Tribit StormBox vs JBL Flip 5: Which to Buy?

This is the review comparison between two speakers Tribit StormBox and JBL Flip 5, which are the speakers of well-known and popular brands i.e. Tribit and JBL. Both speakers have amazing features and sound-wise also both are great. There are a day and night price gap between both speakers. Both are available in different design and colours, especially JBL comes in various colour options. All speakers do have there own pros and cons, so to decide which one is better for you do go through this detailed review, as it will make it easy for you to decide.

Tribit-StormBoxJBL Flip 5
Tribit StormBoxJBL Flip 5
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PROSPROS
Water-resistant and Waterproof.
Budget-friendly
Dustproof – great for hiking, biking, and more.
Great bass for a small speaker.
Small and lightweight.
Extremely portable.
Excellent sound.
Bass Boost.
USB-C charger.
Simple design, Excellent sound,11 color options, Able to pair multiple JBL speakers.
Good sound quality, waterproof, long battery life, and water-resistant.
CONSCONS
No app for EQ.
Short battery life.
Sound distortion at high volumes.
Available in only two colours orange and black.
No End charger.
No 3.5mm port, only Bluetooth.
Need compatible models to use PartyBoost, Checking battery life requires you to press the top buttons, No speakerphone or voice assistant functionality.

SPECIFICATIONS:

HEADERTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
BrandTribitJBL
ModelStormbox BTS30Flip 5
GENERALTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
ManufacturerTribitHarman
SPEAKER SYSYTEMTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
Amplification TypeMono (stereo when daisy-chained)active
Frequency Response70Hz – 20000 Hz65 – 20000 Hz
Output Level (SPL)80 db
Audio Amplifierintegratedintegrated
Connectivity TechnologyBluetooth, WirelessWireless
BATTERYTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
Rechargeable Batteryrechargeablerechargeable
Run Time (Up To)20 hour(s)12 hour(s)
POWER DEVICETRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
Power SourceBatteryBattery
OptionsMicro USB charging cableUSB charging
NETWORK AND INTERNET MULTIMEDIATRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
Connectivity InterfacesBluetooth 4.2Bluetooth 4.2
SPEAKER SYSTEM DETAILSTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
Speaker TypeSpeaker OutdoorSpeaker
Speaker Channel Qty22
Speaker Channel TypeMono (Stereo)Mono
DRIVER DETAILSTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
Driver Typefull-range driver, passive radiatorfull-range driver
Driver Qty1,21
Driver Diameter45mm
CONNECTIONSTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
TypeDC power input
DIMENSIONS & WEIGHTTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
Width2.68 in7.1 in
Depth2.68 in2.7 in
Height7.08 in2.9 in
Weight20.10 oz19.05 oz
FEATURESTRIBIT STORMBOXJBL FLIP 5
FeaturesCNET’s Award: Cnet calls it “Best portable mini Bluetooth speakers of 2021”

360° Immersive Sound: Feel the music like never before with the Tribit bluetooth Speaker. This portable speaker pumps out crisp treble, detailed mids, and resonating bass from wall to wall. It’s an auditory experience that’s truly unparalleled.

Innovative XBass Technology: Are you a fan of booming bass? We are too. Our exclusive XBass technology generates bass that’ll fill the room and send shivers down your spine. Just press the XBass button to kick things up a notch.

Completely Waterproof: Pool parties, a day at the beach, and even submersion – This Bluetooth Speaker can handle it all. Advanced IPX7 waterproofing keeps the music flowing rain or shine, and can withstand up to 30 minutes in water 3 feet deep.

Incredible 20h Playtime: It keeps going, and going, and going. A top-of-the-line (3.7V 2600mah)*2 rechargeable li-ion battery boasts an unbeatable 20 hours of continuous playtime.
Feel your music. Flip 5s all new racetrack-shaped driver delivers high output. Enjoy booming bass in a compact package.

Dont sweat the small stuff like charging your battery. Flip 5 gives you more than 12 hours of playtime. Keep the music going longer and louder with JBLs signature sound.

Bring your speakers anywhere. Pool party? Perfect. Sudden cloudburst? Covered. Bash on the beach? Flip 5 is IPX7 waterproof up to three-feet deep for fearless outdoor entertainment.

PartyBoost allows you to pair two JBL PartyBoost-compatible speakers together for stereo sound or link multiple JBL PartyBoost-compatible speakers to pump up your party.

With 11 distinct color options the Flip 5 is anything but boring. Broaden your spectrum with JBLs signature sound.

Slip this little gem onto your wrist and get grooving. Its durable fabric material and rugged rubber housing keep the Flip 5 safe while you let loose in the great outdoors.

Detail Review:

INTRODUCTION:

Tribit StormBox

The Tribit StormBox is the newer and bigger speaker on a different scale, it’s a little more expensive than other Tribit speakers and it sounds and punches way above its price. The battery life of this speaker is amazing and it comes with an 18-month warranty.  It fills large rooms and open spaces very easily.  Also, it is water-resistant, so you can take it in-pool or water. This speaker was made with the utmost attention to detail maybe not necessarily attention to design language since it’s kind of reminiscent of a couple of its competitors. 

JBL Flip 5

The new JBL Flip 5 is a bag of mixed emotions, there are some good things about it and there are some notable upgrades from the JBL flip 4 but then there are some other things about it that just make you wonder but why. The JBL Flip 5 has a retail price of $119.95. The JBL Flip 5 is a 20-watt speaker rocking a single oval transducer that’s been offset to the left, but you still have those dual passive radiators that shoot out the sides. It has great durability IPX7 and weighs 540g. The battery life of this speaker is also good and reliable. The speaker is loud and has great bass.

JBL-Flip-5

DESIGN: 

Tribit StormBox

The design of Tribit StormBox is sleek and cylindrical. It is available in 3 colours i.e black, blue, and, red. On top of the speaker, there are volume and power buttons that are large and highlighted and is clearly visible. The top and bottom are capped with sturdy rubber bumpers, which protects the speaker if you drop it. The shape of the speaker is a slightly rounded rectangle. They also have soft and light touch which makes them easy to operate even with a single hand. Moving down on the speaker there is a Four-LED light dots battery indicator.

Also, there is an Xbass button at the end of the speaker. So, I would have liked to see something a little more exclusively with Tribit and it’s characteristics and design. Even they have given the rubber carry strap so, it is a great carrying device in your hands. The speaker has a hard mesh exterior and an IPX7 rating, which means it’s built to resist scrapes and sprinkles.

JBL Flip 5

The flip 5 comes included with a hard styrofoam carrying case which honestly was a huge surprise to me and this is an awesome touch on JBL’s part because the flip 5 is one of those speakers that you pick up because you plan on taking it on the go with you. But the flip 5 still has that same super durable body as the flip 4, its fabric and softest plastic body is going to have no problem standing up to constant abuse and it’s still rocking that same ipx7 rating making it waterproof.

The only thing you really got to worry about on the speaker is just not pushing in or getting dirt trapped inside those exposed dual passive radiators. So, besides that this speaker is built like a tank which makes me doubt it, I’ll actually end up using the included carrying case just because the flip 5 is so rugged all on its own.

Tribit Stormbox.

FEATURES:

Tribit StormBox

As it’s Bluetooth aside from the auxiliary port that you also have there, you can connect this stuff to anything and you can use this to watch videos, edit, and, even game because the latency that’s usually associated with Bluetooth connections is kind of almost non-existent, physically speaking it has to be there but it’s so short so insignificant that doesn’t really make a difference. There is quite a bit of separation to the audio not necessarily as two stereo speakers like apart from each other but it’s very good and the actual sound stage which is different when talking about Bluetooth speaker is nice and it doesn’t feel like everything is coming from a single spot from where this thing is propagating sound, which is good. As a Bluetooth speaker for what it costs, I’ll pick this thing up against the entire competition line in the heartbeat-like super easy barely an inconvenience.

Talking about propagating sound, by the design you probably will figure it out but this has 360-degree audio and up close you can kind of perceive that the buttons on the front and the i/o on the back, do diminish a little bit of the actual output on that directions so most of the audio is going to come from the sides, but it’s still nonetheless 360-degree audio and presented very well too. Something that makes it even more interesting the fact, that they are also daisy-chainable, you can chain multiple of these at least two for an even better sounding full room experience. I honestly wanted two of these on my desk to substitute my pair of Nomos just to know if I could actually pull it off because they do sound really Pleasant and two speakers of this for the amount of volume with no distortion that this can put out, so it’s a really nice choice.

So, put that all together and can you really complain, well yes because we’re talking about the Internet and the Internet always finds a way, plus it never forgets. There are always gonna be people who are going to complain, mainly because they don’t really know who Tribit it is yet and there’s also the argument that according to the spec sheet the Max sound plus and the StormBox should be identical, obviously aside from the 360-degree audio and being daisy-chainable like they’re visually not the same but, the spec sheet says that these should sound exactly the same, should perform the same. In real-world usage, though the StormBox kind of killed Max sound plus for me, because honestly, it sounds better in every single way.

JBL Flip 5

When you will open the box with the JBL Flip 5 speaker itself, you will also get a Type C USB charging cable which obviously means the flip 5 now charges via a USB C port just like the JBL charge 4, then there are basic things like quickstart guide, warranty card, and, safety sheet.  Just like the older JBL flip for the flip 5 still has an advertised battery life of 12 hours and in my testing, with the volume set at 80%, I got a real-world battery life of 8 hours and 5 hours at max volume. So, the battery life on the speaker is not bad at all.

One of the first things that just make me wonder about the speaker is the lack of an audio jack, now personally I don’t mind not having an audio jack on the speaker but I still feel JBL should have had included it because some people want or still need to use a wired connection in certain situations and it’s not like JBL got rid of the audio jack on the speaker because they needed the extra room to cram in other features like what’s happening on phones and also I want to point out that this USB C port can only be used for charging, you can’t use it as a wired connection and you also can’t use it to charge your own phone. So, even though I think it’s great that the speaker now has a USB C port, I feel JBL is leaving a lot of functionality on the table.

When it comes to Bluetooth connectivity, just like all of JBL’s other speakers, the flip 5 can be connected to two devices at the same time. So, you and a friend can both be DJ which is good. When it comes to wireless range on this speaker, it is good for over 100 feet with a direct line of sight which is way more than what you actually need which is also good. But the flip 5 is still only using the SBC audio codec and it is kind of disappointing that there isn’t any AAC or aptX support. But what this really means is that this speaker isn’t the best for watching movies or podcasts on your phone because there is a slight latency whenever you watch videos on both an Android or Apple device. The latency of this is very minimal but if you’re as particular as me you will notice it. I just feel that if you’re going to get rid of the audio jack on your speaker you gotta at least support some higher quality audio codecs and you got to make sure your wireless connectivity is on point.

JBL Flip 5

SOUND QUALITY:

Tribit StormBox

This information is really important that it sounds great. The amount of bass is so amazing and the amount of volume, the actual balance amongst all the channels in the mids, the lows, the highs everything is so pleasant to listen to. If you don’t activate X-bass, you’re definitely gonna be missing out on so much. This shouldn’t even be a toggle, it should just come on by default and you shouldn’t even be able to turn it off because it makes a world of difference. 

This is supposed to be a fun listening experience on the go that you can even toss in the pool and it’s just gonna flow with the vibes of whatever music it’s playing because it is ipx7 waterproof. It’s not made to be analytical and to not have any bass whatsoever but thankfully X-bass is there and it’s awesome and it does the job, a little bit different in a better way compared to the Max sound plus because when you toggle this on, it doesn’t actually have to turn the entire audio off to just you know to turn it back on with the new EQ on top, it just applies everything instantly. This is a much-appreciated revision of the feature.

The bass is awesome, faster, very well pronounced, and, doesn’t overpower everything else. The mids and the highs are clear, crisp, and, smooth. You can’t really EQ on the slightest of details but honestly, you kind of don’t need to. This speaker out of the box sounds just as good as you should actually expect it to and you’re going to be enjoying this thing sounding awesome for about 16 to 20 hours, which is plenty and you’re probably not going to be you know trying to recharge it all the time unless you’re like a real party animal, but if you do have to top-up from zero to 100 it takes about four hours. So, at least one thing it doesn’t have is quick charging but the big issue, at least for me, not a deal-breaker.

JBL Flip 5

Sound signature wise this speaker does put an emphasis on the mids and this speaker does have a good amount of bass to them. When it comes to audio fidelity the flip 5 does outperform the flip 4 when it comes to those higher frequency sounds.  And in general JBL’s newer speakers do sound a little warmer than the flip 4. The Flip 5 also has slightly more bass than Flip 4 overall and also the Flip 5 gets slightly louder than the flip 4. Again like the bass on the Flip 5, it’s not a noticeably huge performance difference between the flip 4 but it is there. But what does surprise me here is just how well the flip 5 manages to keep up with its larger brother to charge 4.

What’s rubbing people the wrong way is that it looks like JBL just changes their speaker pairing protocol every generation so that people continue to buy their speakers. When we went from JBL connect to JBL connect plus it was understandable because JBL’s newer generation of speakers was transitioning from Bluetooth 4.1 to Bluetooth 4.2 and since charge 3 was equipped with Bluetooth 4.2 you could download a firmware update to upgrade to JBL connect plus. As JBL Flip 5 has a single transducer,  it doesn’t matter if the Flip 5 has a single transducer setup or a dual transducer setup because at the end of the day all that really matters is how this speaker sounds. 

The JBL claims that their new party boost feature is better than JBL connect plus because it has better Bluetooth range and sound clarity, which means they’re gonna be able to spread your connected speakers out farther. But personally, I don’t understand why there isn’t any backwards compatibility this time around between party boost and JBL connect plus because the JBL flip 5 is still using Bluetooth 4.2- it still supports the same Bluetooth profiles and only supports SBC just like the rest of JBL current crop of speakers that use JBL connect plus. So as someone from the outside looking in I don’t understand why JBL connect Plus speakers can’t pair to party boost speakers since they all use Bluetooth 4.2 they all support the same Bluetooth profiles and they all only support SBC. And as a consumer, this does look and feel like planned obsolescence because JBL has come out and said that they don’t plan on upgrading any JBL connect plus speakers to party boost.

Tribit StormBox

WHICH ONE IS FOR YOU?

The black Tribit StomrBox costs about 57.99 bucks, it’s absolutely killer material. It the 360-degree audio and daisy-chaining. You may not know or be very familiar with Tribit just yet as a company, but the fact that Tribit speakers are made out with two products on this grade, on this level of competency for this kind of pricing, merits at least a little bit of your consideration. It is cheaper but you are not compromising quality, so yeah definitely do give this a try. The JBL Flip 5 is a bit of a mixed bag right now. The flip 5 does have some improvements over the foot 4 like it sounds slightly better, it gets slightly louder, it has slightly more bass, and it now has USB C charging. The speaker doesn’t support and higher quality audio codecs like AAC and/or aptX and the speaker does have a slight latency when watching videos on your phone. 

The price gap is huge between both speakers, the Tribit Storm box costs $57.99 and JBL Flip 5 costs $119.95. Definitely, Flip 5 has more features but it totally depends on how much you’re willing to spend but both sounds great and amazing, choose wisely.

Expert Reviews of Tribit StormBox:

By reviewgeek
If you want a relatively no-frills portable Bluetooth speaker that genuinely delivers some impressive sound, then the Tribit StormBox should be flying into your shopping cart as…

By nerdtechy
At the end of the day, the Tribit StormBox is a great value for the money. It provides a balanced sound profile, even if it’s a little short on bass. But the main attraction is the durable case, which is tough enough to handle…

By andriodguys
One of the best selling points of the StormBox is that it comes with an 18-month warranty. Not only that, but you can extend it out to 30 months at no extra cost. This process…

By outeraudio
I’m always impressed when a new, more affordable brand can compete with the big boys. I feel the Tribit StormBox has certainly managed this feat. The StormBox offers much of the same features as its premium…

By Biareview
Tribit StormBOX possesses all the elements of a great product: beautiful design, good finishing quality, technology, and invested features. Most importantly, the sound of…

Expert Reviews of JBL Flip 5:

By Tech Radar
The JBL Flip 5 is a simple soul – perhaps too simple for some in this world – but that minimalist approach has allowed JBL to…

By What Hi-Fi?
JBL’s latest offering sounds great for the price. If you don’t mind the lack of in-app EQ settings, aux-in port, battery life, inbuilt…

By Pocket-lint
If you’re looking for a small, portable, and waterproof Bluetooth speaker then your options are many. The JBL Flip 5 delivers…

By TheStreamingBlog
JBL is a company known for producing affordable yet durable audio devices that deliver excellent sounds, and the JBL Flip 5…

By techgearlab.com
Finding a reasonable balance between sound quality/volume and portability/ruggedness, the JBL Flip 5 is quintessential