Riva WAND Series

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by Drifterxny, Jul 11, 2017.

  1. Drifterxny

    Drifterxny Friend

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    Looks like the Riva WAND series is finally available for purchase. Has anyone had a chance to listen to them?
     
  2. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    I own 3 Festivals and 5 Arenas. Ill say that they're phenomenal wireless speakers. A single Festival fills a 3000 cubic foot room that is part of an open floor plan. I've used dozens of wireless speakers and I can say these easily best pretty much everything else out there. I'd take a Festival over a devialet phantom hands down.
     
  3. Drifterxny

    Drifterxny Friend

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    Nice! Have you tried the Arenas as a stereo pair? Wondering how they'd compare vs 1 festival.
    I'm contemplating between an arena pair or a festival for an apartment living room roughly the size of 400 sqft, maybe 1 arena is good enough actually.

    Btw any experience with echo dot with the riva speakers? I'd imagine I can just connect an echo dot to one of the speakers with line in and should work fine?
     
  4. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Get the single festival.

    I don't use the echo products. The natural language processing is pure shit. The RIVA speakers integrate with my Google home and cast enabled speakers seamlessly though.
     
  5. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    That price isn't bad either... I kick my self every time I look at my UE Megaboom... the sound is alright but for the money I spent on it... there are so many other things I could have gotten! How did you find out about the Riva Audio line of BluTooth Speakers? I'm ashamed to admit I've never heard of them, until hearing your impressions of them here.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2017
  6. Dino

    Dino Friend

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  7. Armaegis

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    One of the guys here is involved with their design... I forget who though.
     
  8. philipmorgan

    philipmorgan Member of the month

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  9. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    @Donald North is correct. He's an amazing engineer.
     
  10. marflao

    marflao Acquaintance

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    Sounds interesting...I read that the Arena for instance is WiFi capable.
    So would it be possible to play my music which is stored on a NAS over the Arena?
    If "yes" how? Via an app like BubbleUPnP?

    Thanks in advance.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2017
  11. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    It supports all cast apps and the app does all kinds of stuff itself.
     
  12. marflao

    marflao Acquaintance

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    Thanks zerodeefex,

    I'll give it a try.
     
  13. marflao

    marflao Acquaintance

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    Received an Arena yesterday and checked it via WiFi connection (playing the music from Google Music) as well as via the Bluetooth connection (music from my Shanling M2s).
    Pretty nice... didn't expect "that" kind of sound from the size of the speaker.

    A few minutes ago I setup my NAS as a media server and using BubbleUPnP to stream the music stored on the Syno works like a charm.

    Guess I'll keep the Riva.

    Thanks again for this tip.
     
  14. Drifterxny

    Drifterxny Friend

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    I got a festival and been using it for the past few weeks. I like how the sound doesn't seem directional listening from the sides of the speaker (i'm assuming that's due to the virtual speakers technology that's part of the features) and it definitely fills up my living room space even on lower volumes.
    I've only had a brief listening session of sonos play 5s and based on that memory I do like the Festival a lot more, clearer highs and mids, instrument separation is better, everything feels less muddled, overall definitely a superior speaker.

    I'm using foobar and bubbleUPnP to play from PC and Spotify over wifi, set up and access was pretty easy. I do like Sono's app better, but with spotify connect it doesn't make that much of a difference.

    I'm curious, is there a way to output TV sound to the Festival wirelessly? Not familiar with chromecast capabilities at all.

    Thanks @zerodeefex for another great recommendation
     
  15. marflao

    marflao Acquaintance

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    I can connect my TV via Bluetooth to the Arena.
    Maybe this works for you, too?
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2017
  16. Drifterxny

    Drifterxny Friend

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    My TV is a bit on the older side so it doesn't have bluetooth, and i didn't realize TVs these days output sound in bluetooth. Thanks, will keep that in mind going forward.
     
  17. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Glad you like it! I'd use optical from your TV to the festival in your shoes.
     
  18. marflao

    marflao Acquaintance

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    I´m pretty spoiled from the Orange Squeeze GUI I use on my Android tab (got a RPI running picoreplayer; LMS on the NAS), hence I don´t like the iOS Wand app to control the music from my iPhone. Therefore I was looking for an iOS alternative to control the Arena.

    After some research I installed minimserver and BubbleUPnP Server on my NAS and created the Arena as an Open Home (OH) renderer in BubbleUPnP Server.
    This has the nice impact that other OH control apps can be used. I`ve chosen Linn Kazoo..pretty nice, definitely waaaaaayyyy better than the Wand app.

    btw....does anybody know if Gapless play would be technically be possible for the Festival/Arena? Could this be achieved via a "to-be" FW upgrade? Or are there any technical limitations?
     
  19. Donald North

    Donald North Friend

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    Gapless play is a function of the playback app. If you use Spotify or the native iOS music player, there is no gap during playback.
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2017
  20. aufmerksam

    aufmerksam Friend

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    does any one know if you can add these to existing chromecast targets to make a group?
     

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