Riva Festival Speaker and Central Wireless Component - Hands On

At CEDIA 2016 in Dallas, Riva showed for the first time its new, large-and-in-charge Festival speaker along with a product still in development that you'll hear about first at Digital Trends: the Central.
Unlike a lot of portable speakers, Riva's Wand series -- comprised of the Arena and Festival models -- offers stereo sound from a single speaker. Pair up more, and you get even bigger sound with wider stereo separation. The company is carefully avoiding the term multiroom, using multispace instead to push the point across that you can use multiple speakers outside to create your own mini music events.
As for the prototype Central, it's a device that promises to integrate any existing audio equipment you may have into Riva's multispace system. With digital optical inputs and outputs, any existing stereo system can now be accessed and played through wirelessly. Similarly, a TV or Blu-ray player could be connected to feed audio into the wireless system. Analog inputs allow for connection of a turntable, for example, while a USB input facilitates connection of numerous digital devices, which can then be decoded by the Centrals built-in, high quality 24-bit/92kHz DAC. Finally, any passive speakers can be driven thanks to the Central's 60 watt per channel digital amplifier.
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