When we reviewed the Tribit StormBox Micro 3, it scored 8/10 for great sound from something that small, excellent battery life and a magnetic base. Scale was its limit: one 13W driver suits a kitchen or a handlebar, not a garden full of noisy people.

The Tribit StormBox Max is built for the garden. It runs 60W through a downward-firing woofer and four tweeters arranged to cover a full circle, and it gives XBass, Tribit's bass boost, a dial of its own. At time of writing it is £99.99 on Amazon UK.

Tribit sent us one black unit free of charge. The question is whether the Max keeps what made the Micro 3 good once there is far more power behind it, and who should buy one.

The Max stands upright on a square footprint, 203mm tall and 109mm across. It comes in Black or White, and ours is black, with fabric wrapped round the body and the Tribit logo near the base. The USB-C port sits behind a rubber cover, as on the Micro 3, and Tribit says the IP68 rating only holds with that cover sealed.

The controls sit on the top panel, inside a grey rim. Four small buttons in a row handle power, Bluetooth, the EQ mode and pairing. In front of them, a large minus and plus sit either side of the silver XBass dial, which has a ring of dots round it signalling the steps for increasing/decreasing the bass.

A ribbed silicone handle loops out of one side, and it is the only way to carry the Max. At 1,184g, a long walk to a campsite is a fair test of your grip. The handle also lets you hang the speaker up, which matters because the woofer fires downwards, as the Performance section explains.

The full sheet, taken from Tribit's product page and its launch notes:

Next to the Micro 3, the family likeness is in the connections and the protection: IP68, Bluetooth 6.0 with AAC and SBC, a 5W USB-C output for topping up a phone, and the same Tribit app. Each speaker also stereo pairs only with another of its own model.

The power is the big change: 60W on the Max, 13W on the Micro 3. The Max spreads it across five drivers, where the Micro 3 has one. Tribit quotes the low end down to 53Hz, where the Micro 3 stops at 63Hz. The Max also adds Auracast, and it moves XBass off an on/off button and onto a dial. Tribit says its lab tests show more low-end output from this XBass 2.0 than from the first version, which it measured on the older StormBox Pro.

Three things go the wrong way. Rated playtime drops from the Micro 3's 24 hours to 20. A full charge takes about four hours, where the Micro 3 needs about two. And the weight climbs from 331g to 1,184g. Neither speaker comes with a plug, and Tribit says the four-hour figure assumes a 5V/3A charger, so a weaker one will take longer.

Gardens, campsites and beaches are where Tribit aims the Max, and the 360° layout is the reason. A speaker that faces one way belongs at the edge of a party; the Max can go in the middle of it. IP68 takes care of rain, sand and splashes, as long as the port cover is shut. Indoors, it works as a room speaker too, with the app's nine-band EQ to tune it to the space.

For a bigger space, the next step is more speakers. We tested a single unit, so this part comes from Tribit's documentation. In TWS mode, two StormBox Max speakers become a stereo pair, one on the left channel and one on the right. Auracast, Bluetooth's standard for broadcasting one source to many speakers, plays the full mix on all of them instead, and Tribit rates it for 100+ speakers. Other brands' speakers can join in principle, because Auracast is an open standard; in practice, Tribit says it depends on the device.

It is the wrong speaker for a bike or a long hike, where the strap-mounted Micro 3 makes more sense. And with AAC and SBC as the only codecs, there is no aptX or LDAC for anyone who wants higher-resolution Bluetooth.

Pairing a phone takes a press of the Bluetooth button and a tap in your phone's Bluetooth menu. After that, the top panel covers most of what you need without opening the app: volume, the XBass dial, the EQ button and pairing.

The EQ button switches between Tribit Signature and Outdoor, and a light comes on when Outdoor is active. The TWS button links a second Max: one press for Stereo, shown by a white light, or two for Auracast, shown in blue. To swap between those two modes, hold the button for two seconds to leave the current one, then pick the other.

The Tribit app adds six EQ presets and a nine-band custom EQ, and the built-in microphone handles calls and voice assistants. Left with nothing playing, the speaker switches itself off after 15 minutes.

Battery life has been excellent, as it has been on every Tribit product we have used. Tribit rates it at 20 hours at half volume on the default EQ. When it does run down, a full charge takes about four hours, and you will need your own USB-C plug for it.

Bluetooth range has been great too. Tribit quotes up to 45m, and our experience lines up with that figure.

High frequencies travel in a narrow beam, which is why a speaker with its tweeters on one face sounds duller from behind. Bass spreads in every direction on its own. The Max is built around both facts. Its single 30W neodymium woofer points at the ground, and its four 7.5W silk dome tweeters face outward at 90° to each other, with a reflection cone spreading their output round the full circle.

It works. The 360° sound is excellent, and the coverage is true to what Tribit claims for the array: walk round the Max and there is no bad side to stand on.

Pointing the woofer down has a catch, and Tribit's own placement advice covers it: whatever the speaker stands on sits in the path of the bass. A hard table or patio bounces it back up, while grass and sand absorb some of it. The handle is a way round that. Hang the Max from a hook, a gazebo frame or a branch and the woofer is no longer firing into something that can soak up part of the bass.

The other change that matters is the dial. On the Micro 3, XBass lives on a button, so it is either on or off. Tribit has given the Max a whole dial for it instead, which means you decide how hard the bottom end is boosted rather than taking the one setting on offer. It turns five steps either side of centre, each worth 1.25dB of bass, so you can pull the low end back as well as push it. By Tribit's own advice, it takes two or three clicks before the change is obvious.

Between the dial, the EQ button and the app, there is plenty of control. Tribit Signature and Outdoor both do their job well, and the app's nine-band EQ is there for anything finer.

Sound quality is great for a portable speaker, and the tuning will be familiar to anyone who has heard the Micro 3. The low end is lifted, as on every Tribit we have tried, but it never takes over. The midrange sits half a step behind it as a result. Up top it stays clean, with no harshness on 's' and 't' sounds.

Push it towards maximum and it starts to distort, losing a little clarity on the way. That is not a Tribit problem so much as a speaker problem: near full volume, almost every speaker pushes its drivers past the point where they move cleanly.

Yes. The Tribit StormBox Max sounds a lot like the Micro 3, which we liked, with far more power behind it. The 360° sound is excellent and so is the battery life, the XBass dial gives you real control over the low end, and the Bluetooth range is great.

It costs £99.99 on Amazon UK at time of writing, in black or white. Amazon was also offering a £15 voucher at checkout when we looked. In the US it is $129.99 direct from Tribit, or $98.79 for the black on Amazon. We think that is a fair price for what you get.

The obvious rival is the JBL Charge 6, which JBL sells for £129.99 at time of writing, down from £169.99. Both are IP68 and support Auracast, and both use a 30W woofer. The Max adds four 7.5W tweeters, where the Charge 6 has one 15W tweeter. The Max is lighter, at 1,184g against 1.37kg. The Charge 6 has the longer rated battery: 24 hours, or 28 with JBL's Playtime Boost, against 20 for the Max.

Buy the Max for a garden, a campsite or a beach, or if you want bass control on the speaker rather than in an app. The distortion near full volume is something it shares with almost every speaker. The Tribit StormBox Max scores 8/10.

If you do not need that much speaker, the Tribit StormBox Micro 3 is £52.99 on Amazon UK at time of writing, down from £62.99. You give up the 360° layout, the XBass dial and most of the power. In return you get a magnetic base, a strap for bikes and bags, and a rated 24 hours of battery.

Tribit supplied the StormBox Max reviewed here free of charge. Free products are only provided to aid our testing and do not affect our honest opinion.

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