WiiM Amp Ultra Streaming Amplifier

[Petrushka]

My SPotify app is able to see and play on all my WiiM devices, haven’t had any issues with what you’re asking. But one item to keep in mind is multi device sync’s playback for things like whole house audio. If I want to play a track on multiple WiiM devices I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that from the Spotify app- I’ve only been able to play on one device unless I also go into the WiiM app and bind multiple devices together but on some occasions that seems to kill the stream from Spotify. Maybe there’s a better way? I tend to use Tidal because that is natively supported and can be launched from within the WiiM app and makes it easy to group devices.

I get no love for saying this, but the Sonos Port has the best support for streaming, and the easiest to use multiroom synch.

I have a Port connected to a WIIM Amp. For $700 I have access to just about every streaming service, Roon, local FLAC files from my PC, Spotify Connect, Airplay, and I have 10 band PEQ. It is not the highest possible quality, but you’d need young ears to notice any defect.

Port has coax out, but WIIM has only optical in, so I just use RCA.

 

[ZinMe]

You

I get no love for saying this, but the Sonos Port has the best support for streaming, and the easiest to use multiroom synch.

I have a Port connected to a WIIM Amp. For $700 I have access to just about every streaming service, Roon, local FLAC files from my PC, Spotify Connect, Airplay, and I have 10 band PEQ. It is not the highest possible quality, but you’d need young ears to notice any defect.

Port has coax out, but WIIM has only optical in, so I just use RCA.

You are absolutely right about Sonos software.

 

[Shrek6]

The high latency was not something I anticipated before buying this. Luckily my Fire TV stick has an A/V sync tool. But I really wish they could add a lower latency “game mode” or something in a firmware update.

anyone know the latency of other DSP/room corrections? Surely most are well under 100ms.. is this a hardware limitation for WiiM? I hope they can improve it in software

 

[dannyocean]

Digital volume control generally performs better than analogue volume control - especially for channel matching at low volume.

why?

 

[antcollinet]

why?

It is typically carried out in the 32 bit maths domain - so any impact from DSP is inaudible**. Then it has perfect channel matching down to zero volume.

**(This is assuming you are working with a competent DAC with inaudible noise output at the higher end of the volume range you listen to. Anything with Sinad >90 or so should be fine. Even lower in many cases, depending on your gain staging)


For analogue pots with a small difference between channels (inevitable due to tolerances), these differences become much more significant at low volume, and mismatch can be easily audible - if not using very expensive pot designs.

 

[keiron99]

I have had this a few days and surprised at how little power it has. I have it connected to Neat Petite Classic speakers (86dB efficiency, apparently). Even at full whack, it's not mad loud. Very surprised at that. (Also posted about this briefly on another thread where I also express my surprise at lack of volume from Fosi v3 amps!) In all other respects though, it's great and sounds great to my ill informed, non-golden ears!

 

[dannyocean]

Solitamente viene eseguito nel dominio matematico a 32 bit, quindi qualsiasi impatto del DSP è impercettibile**. Inoltre, la corrispondenza dei canali è perfetta fino a volume zero.

**(Questo presuppone che tu stia lavorando con un DAC competente con un'uscita di rumore inudibile all'estremità superiore dell'intervallo di volume che ascolti. Qualsiasi valore con Sinad >90 o giù di lì dovrebbe andare bene. Anche più basso in molti casi, a seconda del tuo gain staging)


Per i potenziometri analogici con una piccola differenza tra i canali (inevitabile a causa delle tolleranze), queste differenze diventano molto più significative a basso volume e la discrepanza può essere facilmente udibile, se non si utilizzano potenziometri di progettazione molto costosi.

ok thank you. And in this specific case of Wiim Ultra? i did not found any information about volume control specifics.

 

[antcollinet]

ok thank you. And in this specific case of Wiim Ultra? i did not found any information about volume control specifics.

This post tells us Wiim are using 32 bit processing for volume control.

Quality basics: please improve digital volume control

Dear WiiM-Team, can you improve the quality of the digital volume control implementation? (Do you use e.g 64bit/dithering algorithms?) The current algorithm seems to be detrimental to sound quality, apart from the numerical bit-reduction. This general improvement would be a gain for all WiiM...

forum.wiimhome.com

 

[Sokel]

If I'm hearing correctly, many are achieving comparable volumes between other amps/products and Wiim devices ultimately, but just farther up on the dial ... is it possible Wiim devices have a logarithmic volume control that is noticeably different than other logarithmic volumes or linear controls on other products?

Gain-staging is the first thing to design when building a rig, having a specific goal in mind.
That, along with a DMM to measure voltage, AC and (God forbid) DC is a system's best friends.

 

[Jarl]

The high latency was not something I anticipated before buying this. Luckily my Fire TV stick has an A/V sync tool. But I really wish they could add a lower latency “game mode” or something in a firmware update.

anyone know the latency of other DSP/room corrections? Surely most are well under 100ms.. is this a hardware limitation for WiiM? I hope they can improve it in software

This is a bit concerning. I was close to ordering an Amp Ultra, but I do some gaming on my TV (which would be hooked up to the Amp Ultra via hdmi) and noticeable latency isn't something I'm looking for...

 

[dannyocean]

This post tells us Wiim are using 32 bit processing for volume control.

Quality basics: please improve digital volume control

Dear WiiM-Team, can you improve the quality of the digital volume control implementation? (Do you use e.g 64bit/dithering algorithms?) The current algorithm seems to be detrimental to sound quality, apart from the numerical bit-reduction. This general improvement would be a gain for all WiiM...

forum.wiimhome.com

ok, so with my V3 mono connected with RCA to Wiim ultra i'll don't introduce any improvement using an analogical preamp like fosi ZP3 setting wiim ultra at fixed 100%, correct?

 

[kyuu]

I have had this a few days and surprised at how little power it has. I have it connected to Neat Petite Classic speakers (86dB efficiency, apparently). Even at full whack, it's not mad loud. Very surprised at that. (Also posted about this briefly on another thread where I also express my surprise at lack of volume from Fosi v3 amps!) In all other respects though, it's great and sounds great to my ill informed, non-golden ears!

What is the source? Have you tried increasing the pre-gain on that input via the Wiim app? A low overall volume is not going to be due to a lack of power, it's a gain problem.

 

[Mnyb]

.and the gain is not to low if you don’t run out of volume control for your max desired spl , its perfectly matched if you reach 100% at the point when you don’t want more

We are used to amps of old who sounded loud at 30% of the volume knob with a modern source , but they where unusable at full volume as the amps would clip with almost any source .

To much gain, but in the past source signal levels could be very low so amp mfg adapted to the mix of new and old source components folks owned .

 

[Cbdb2]

Spotify also forbid to display the actual bit rate for lossless content.

??? Than how is my Wiim displaying 700kbps when I use Spotify?

 

[harkpabst]

??? Than how is my Wiim displaying 700kbps when I use Spotify?

Good catch. My post was sent in error before i added one more sentence and I was too lazy to edit it afterwards. Spotify's API always returns 700kbps. Manufacturers can display either this or nothing.

Naturally, lossless but compressed audio can never have a fixed bit rate. This is just a nominal value Spotify choose arbitrarily.

 

[chelgrian]

Good catch. My post was sent in error before i added one more sentence and I was too lazy to edit it afterwards. Spotify's API always returns 700kbps. Manufacturers can display either this or nothing.

Naturally, lossless but compressed audio can never have a fixed bit rate. This is just a nominal value Spotify choose arbitrarily.

It can have an average bitrate on music program material but in the worst case of incompressible noise it will spike to the full uncompressed PCM bitrate.
This is why neither LDAC or AptX Lossless are actually lossless all the time, as you can’t transmit those bitrate peaks over Bluetooth so they have to fail back to being lossy in that case.

 

[catch22]

??? Than how is my Wiim displaying 700kbps when I use Spotify?

How to switch Wiim/Spotify to use Lossless?
When I stream a song on my phone, Spotify on the phone says "Lossless"; when I connect Wiim, the Wiim always shows "320kbps"

 

[chelgrian]

How to switch Wiim/Spotify to use Lossless?
When I stream a song on my phone, Spotify on the phone says "Lossless"; when I connect Wiim, the Wiim always shows "320kbps"

While playing on WiiM go back in to the Spotify settings and set it to lossless again, for whatever reason you can’t do this globally you have to do it once per Spotify connect device while you are connected to the device.

 

[catch22]

While playing on WiiM go back in to the Spotify settings and set it to lossless again, for whatever reason you can’t do this globally you have to do it once per Spotify connect device while you are connected to the device.

Thank you!!! Got 700kbps on Wiim's screen!
(I understand it's not the real bitrate, but at least a confirmation from Wiim's end that it is lossless high bitrate (strictly speaking there is no confirmation that it is lossless)

 

[harkpabst]

It can have an average bitrate on music program material but in the worst case of incompressible noise it will spike to the full uncompressed PCM bitrate.
This is why neither LDAC or AptX Lossless are actually lossless all the time, as you can’t transmit those bitrate peaks over Bluetooth so they have to fail back to being lossy in that case.

Yes, but we're not talking Bluetooth here. We're talking Spotify Connect. Other streaming services usually display the average bit rate per song. Spotify seem to think that this puzzles their users.

While playing on WiiM go back in to the Spotify settings and set it to lossless again, for whatever reason you can’t do this globally you have to do it once per Spotify connect device while you are connected to the device.

Another one of Spotify's weird decisions.

For this to work the device must support Spotify Lossless, which is not the case with each and every Spotify Connect enabled device.