Portable Bluetooth speakers have become commonplace on the market today. The TRIBIT StormBox Lava provides deeper, richer sound than many of its similarly-sized competitors.
What is the TRIBIT StormBox Lava
The TRIBIT StormBox Lava is a portable Bluetooth speaker, build for those who want to be able to listen to music practically anywhere.
Despite being just over a foot long, the speaker is suprising light, weighing in at only about 5 pounds, so it’s not out of the question to take it with you to the beach or on a hike.
But its best feature is that it is truly powerful, delivering much more sound than other speakers I’ve seen of a similar size.
I don’t do a lot of hikng or camping or attending beach parties anymore, but I do still spend a lot of time on the baseball field. It’s become fairly common for teams to have a speaker to play music during warmups, between innings, and even have walk-up music for the kids, and most of the time, I see coaches lugging around huge barely portable systems in order to get good, loud music. But I found that while the TRIBIT StormBox Lava isn’t going rival those for “I can’t hear myself think” volume, for what most people really want, it does an excellent job.
The Specs
According to the documentation, the TRIBIT StormBox Lava provides 80W of sound through dual woofers and dual tweeters. I don’t have a testing lab to confirm those numbers, but I can confirm that the speaker does provide deep bass, crisp highs, and nice mids. Music sounded as good through this as through my higher-end home entertainment speakers.
The speaker is both IP67 dust and waterproof, meaning that it will be fine if it isn’t protected immediately if it starts to rain, or even if it falls in a stream on a hike. Mine definitely got dusty on the baseball field, but there was no decrease in the sound quality and just brushing it off afterwards quickly removed the dust.
The speaker does charge fairly quickly. The specs claim it can last 24 hours on a single charge, and while I again didn’t directly test that, I can say that the single charge I did when I got the unit has now lasted for the two months I’ve had it and been using it.
Pairing with my phone was absolutely effortless.
Unlike a lot of devices that seem to want to hide their controls, the buttons on the speaker are right on top and the three main ones–increasing and decreasing the volume, and starting/stopping play–are large, white buttons that you never have to hunt for. And while the other controls, such as power and pairing, are black-on-black, they are in the same location and as large as the white buttons, so they are in the end no harder to find and use.
The speaker has three ports: USB-C for charging, and USB-A and Aux for output. All three are protected by a rubber covering for dust and water protection. The USB-C port can also be used for reverse charging, so the speaker can function as a power source as well.
Accessories
The speaker includes a shoulder strap for taking it on the go, and a detachable handle for easily carrying the speaker. The handle can also be used to hang the speaker on a fence or something similar.
Also in the box is a USB-C charging cable and a manual.
Final Verdict
All in all, I’m very impressed by the TRIBIT StormBox Lava. I’ve used a lot of portable speakers over the years, but this one stands out for the quality of sound at this size. It’s thoughtfully designed and truly durable. If you’re in the market for a speaker to take on all of your adventures–or to just use to listen to music around the house–the TRIBIT StormBox Lava is definitely worth considering.
