Sonos Move. What you get, like it or not, are 32 LEDs: 15 on either side of the metal grille and two behind the dual woofers, which are flanked by two tweeters located at the top corners of the panel, as you can see. of the speaker.

There are three ambient lighting profiles in total: one runs the colors for both the speaker LEDs and the surround effect sidebars, another keeps the speaker LEDs white and gives a rainbow effect to the sidebars, and a third turns off all bit-driven lighting effects but still activates the sidebars whenever the volume is changed.

When we first start StormBox Blast, it enters Bluetooth pairing mode and quickly pairs with my phone. If you need to pair it with another device, you can press and hold the Bluetooth button on the top of the speaker. Two phones can be connected to the speaker at the same time.

StormBox Blast supports Bluetooth version 5.3, the latest standard. This allowed us to maintain a strong connection with our phone even from 50 feet away in a room with walls between the phone and the speaker. In addition to Bluetooth connectivity, there is a 3.5 mm jack for wired connection.

Do you want a shy, reserved sound for personal listening without annoying your neighbors? In this case you will have to proceed with caution, and it is important to note that during our tests we found that a difference of two or three increases in volume was enough to go from too low to too high in a room. But Tribit makes no secret of wanting to bring the party to your ears and your body, and it has succeeded.

This device can be loud. If you are worried about whether one speaker is enough for a garden party, then it is here. If you compare it to one of Ultimate Ears’ larger options, such as the Boom 3, you can’t compete in terms of bass weight: we’re streaming Snoop Dogg’s Lay Low, and the full, systematized, and fast stop-start hip-hop riff via Tribit makes the UE sound light and treble-focused in a direct comparison-and while we realize it’s not exactly a fair comparison in terms of size, price, it’s only about $50.

Tribit claims that the StormBox Blast can run for 30 hours on a full charge. In comparison, the UE Hyperboom claims 24 hours of battery life. In tests, the StormBox Blast ran for more than 20 hours with no sign of battery drain. One problem is trying to figure out how much battery power the Blast has left; the power button flashes when the battery is low, but until then it is not possible to know how much power is left. The StormBox Blast has a convenient additional feature: it can charge other portable devices via the USB-C port.

If you have been listening to music on your phone all day, an extra boost might help you get through the night. Of course, every charge sent to a portable device will reduce the speaker’s battery life. StormBox Blast charges via a power cord, not USB, so keep an eye on the included power cord.

The Tribit Stormbox Blast is available now (though not immediately) for $1 under $200. Other available regions include Germany (€230), Canada (CAD$260), and India (£16,999). However, it does not appear to be available immediately in the UK, and indeed our sample was equipped with a two-prong EU charging cable, so it is unclear whether we can expect a UK launch. And that would be a shame.

If you want something cheaper and more portable, the JBL Flip 6 or JBL Charge 5 are great, while the Bose Home Speaker 500 or Amazon Echo Show 15 also boast a smart voice assistant. The Sonos Five is definitely more expensive, but the JBL Boombox, probably the closest product to this list in terms of design and functionality, will cost you $450 (about $650 Australian) when it launches in April 2020.

The Tribit StormBox Blast portable Bluetooth speaker is truly amazing. It is well built, sounds great, has a nice app for setting your preferences, and provides many options for the types of uses that are best suited. IMHO it is a good deal, especially for the price and compared to other similar speakers on the market.

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