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Advice sought…wireless connectivity

Ctaud

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Joined
Dec 26, 2024
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Location
New England
Recently my Pioneer SX-780 bit the dust. I’ve thought about repairing, but want to modernize what I’ve got. What I have isn‘t audiophile grade as the wife limits what she’s willing to have in the living room…Wife’s opening up to maybe something better

So..I’m amp-less at the time. Have two Polk Monitor 40 speakers, about 10 years old, a vintage Technics direct drive turntable that works great, and an old iPhone8 I use to stream via RCA plug….

But whatever I get has to fit on 3 shelves in an entertainment center, each slot 20 x 18 x 7. All this is in a 24’ x 20’ great room with a cathedral ceiling…

Requirements:
  • Support turntable
  • Support CD player (future used eqpt purchase…)
  • Reuse Polk speakers (for next year or 2)
  • Stream audio from turntable or CD to another room, one or two wireless speakers is fine
  • stream Spotify/iheart/Apple Music to play anywhere (thru Polk speaker or wireless)
  • sounds like my old pioneer…eg…warmer sound.
There‘s a lot of amp choices, but where I’m confused is wirelessly delivering to remote room(s). From what I’ve read built in frameworks like Blusound, HEOS, etc seem to only support wireless audio delivery to headphones, not a remote speaker…. or just the digital stream from Spotify, etc to the remote speaker. Is this correct? I‘m looking into WiiM but it’s not clear if doing so degrades audio quality vs thru amp.
If this is wrong site or forum or board to post..sorry man…
 
Following.
 
I have some Polk speakers driven by a Sonos Port.
To get the functionality you want, you’ll need a preamp, perhaps something like a WIIM Ultra.

You could use Wiim amps without the Sonos, but you’d need a separate phono preamp.
 
Wiim Amp also came to mind but not sure what degradation comes to mind....especially if you're still using vinyl :) (separate phono stage would allow use if your Technics doesn't already have one)
 
So if I buy an Amp with a pre out, can I just have that connected to a Sonos or WiiM? In the wireless scenario I would NOT have my wired speakers on, just wireless.
 
Here's my living room setup, it meets your requirements other than size:

Turntable -> Schiit Mani 2 -> Wiim pro RCA in
CD player -> Wiim pro optical in
Streaming -> Wiim pro

Have another WIiM Pro across the room connected to KEF LS60 via optical. That's got a wireless connection to 2x KC62 subs.

If you are into KEF you could do something similar with the LS50 Wireless, but they're closer to 8" wide than 7" so maybe not.

Either way the WiiM gear doesn't degrade the sound at all, you technically lose a bit in the A/D conversion of the TT signal but it's far, far below the noise of the vinyl itself. The digital signals stay at 100.0% until the hit the speaker.

Definitely recommend WiiM for this setup, it's good value for money and the app actually works right, which is a bit of an accomplishment these days.

As for warmth of sound, Wiim has EQ built in, so if you find you are missing a certain tone just shelf down 2dB around 4khz and/or up 2db around 200hz.
 
So if I buy an Amp with a pre out, can I just have that connected to a Sonos or WiiM? In the wireless scenario I would NOT have my wired speakers on, just wireless.
Why would an amp have a pre-out? You can have multiple Wiim units for multi room. Or are you thinking of doing that with Sonos?
 
Why would an amp have a pre-out? You can have multiple Wiim units for multi room. Or are you thinking of doing that with Sonos?
I’m not sure what you want. My speakers are wired to amps, but room to room is wireless. At the moment I have four rooms that can play in sync, or not. I only have one Sonos speaker, in a bathroom.
 
I’m not sure what you want. My speakers are wired to amps, but room to room is wireless. At the moment I have four rooms that can play in sync, or not. I only have one Sonos speaker, in a bathroom.
I'm not the OP. Personally I use Audio Chromecast units for multi-room sync
 
Haven't those been off the market for years now?
That's what I read, but with a lot of things there is a bunch of people out there who are hanging on to them and continuing the hardware support themselves.
 
That's what I read, but with a lot of things there is a bunch of people out there who are hanging on to them and continuing the hardware support themselves.
For quite a while there was NOS on ebay too, but last I looked that was pretty much over but lots of used ones....
 
I'm following this b/c I need pretty much the same thing with a couple of minor twists.

I need a whole house wireless (WiFi) system, 5 pairs of active/powered speakers. It needs to be able to broadcast a streaming service (preferably Applemusic, but I heard there are limits there, so if that doesn't work, than Qobuz, Spotify, etc. ). Being able to hook up a 2 or 3TB HD with digital files would be nice. Need it simple that my wife can control it all from an App on her apple phone, or from an apple tablet.

Need the hardware list.

5 Wiim Mini as receivers???? with optical out that plugs into each pair of active powered speaker?

And what to stream the music service to the 5 Wiim's (server/streamer). Pro Plus or the Ultra.

Is Wiim the only option, or does anyone offer something similar? Blusound?

Thanks in advance.
 
I'm following this b/c I need pretty much the same thing with a couple of minor twists.

I need a whole house wireless (WiFi) system, 5 pairs of active/powered speakers. It needs to be able to broadcast a streaming service (preferably Applemusic, but I heard there are limits there, so if that doesn't work, than Qobuz, Spotify, etc. ). Being able to hook up a 2 or 3TB HD with digital files would be nice. Need it simple that my wife can control it all from an App on her apple phone, or from an apple tablet.

Need the hardware list.

5 Wiim Mini as receivers???? with optical out that plugs into each pair of active powered speaker?

And what to stream the music service to the 5 Wiim's (server/streamer). Pro Plus or the Ultra.

Is Wiim the only option, or does anyone offer something similar? Blusound?

Thanks in advance.
In this case you only need the WiiM minis. Any WiiM can be the source for the rest of them. No need to get the fancier wiims unless you want different I/O.

I am not totally sure what you would use to stream the files, you may need to involve a computer, but it works with SMB.
 
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