Riva Turbo X Speaker Review

Now I know that you have never heard of Riva before, but that’s all about to change. The unknown speaker manufacturer comes from a guy named Rikki Ferr who has made a name for himself in the music business. He has crafted this wonderful wooden box that’ll hopefully kick most portable Bluetooth speakers out the way.

First off, this speaker looks fantastic. Coming in black and white, both colours would definitely suit most home decors. It features touch sensitive buttons on top which glow a bright blue when you run your hand over them, which is definitely needed for low light situations. The blue colour suits the speaker too. On the rear are several ports: one to charge the speaker, one to connect an auxiliary to it, a USB port for charging phones and tablets, which is amazing and a phono port to connect it to a turntable. He’s thought of everything!

Sound wise, the Riva Turbo X sounds really good for a portable Bluetooth speaker. Now we can only compare these to other speakers we’ve seen on the market. The Riva is powered by several full range proprietory drivers as well as a few bass radiators. These combined turns the Riva into one mean machine. It sounds absolutely superb at higher volumes too, where other Bluetooth speakers fall down due to distortion.

Inside you will also find a lithium battery which will last for around 26 hours worth of play time. However, we have noticed the speaker to die on us while not in use. There is actually a power button to be able to turn off the battery when the speaker itself is switched off. Why they decided to design the speaker this way is beyond me as it won’t turn on without the battery power button being pushed in, on or off the mains.

There are a couple of modes which I found really interesting. The first is a turbo mode, which once pressed, gives you an extra 7db of sound. Great for when you’re in a party atmosphere, although battery life severely reduces to around six hours. It can also sound quite distorted on this setting, especially if you’re listening to some dirty music, and by this I mean some kind of heavy metal or bassy dubstep. The second is the surround mode which works okay. And the reason I say that it’s okay is the fact that the drivers inside are so close together. There is no stereo separation meaning it kind of sounds messy. It definitely doesn’t replace having separate speakers.

Even though everything about this speaker we’ve found to be good, this does come at a price. You will be able to find one  for £299 from www.hifisound.co.uk. They’re not cheap. But if you’re an audiophile on the market for a new portable speaker to carry around, you can’t go wrong with the Riva Turbo X.