WiiM Amp Streaming Amplifier Review

[harkpabst]

... while usb audio output is not yet available.

Good reminder, since WiiM have officially stated to be actively working on USB out.

from memory the adc is the same as "plus"..(?)

so you can observe their measurements..
will give you a pretty good idea of the capacity of these inputs it seems to me......

I don't know from memory (and I'm too lazy to look it up), but that wouldn't really work. It's a different PCB, different additional components, integrated PSU, and so on. To make up an extreme example, a single badly routed trace on the PCB or a single capacitor placed to far away from the chip could hurt the resulting performance.

Even if the specs of the ADC itself is identical you really have to measure the exact device, if you want to know more than what's in the specs.

 

[dominikz]

Why? Because I don't know exactly what happens to a digital signal of course. I think it looks a bit weird to have a lossless stream but the bits and bytes are not the same.

Note that any manipulation of bits - even e.g. digital volume control or EQ makes the stream not bit-perfect anymore.
But that is desired if we want to use those features.

 

[harkpabst]

Looking at the planned feature list for WiiM Ultra (love the fact it will have a display, HDMI ARC and a sub out!), I'd say it would be ideal if they just add a TPA3255 amp with a proper PFFB implementation on top.
That would IMHO really cover a huge range of use-cases with potential for great measurable performance.

@WiiM Team Pretty please?

No sign of something like this, so far.

Personally I wouldn't bother too much if it had any display nor not, but probably still buy this "WiiM Amp Ultra" instantly. And possibly couldn't live without a display from that day on.

 

[morillon]

I don't know from memory (and I'm too lazy to look it up, but that wouldn't really work. It's a different PCB, different additional components, integrated PSU, and so on. To make up an extreme example, a single badly routed trace on the PCB or a single capacitor placed to far away from the chip could hurt the resulting performance.

Even if the specs of the ADC itself is identical you really have to measure the exact device, if you want to know more than what's in the specs.

thank you...

 

[Emiyanez]

No sign of something like this, so far.

Personally I wouldn't bother too much if it had any display nor not, but probably still buy this "WiiM Amp Ultra" instantly. And possibly couldn't live without a display from that day on.

I am also fully on board for the "WiiM Amp Ultra" (regardless of the screen)! I think that the next launch will be an streamer/preamp so we may need to wait an additional year.

 

[harkpabst]

I am also fully on board for the "WiiM Amp Ultra" (regardless of the screen)! I think that the next launch will be an streamer/preamp so we may need to wait an additional year.

We pretty much know for sure (following the WiiM forum) that this is the case, indeed.

Why should WiiM be launching two very similar all-on-one amps within such a short period of time?

They did confirm that the WiiM Ultra will be using a similar case as the WiiM Amp

 

[kflw935641]

That makes it a “no go” for me too. I’m just going to stick with a more modest setup then. I even started thinking about adding a turntable into the mix (no pun intended). Is it like that for all inputs?

https://faq.wiimhome.com/support/solutions/articles/72000617766-wiim-amp-firmware-release-note

Enhanced Latency for High-Resolution Audio: We've reduced the latency to 50ms for 176 kHz / 192 kHz audio via SPDIF-in and Line-In.

yes, seems to be for all inputs. I can confirm this latency for 44.1 kHz in my own measurement.

 

[pjug]

Well, the issue may be the amount of EQs available. Only 4 at the moment, so you’ll have pick what to do with them. More are promised though… sometime…

Just to put it out there, my thought was that a single filter would do it, so you would just need to use one. What I did not realize is that most PEQ does not allow using ultrasonic settings when making the filters. So you cannot not do as below, and make the proper correcting filter for a response with ultrasonic peaking. I guess a shelf or LP filter might work OK, but it would be nice if Wiim allowed you to do as below since the amp has this issue. And while I wouldn't even bother when the peaking caused only 0.5dB rise at 20KHz like below, it can be much worse with certain speakers as we have seen, e.g. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/weird-c-note-problem.40929/post-1483319

 

[voodooless]

Just to put it out there, my thought was that a single filter would do it,

Into a resistor, yes. But not if you connect an actual speaker. You will have two or three peaks in the response that might need fixing.

 

[pjug]

Into a resistor, yes. But not if you connect an actual speaker. You will have two or three peaks in the response that might need fixing.

The way I would do it is use one filter to just try to correct the amplifier peaking or rolloff, measuring the output of the amplifier to get the curve that need correction. So separate from speaker/room correction.

 

[voodooless]

The way I would do it is use one filter to just try to correct the amplifier peaking or rolloff

The amplifier roll-off is a function of speaker impedance. In this case Amir uses a 4/8 Ohm resistor. A real speaker has a complex load, therefore the amplifier response is hard to predict, but it won’t be a single hump in most cases like you see in the review. This has nothing to do with room correction.

 

[Bleib]

Erin recommends 3 loudspeakers to use with this amp:

 

[Descartes]

So...when is Wiim going to release more than 4-band PEQ again?

Sometime soon! At least that what I heard through the grapevine!

 

[Descartes]

How does it compare to the YAMAHA WXA-50

 

[voodooless]

How does it compare to the YAMAHA WXA-50

You can see for yourself:

Review and Measurements of Yamaha WXA-50 Streaming Amp

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Yamaha WXA-50, multi-function DAC, pre-amp, power amp, streaming and multi-room unit. It is on kind loan from a member. Even though it came out a few years ago (2016?), it is widely available. Amazon shows it costs US $478. Success of SONOS...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Inertiaman]

This has nothing to do with room correction.

It does if you're performing room correction. Whatever your target curve may be, if you pursue it w/ PEQ settings based on in-room microphone measurements/tests, the resulting correction curve will reflect all the FR contributors: the speakers, the room, the listening position AND the amp.

Surely in such an actively-corrected room eq scenario, even the amps-must-be-flat crowd will concede that the modest FR deviations from load dependency will not be a concern amidst all the other typically much higher dB signal manipulations of a room correction curve, regardless of what freq ranges the dependencies occur.

 

[DanTheMan]

https://faq.wiimhome.com/support/solutions/articles/72000617766-wiim-amp-firmware-release-note


yes, seems to be for all inputs. I can confirm this latency for 44.1 kHz in my own measurement.

I'm glad you found those. It definitely can't work for my intended purpose. Much appreciated.

 

[pjug]

The amplifier roll-off is a function of speaker impedance. In this case Amir uses a 4/8 Ohm resistor. A real speaker has a complex load, therefore the amplifier response is hard to predict, but it won’t be a single hump in most cases like you see in the review. This has nothing to do with room correction.

I can't say I know what is typical for the speakers that really give these types of amps problems. But with the C-note impedance curve (simulated below), there is minimal wiggle except for the strong resonant peak, so pretty similar shape to the case of a pure resistor load. If you know of speakers that would cause a more chaotic curve I would sincerely like to know about them just out of curiosity.

 

[Ismapics]

Why these specifically?

Review

I know it sounded like affiliate marketing.

 

[voodooless]

I can't say I know what is typical for the speakers that really give these types of amps problems. But with the C-note impedance curve (simulated below), there is minimal wiggle except for the strong resonant peak, so pretty similar shape to the case of a pure resistor load. If you know of speakers that would cause a more chaotic curve I would sincerely like to know about them just out of curiosity.
View attachment 352006

These for instance from Erins review: