AirPlay Speakers for Whole House Stereo

Audio Gear Talk Airplay
1

I use Roon via AirPlay for whole house stereo (1st floor & 2nd floor) as follows:

RIVA Festival in Family Room
RIVA Arena in my Home Office
RIVA Arena in Kitchen
RIVA Arena in Living Room
RIVA Arena in Dining Room
RIVA Arena in Master Bedroom Sitting Room
RIVA Arena in Guest Bedroom

I want to add additional AirPlay speakers to the mix. Two in the backyard and one in the garage.

I want to mount powered backyard speakers on my house, and they need to be weatherproof. Ideally, each speaker would play in stereo mode. As a side note, I have a Marantz 7.2 AVR receiver in my family room and could use Zone 2 to passive speakers, but I didn’t want to run/route wires through walls and I’m not sure if the same music played over WiFi would be in sync with music played over speaker wire.

I want a portable garage speaker that comes with an internal battery or external battery pack so I can take it with me. A Sonos speaker would work fine, provided I can group it with the Riva speakers. As a side note, Riva is no longer in business. Four or five years ago, I compared Riva and Sonos speakers. Riva sounded noticeably better, has more connection options, and an optional battery pack. They have worked out very well for me.

I’ve done a bit of research on powered AirPlay outdoor speakers and there’s not a lot to choose from. Any advice on any of this would be greatly appreciated.

2

What makes you say they’re no longer in business? The website is up and still selling the Arena:

3

… and several other models, as well, including one “coming soon”. Sounds like an ongoing business.

4

Not exactly. The Riva site is up and has been basically static since the last time I spoke to Riva support about 3 years ago. The “coming soon” stuff has been coming for the past several years.

I believe Riva is simply clearing out their remaining inventory. On Amazon, you can purchase an Arena speaker in black but not white, and a Festival speaker in white but not black. On the Amazon Riva Store or Riva site, you cannot purchase the Arena battery pack or bag, nor their Concert line. Nor can you purchase the excellent Festival speaker stand.

Riva produced excellent sounding speakers and the build quality is superb. If I could buy another battery pack from somewhere, I would buy another Arena speaker. And if I could buy another Festival speaker stand from somewhere, I would buy another Festival speaker.