Tribit StormBox Blast 2 review: explosive sound, bright lights, and big battery life

Choosing a new Bluetooth speaker is a lot like picking a new car. You need to know the features you want, understand the things you don’t really care about, and then find the manufacturer who delivers both in a package you can live with. Personally, when it comes to music, I’m a bass babe. I listen to a lot of blues and rock, which means I really want to feel it when the low end kicks in. Thankfully, I found the perfect combination of high volume, great bass, and a battery that didn’t die on me after a few measly hours of thumping music.

The Tribit StormBox Blast 2 is a massive boombox-style speaker that weighs in at almost 16 pounds, and delivers bold beautiful sound, no matter what you’re listening to. It’s got a massive capacity for sound, up to 30 hours of battery life on a single charge, and customizable LEDs that add some flair to those after-dark dance parties when you go camping. While it was a bit larger than I’d expected, it was worth the trade-off to ensure my music was loud enough to hear, and that it’d be able to keep up for hours (and hours … and hours) of DJ time. So what exactly worked so well about the Tribit StormBox Blast 2? Let’s take a look.

Tribit StormBox Blast 2: specs

Design and features

The Tribit StormBox Blast 2 is a hefty model measuring 18.7 by 10.2 by 7.6 inches, and weighing in at almost 16 pounds. This speaker isn’t dainty, and it delivered big, bold sound whether I was hanging out on the back porch, or using it to replace the speakers in my Smartcar. With a 30-hour battery, it was also more than capable of keeping the tunes going all day (and night).

Behind the perforated grille there is a chonky 80-watt subwoofer, two 45-watt midrange drivers, and two 15-watt tweeters for 180 watts of stereo sound on battery power, or 200 watts if it’s plugged in with the AC adaptor. All together it’s big volume, putting the Blast in the StormBox Blast 2’s name. The XBass feature also deepens the bass in music to rib-thumping extremes. There are even built-in LED lighting effects that can be controlled and customized with the accompanying Tribit app.

The StormBox Blast 2’s body is a hard black plastic shell. It’s a solid piece that extends to its grippy, textured handle, making it easier to carry. I say easier, because at 15.7 pounds, the StormBox Blast 2 is a hefty speaker, and I’m not sure I’d try to hang it somewhere at that weight without plenty of support. It can quickly become heavy, and when I first pulled it out of the box I nearly tweaked my wrist because I wasn’t expecting it to be so heavy. Tribit might have taken a page from the Soundcore Boom 2 Plus‘ playbook and added a shoulder strap.

Tribit also wanted to ensure this speaker could do everything you asked of it, including doubling as a karaoke speaker (much the same as many of the much bigger and pricier party speakers like the JBL PartyBox Stage 320 we reviewed this year). It features inputs for two microphones that have their own volume control as well as a dial for adding a reverb effect. Sadly, I wasn’t able to test this because I didn’t have a mic in the house. Tragic, I know.

Everything is safely protected behind a durable rubber pop-out panel on the back — the 6.3mm karaoke inputs and volume/reverb dials, as well as a USB-A port, a USB-C port, a 3.5mm AUX port, and the AC charging plug. The rubber panel itself seals up everything tightly when it’s not in use, and the same rubber creates a circle on the bottom of the speaker to keep it in place once you’ve put it down.

The StormBox Blast 2 has an IP67 rating, which mean it’s waterproof in up to 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. I wouldn’t suggest actually tossing this speaker into the pool, but you could, and it’d still be good to go. Heavy rain won’t give it a problem either. I hosed the speaker down and left it in the tub for a few minutes to check, and after letting it dry out a little, it still worked just fine.

Physical controls for the speaker are on top of its body, and there are eight buttons here. The three middle buttons are your volume controls, and all of them are raised, making them easy to feel for even if you aren’t looking. You get a volume down, pause, and volume up button. The middle O button does double duty, letting you pause the music as well as skip ahead to the next track, or back to the previous track.

To the left of the volume is a Bluetooth pairing button, power button, and the battery indicator. While the power and Bluetooth buttons aren’t raised like the volume is, you can still feel them and they’re responsive. To the right of the volume controls are the buttons for lights, XBass, and TWS for connecting multiple speakers together. The bar that all the buttons sit along is textured differently than the body, making it easy to feel where they are without needing to look at exactly what I was doing.

Lights and Tribit app

The Tribit app has two basic functions: to control the lighting effects, and better fine-tune the listening experience. Inside the app are four sections: Speaker, Light, Equalizer, and Settings. The StormBox Blast 2 features three different sets of lights too, two lightbars, a middle light, and two side lights, making it a fun way to light up the night at parties or get-togethers.

Under “Speaker” the app shows you the current battery percentage, lets you adjust the volume, play/pause, and skip ahead or back a track while listening. “Light” gives you access to three different preset lighting modes, and lets you customize each of them. You can tweak the light bars, middle light, or side light, adjust the color and brightness, and even tell the speaker if you want it to flare to the rhythm of the music. As far as color goes, you can opt for a cycle of colors, a rainbow, or fully customize the colors using a color wheel to pick the perfect shade.

Inside of “Equalizer” there are eight preset modes to choose from along with the ability to build custom settings with a 5-band equalizer that lets you tweak the settings and save them for specific songs or playlists. You can make as many customs as you want, name them, and then find all of them under the Customized tab in the equalizer settings.

The “Settings” menu gives you access to firmware and a few more options such as showing the volume indicator on the light bars, conditions when the speaker will auto-shutdown, and the ability to update the firmware, shutdown the speaker, or return it to factory settings.

Sound and performance

To test the sound clarity of the StormBox Blast 2, I went ahead and fired up Spotify since it’s where I do most of my listening these days. I bounced around from blues tunes from the likes of ZZ Ward, to hard rock from Disturbed, and then tossed in some variety with Epic! The Musical, the Arcane soundtrack, along with a few country songs, and some rap to even things out a bit.

The StormBox Blast 2 delivers crisp gorgeous sound at both the lower end of spectrum (around 30%) for listening indoors, and at higher volumes (80% to 100%) when I used it to replace the sad excuse for speakers my 2013 Smartcar has. Even at lower volumes, and without the XBass turned on, the sound was fierce, delivering clear guitar solos and a bass that thumped as it played. Just the way I like it. At higher volumes the StormBox Blast 2 was more than capable of overpowering my car stereo, even with the windows down on the highway.

That bass only gets better once XBass is turned on, delivering big, bold, beautiful sound. However, I definitely couldn’t turn it all the way up at home unless I wanted to upset the neighbors and give myself a headache. In songs with heavier bass at louder volumes it was almost overwhelming, which is fine outside at a party, but less fantastic in small rooms or apartments. It evens out if you turn the XBass feature back off, but you can also just … turn down the volume.

I toted the speaker around with me for about a week — everywhere from at home in my office while working on my next novel to in the car on a road trip out to Delaware. The battery didn’t quite hit that 30-hour mark, but I was listening to it loud and I kept the LED lights pumping, which did attribute to a larger battery loss. Even so, I made it about 20 hours before topping up the battery, and even then it wasn’t dangerously low. It was also easy to recharge, even by just using a portable power pack, which meant even when I nearly ran out of power in the car I could plug it in and ensure my music didn’t die before I reached my destination.

The bottom line

The Tribit StormBox Blast 2 delivers big sound, and at $300 you really are getting what you pay for. Explosive, clean sound at higher volumes, bright colors from the LEDs, and a battery that goes and goes all come together to deliver a great package. Its $300 price tag might be a bit pricy for some folks, especially when it comes to the same price as more premium Bluetooth speakers like the Marshall Middleton (at its regular price) and even more expensive than the excellent $250 Soundcore Boom 2 Plus. But what neither of those speakers has is the Blast 2’s huge 200 watts of power, and that counts for a lot if you’re in the market for volume.

The Storm 2’s beefy frame, gigantic capacity for noise, and its water resistant rating make it an excellent option for weekends in the woods, partying on the beach or by the pool, or setting up tunes in the backyard. It’s got excellent sound, options for tweaking thanks to XBass and EQ customization options, and fun, bright LED lighting, delivering the real package when it comes to Bluetooth boom boxes.