Riva Audio’s multi-room Sonos competitor launches in the US

 

Riva Audio is best known for its Bluetooth speakers, but earlier this month, the company released its new multi-space wireless speakers much later than originally planned. The WAND series is comprised of two speakers: the Arena and the Festival. Both include multiple ways to play music, including Wi-Fi, DDMS, Spotify Connect, AirPlay, DLNA, Bluetooth, and Chromecast. The more expensive Festival has an optical input, too. You can also distribute analog inputs over Wi-Fi to other speakers. For comparison, Sonos only works over Wi-Fi. 

The larger Festival costs $499 while the Arena costs $249. Because it’s smaller, the Arena is portable and can be bought with an optional battery pack that Riva says should last for up to 20 hours. (That figure likely changes at different volumes, but we have yet to test it out.) It’s splash-resistant, too. A companion iOS / Android app is available for controlling the speakers and customizing EQ settings.

So Riva made some intriguing speakers that we’re definitely going to want to test, but what it says powers them is a patented technology called “Trillium.” This apparently creates stereo sound that fills a room. They achieve this through custom drivers on the front and side of the speakers. Again, this technology is impossible to vouch for when we haven’t actually tested the speakers, but the promise of better audio always sounds like a great thing. 

The article was published on : theverge