Riva has launched a new speaker multi-room systems to take on Sonos at its own game.

Sonos is the market leader and has been dominant in recent years among audio lovers keen to enjoy crystal clear music in separate rooms across the home.

And Riva wants a slice of that growing action.

So here we have it, two units called the Festival and the Arena, promising the very highest quality sound at a mid-tier price point.

And boy do they deliver.

The Festival boasts patented Trillium audio technology that creates three discrete channels to give true stereophonic sound in a single speaker and boosts the volume.

It's 36.5cm long, 20cm high and 18 deep. 

The model we tried was glossy black plastic on top with a tough black metal grill around the belly of the machine.

It was heavy, certainly not a portable speaker. That's down to the wooden innards that help to resonate the sound and make it feel more realistic.

The resulting sleek design and strong build made it feel like a seriously rugged piece of kit.

The Festival boasts an impressive three sub-woofers, three tweeters and  four passive radiators that reproduce more of the musical spectrum than many comparable products.

It results in truly immersive sound.

The quality of basslines alongside tinny high-end synthetic drum beats on dance and pop music was truly astounding.

Festival thrives at loud levels and it really needed cranking up to house party extremes to really showcase it's amazing, fully rounded soundscape.

Rock songs like Walk The Moon's Shut Up And Dance blazed out in great depth and sparkle.

When I tried heavier stuff like punk-pop group Fall Out Boy the guitars gripped your gut and never let go.

On soft music, like Human from Rag and Bone Man, there's defined nuance between all the relevant instruments. You can pick out any one at any time and there's no blur between instruments like you get in much poorer speakers.

Pop music shines through ih the Festival, with deep bassy tones on songs by David Guetta and Justin Bieber giving an authentic replica of what those kinds of songs must have sounded like when they were first recorded in high-end recording studios.

It's all effortless for the Festival and quite simply among the best speakers, if not the best home speaker, I've ever heard.

There's a plethora of ways to connect to the device too for ease.

You can use Bluetooth via your phone, sync both the box itself and a music player/computer up together via your wi-fi, it has a built-in Spotify Connect capability so that those with the streaming service can get straight into their playlists within seconds. And for the good old fashioned music lovers you've got a minijack aux-in on the back alongside an optical and USB port, which of course means you can charge up your iPhone, for example, too at the same time.

There's a Riva Wand app, free to download, which will help you to control the speaker from afar with your phone too. You can download the free Google Home app too to synch up multiple Riva speakers across the house if you're flush enough in the pocket to afford a couple.

It's all very intuitive and outdoes the likes of the Sonos Play:1 speaker which fails to have Bluetooth or a physical click-in port either, relying instead on wi-fi connection.

Speaking of the Sonos Play:1, Riva's rival equivalent to that speaker is its smaller Arena.

it looks very similar in design to the Sonos sound system, in a clear nod to the market leader's excellence, and comes in a bit costlier in price - £225 as opposed to around £180.

The Arena comes with all the same options as its bigger cousin in the Festival, including splash resistance which is ideal for families who want to leave the speaker out on surfaces that may occasionally suffer a drink spillage or two.

I wouldn't advise testing this too much though.

And to take your music on-the-go you can even buy an add-on battery pack which will allow you to run the Arena abroad, in fields, in cars, etc, without the need for a plug.

The problem there though is the battery itself costs and lot, £89.

Again, the sound in the Arena is very strong and shows excellent definition between the various levels of tone and sound.

Bass booms and trebles kick through nicely.

At low levels the sound sits back slightly too much for my liking and loses its bite more than it should.

But then these speakers are built for noise and at higher volumes the Arena easily holds it own against my beloved Sonos at home.

And with the extra ways of connecting to the device, there's a definite edge that the new arrival has in usability over the champion.

All in, two cracking speakers. Both with amazing sound that actually delivers what they claim to do.

We have some awesome units now in this increasingly crowded speaker market.

But whatever one you end up plumping for, make sure you test out a Riva too because it'll literally be music to your ears.