Hi I’m Gidon from thetechnologyman.com. The Tribit MaxSound Plus is a compact portable
Bluetooth speaker, with an IPX7 waterproof rating and 20 hours of battery life. It has
a dedicated button to boost bass, something small speakers like this struggle with. Its
price seems to fluctuate but currently it’s around £40 or $55, but check down below for
the latest prices. I’ll be comparing it against two comparably
sized and spec'd speakers: the JBL Flip 4 which costs a fair bit more and the similarly
priced Anker SoundCore Boost. In the sound test I’ll even add in the smaller Anker
Soundcore 2 and the larger Anker Soundcore Motion+.
Is the Tribit MaxSound Plus the best option at this price? Let’s find out.
Overview Inside the box you get the speaker itself,
a micro-USB charging cable and a 3.5mm audio cable. There’s also a multi-lingual getting
started guide. There’s no travel pouch or case.
First impressions of the speaker are good. It’s a fairly generic design, but it’s
compact measuring 65mm x 198mm by 68mm. It has a matte black finish with a metal grille
and the Tribit logo, over the drivers. It’s pretty dense weighing 621g but feels solid
with no flexing or creaking. It sits on four small rubber feet.
Around the back there’s an already attached lanyard, venting for the passive radiator
and a rubber seal for the speaker’s IPX7 waterproof rating, that reveals the 3.5mm
audio in port if you prefer a wired connection, and a micro-USB charging port. It’s always
disappointing not to see the more modern USB-C connection. And there’s no USB charging
port like on the Soundcore Boost. Along the top are the rubberised control buttons,
with the microphone just above the play button for voice calls and activating Google or Siri
from a connected device. Charging the speaker’s 2200mAh battery from
empty takes a lengthy 4 hours. It supports a maximum charging current of 1.4A at 5V,
slower than the Soundcore Boost’s 2.1A input. The power status LED lights red whilst charging
and turns green when fully charged. You can use the speaker whilst it’s charging.
When you first turn it on with a single press of the power button, there’s a beep that
can’t be disabled and the power status LED flashes blue indicating the speaker’s ready
for pairing. Tap on Tribit MaxSound Plus in you Bluetooth settings. There’s another
beep and the power LED goes a steady blue. This will turn red when battery goes below
15%. There’s no NFC pairing like there is on
the Soundcore Boost. A single press of the power button also turns the unit off.
Like with the Boost, the speaker doesn’t support multi-pairing. And it can’t be connected
to another speaker in a stereo pair either. The JBL Flip 4 supports a Bluetooth connection
to two devices simultaneously, and grouping with other JBL speakers.
To connect to another device press the Bluetooth button. The status LED will flash blue with
an accompanying beep and the speaker is again ready for pairing.
If you have any connection issues, you can reset the speaker, by pressing the volume
up and down buttons together for 5 seconds whilst the speaker’s powered on. The speaker
will turn off and all Bluetooth pairing records will be deleted.
The controls are fairly intuitive, although it’d make more sense to me for the volume
buttons to be used for skipping tracks, relieving the play button from some of its duties. Apart
from the power button and Bluetooth button already discussed, a single press of the play
button pauses or resumes playback, or manages an active phone call, a 2 second press activates
your voice assistant depending on your connected device, a double press skips forward a track
and a triple press skips back. Finally there’s the XBASS button which is on by default indicated
by its accompanying white LED. Tap the button to turn the bass boost off.
Sound quality and performance Two 45mm, 12W drivers and a passive radiator
deliver sound that belies the size of the speaker. Across a range of music, it sounds
well balanced and there’s barely any distortion even at maximum volumes. I left XBASS on most
of the time, which sounded better to my ear even with more vocal tracks and podcasts.
It added more richness to the sound, without affecting the mids and highs.
You can listen to a comparison between the Tribit MaxSound Plus, the Anker Soundcore
Boost and the Flip 4. I’ve also included the bigger, more expensive Soundcore Motion+
and the smaller very popular Anker Soundcore 2 for good measure. You can take a look at
my reviews of the Anker speakers if you’re interested - click on the on-screen cards
or the links down below. I’ve recorded the following sound test with
binaural microphones that capture stereo sound, to try and provide the closest representation
of what I’m hearing. Please listen with headphones for the best experience. Use the
timestamps below to skip ahead if you like. Its bright sound is very similar to the JBL
Flip 4, but I actually slightly prefer the Tribit. The JBL can sound a bit harsh sometimes
- especially the highs. It’s pretty loud too - louder than the Soundcore Boost and
very close to the JBL for many tracks. The Boost is still more bassy than the Tribit,
but at the slight expense of clarity in the mids. There’s no accompanying app to control
EQ - you could use your device’s EQ settings but I doubt you’ll need to.
Overall for the price and size of the speaker, it's difficult to fault the sound quality.
But let me know down below which speaker you prefer.
Battery life was good. Tribit don’t specify under what conditions they achieved 20 hour
of battery life, but I got at least half that with XBASS mainly on, and often playing back
at or approaching maximum volume, which isn’t bad at all.
The speaker has Bluetooth 4.2, not the more recent 5.0 standard, but range was still decent
reaching the next room of the house around 10 metres away and was comparable with the
SoundCore Boost and just slightly less than the Flip 4. I found the connection reliable,
with no dropouts in my testing. There’s no support for the higher quality
aptX or AAC codecs, but I couldn’t hear much difference even playing over a wired
connection. Audio sync with YouTube on iOS was not great
as seems to be the norm, but there was only a slight delay with YouTube on Android and
with Netflix on both platforms. The microphone quality is adequate for phones
calls, although there is a fair bit of background hiss.
I tested its IPX7 waterproof rating, and it held up fine.
Conclusions For its size, the Tribit MaxSound Plus is
one of the best sounding Bluetooth speakers I’ve tested. It even holds its own against
more expensive options. Together with its IPX7 waterproof rating, size and battery life,
it’d make a great travel speaker if you’re happy with the weight.
It’s not the most feature rich speaker I’ve tested. You can’t use it as a USB power
bank, you can only pair to one device at a time, there’s no support for stereo pairing,
charging is quite slow, there’s no NFC or aptX support, and it still has only micro-USB
and Bluetooth 4.2. But none of its shortcomings really matter
if your main concern is how it sounds. Check the latest pricing down below, but if you
can get it for less than £50 or $60, I’d very much doubt you’ll be disappointed!
I’d love to hear your thoughts. How do you think it sounds? What’s more important to
you: sound quality or features? Let me know down below.
And as always, if you have any questions, please ask - I read every comment and will
do my best to respond. I do hope you found this video useful. Please
like the video if you did. I’m releasing videos every week on the latest technology
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--- tribit maxsound plus review | Half the price
of JBL Flip and better?