Review of the Tribit StormBox Flow Bluetooth Speaker

Price at Review

$79.99

Best Prices: Tribit Stormbox Flow Bluetooth Speaker

With the StormBox Flow, Tribit continues its trend of providing affordable speakers. In this case, you get more bass than expected from a model of this size, an IP67 rating, all for under $80. You could spend a lot more and get a lot less.

Design

The Tribit StormBox Flow features a compact design with rounded corners and slanted sides. It measures 20.1 x 9 x 5.2 cm and feels very sturdy, though at nearly 700g, it’s not particularly lightweight. This isn’t a criticism, as a bit of weight reassures us of its durability when on the go.

Despite its weight, the StormBox Flow is buoyant; its IP67 rating means it’s completely dustproof and can withstand being submerged in water up to 1m deep for 30 minutes. We’ve dunked it multiple times and it resurfaced each time.

On the bottom, the speaker has four feet to elevate it for proper sound dispersion, while one of its lengths has two additional feet to keep it stable standing upright.

The top of the speaker houses the power, Bluetooth (5.3) pairing, volume up, play/pause, volume down, equalization (XBass/Audibook/normal), and TWS (True Wireless Stereo) buttons. Status indicators sit above the TWS, EQ, power/battery level, and Bluetooth buttons; the play/pause and volume controls are multifunctional to manage all aspects of music playback and call handling.

There’s a wrist strap on the right end of the speaker and a USB-C charging port on the left. The unit boasts a 25W power output driving a single 62mm woofer. For stereo performance, you’ll need a pair operating in TWS mode. There are no wired connections; it’s Bluetooth or nothing with the StormBox Flow.

Audio Quality

The sound of the StormBox Flow is impressive. We wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but for under $80, we can’t complain. The highs are crisp, mids are well-defined, and the XBass delivers more punch than expected from a first glance. It’s a lot more, but not enough to overshadow the musicality of tracks.

The only real issue we noticed is the sudden and drastic drop in bass volume just below 50Hz. It’s still there, and you can feel the subwoofer vibrating, but it doesn’t project. On the flip side, the fact that it goes down to 50Hz is better than what most speakers of this type can achieve.

The bass is particularly noticeable on Young Jeezy’s track “Put On,” where the first sub-note stands out, while the lower, deeper ones fade away. That’s why this track is on our playlist when testing speakers.

If you want to pinpoint where your speakers reproduce and resonate best, and where they don’t, there are sound generators available for download and online. Here’s a link to my favorite sound generator.

With only one speaker on board, it’s clear you won’t get stereo separation. Despite that, we didn’t encounter any phase distortion or frequency cancellation, which can occur with stereo-mono conversion.

We also must mention that the StormBox Flow can get very loud for its size. Sending 25 watts to a single speaker helps achieve this. The sound also isn’t particularly distorted at higher volumes (at least, not more than usual, and that’s partly human perception).

Battery Life and Charging

Tribit claims 30 hours of battery life with the 4800mAh battery without XBass activated, and 24 hours with XBass. A full charge takes 4 hours, but the company doesn’t specify fast charging time. We were at around 10 hours and the battery indicator was still blue-white; it still had plenty to spare!

Should You Buy the Tribit StormBox Flow?

For a while now, Tribit has been producing high-quality speakers at very attractive prices. The StormBox Flow lives up to this reputation. We would have liked to see better bass reproduction, but overall, it’s another winner product at an affordable price.

For an outdoor speaker, there’s the Stormbox Blast that we also enjoyed a lot.

Adaptation of the original review published on our sister site Tech Hive