WiiM Amp Ultra Streaming Amplifier

[ryanosaur]

But I think I'm sold. I don't really want an AVR proper, and this looks to be hitting the other marks close enough for a game of horseshoes.

Thanks to all who've chimed in!!!

And now The Lady changed... her mind.


She wants a JBL portable.

 

[kyuu]

She wants a JBL portable.

I've got just the one:

JBL PartyBox 720 | Loudest battery-powered JBL party speaker with superior JBL Pro Sound and a futuristic lightshow

We bring peak party energy wherever we go with the JBL PartyBox 720. Superior JBL Pro Sound, deep bass that hits just right, and a lightshow that goes all in—starry lights, flowing trails, and pulsing strobes. With smooth wheels, a sturdy handle, and a splashproof design, we’re rolling the party...

www.jbl.com

Battery powered, wheels, a handle, should fit in the trunk, seems portable to me!

 

[SoySalsaPicante]

I've got just the one:

JBL PartyBox 720 | Loudest battery-powered JBL party speaker with superior JBL Pro Sound and a futuristic lightshow

We bring peak party energy wherever we go with the JBL PartyBox 720. Superior JBL Pro Sound, deep bass that hits just right, and a lightshow that goes all in—starry lights, flowing trails, and pulsing strobes. With smooth wheels, a sturdy handle, and a splashproof design, we’re rolling the party...

www.jbl.com

Battery powered, wheels, a handle, should fit in the trunk, seems portable to me!

“This item does not qualify for free return shipping.”

 

[Shrek6]

The latency conversation started getting me concerned, but seems like it's not really an issue unless one is pushing the envelope in usage, which I will not be doing.

It’s a major issue for video games, where you expect a sound instantly after pressing button.

 

[qirex]

I use my Amp Ultra for PS5 gaming constantly, haven't noticed audio latency issues. I do have everything plugged into my TV set to 2.0 bitstream, as even though the Wiim supports Dolby audio I think the TV was doing conversion and I was getting occasional audio dropouts. It's been fine since then but of course that depends on your TV.

 

[Jarl]

I saw somebody on the Wiim support forum measuring the latency using hdmi to be about 100ms. It seems there is a mandatory 50ms delay regardless of input, but hdmi doubles it for some reason.

Here's the thread:

Amp Ultra latency (gaming?)

the Amp Ultra apparently has at least 50ms of latency for its processing, and this cannot be bypassed. If my TV has a response time of ~10ms in gaming mode, will the ~40ms lag behind the image be noticeable? right now my setup is really low latency. TV > SMSL DAC > Onkyo A-9555 integrated amp...

forum.wiimhome.com

 

[Shrek6]

I use my Amp Ultra for PS5 gaming constantly, haven't noticed audio latency issues. I do have everything plugged into my TV set to 2.0 bitstream, as even though the Wiim supports Dolby audio I think the TV was doing conversion and I was getting occasional audio dropouts. It's been fine since then but of course that depends on your TV.

It’s not up for debate whether there are latency issues.. it’s been measured at 100ms for HDMI. Maybe you're just used to higher latency.

I saw somebody on the Wiim support forum measuring the latency using hdmi to be about 100ms. It seems there is a mandatory 50ms delay regardless of input, but hdmi doubles it for some reason.

Here's the thread:

Amp Ultra latency (gaming?)

the Amp Ultra apparently has at least 50ms of latency for its processing, and this cannot be bypassed. If my TV has a response time of ~10ms in gaming mode, will the ~40ms lag behind the image be noticeable? right now my setup is really low latency. TV > SMSL DAC > Onkyo A-9555 integrated amp...

forum.wiimhome.com

Humans can detect 10-20 ms of latency. So you want under 10ms ideally. Every iPhone has <10ms latency for example.

 

[qirex]

It’s not up for debate whether there are latency issues.. it’s been measured at 100ms for HDMI. Maybe you're just used to higher latency.

Humans can detect 10-20 ms of latency. So you want under 10ms ideally. Every iPhone has <10ms latency for example.

That test sure looks like it is 100ms when grouped with a Wiim Mini. I'm pretty sensitive to lip sync issues and don't notice anything.

 

[Shrek6]

That test sure looks like it is 100ms when grouped with a Wiim Mini. I'm pretty sensitive to lip sync issues and don't notice anything.

That's just a clever way of measuring the latency, using the Mini as a source and running the auto-sync function.

Here's a different measurement on the regular WiiM Amp: https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/wiim-amp-not-suitable-for-desktop-pc-use.8370/post-153634

Here's WiiM themselves in the WiiM Amp changelog:
"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."

I recorded an audio sync test video in slow-mo to show the latency (no eq or roomfit, and no HDMI noise suppression):

for comparison here is the same thing on a MacBook Air:

 

[elmoe420]

I don't find the use of grouped devices sufficient given we have no way of knowing the latency overhead that adds.

The other latency measurements also didn't test the HDMi input, or any digital input for that matter without other devices in the chain. There is a fairly straightforward measurement of the latency when using analog input.

I think it's pretty safe to say there is some double digit latency especially when using DSP. I'm personally very skeptical it's anything close to 100ms given how many anecdotes I've seen from folks saying the latency was imperceptible to them. As has been pointed out, with gaming audio latency tends to be pretty obvious.

 

[Shrek6]

I'm personally very skeptical it's anything close to 100ms given how many anecdotes I've seen from folks saying the latency was imperceptible to them. As has been pointed out, with gaming audio latency tends to be pretty obvious.

audioanecdotereview

 

[qirex]

I'm not saying there's none, just that to declare it's "too much delay for gaming" as a blanket statement is false in my experience. I'd guess the average TV adds more than the Wiim does.

I just ran the same video on my apple TV and at 4x slowmo it appears to be well under a 10th of a second (the white bar does not make it past the fist tick mark, I'd estimate halfway but highly unscientific). I'll upload the video later if I can. I'm running EQ but not Roomfit.

 

[Shrek6]

I'm not saying there's none, just that to declare it's "too much delay for gaming" as a blanket statement is false in my experience. I'd guess the average TV adds more than the Wiim does.

I just ran the same video on my apple TV and at 4x slowmo it appears to be well under a 10th of a second (the white bar does not make it past the fist tick mark, I'd estimate halfway but highly unscientific). I'll upload the video later if I can. I'm running EQ but not Roomfit.

The TV having latency makes the problem appear less severe in video (that’s literally how you correct for lip-syncing issues, by delaying the video), but for gaming the issue is the delay between button input and audio.

 

[ScottySmallsMom]

I wonder if the high latency is possible to fix in software. Could it be a property of the DSP processing chip?

I have an RME interface and they are known for their incredible drivers that allow low latency and high stability, so it seems like a lot can be done on the programming side of things.

 

[kyuu]

The TV having latency makes the problem appear less severe in video (that’s literally how you correct for lip-syncing issues, by delaying the video), but for gaming the issue is the delay between button input and audio.

As long as the audio is matching up with the video well enough, that's all that matters for anything including gaming. Obviously delaying the video to match the audio if it's extremely delayed results in more overall latency, so that's to be avoided. But how much latency is too much is a pretty subjective threshold.

 

[SoySalsaPicante]

As long as the audio is matching up with the video well enough, that's all that matters for anything including gaming. Obviously delaying the video to match the audio if it's extremely delayed results in more overall latency, so that's to be avoided. But how much latency is too much is a pretty subjective threshold.

Really depends on the extent. If you’re playing something multiplayer, and both your video and audio are like 600ms behind, the video and audio will be in sync but your opponents might be over a half second ahead of you. That’s terrible lag.

 

[qirex]

The TV having latency makes the problem appear less severe in video (that’s literally how you correct for lip-syncing issues, by delaying the video), but for gaming the issue is the delay between button input and audio.

It seems like you're moving the goalposts, the Wiim can't possibly make up for TV response delay and every DSP process takes time, even if it's very little. If there's some test I could do with a PS5 demo or PS plus game I'd be happy to try it. I don't notice any difference versus my old AVR and I've been playing a lot of Ghost of Yotei and Clair Obscur lately which depend on response-timed button press events. That said since it is the system I use every day it's very likely I've just adapted to whatever lag there is.

I suspect a lot of the discussion around lag in gaming overall is similar to "unacceptable" DAC performance here, in that it's generally unperceptable until someone sees a graph or number then they'll yell about some -120dB artifact all day like they can hear it. In the meantime they ignore the 32dB noise floor in their room (let's say network latency is the equivalent for this metaphor)

 

[ScottySmallsMom]

@qirex 100ms of latency is definitely perceptible in certain contexts, for example even 30ms is too much for playing guitar IME

Sound travels about 1ms per foot, so just imagine your gaming actions sound as if they are an additional 100 feet away from you vs your actual distance from the TV.

 

[qirex]

Rhythm games are a bit of a red herring since at the high level it’s more about memorization than actually reading or reacting to the screen. (I was big into Frequency back in the day) That said I didn’t say 100ms isn’t noticeable or doesn’t matter, I’m saying that my Wiim Amp Ultra in my system introduces a lot less delay than that.

 

[somebodyelse]

Rhythm games are a bit of a red herring since at the high level it’s more about memorization than actually reading or reacting to the screen. (I was big into Frequency back in the day) That said I didn’t say 100ms isn’t noticeable or doesn’t matter, I’m saying that my Wiim Amp Ultra in my system introduces a lot less delay than that.

If you're talking about playing along with consistent latency it's certainly possible - ask someone who plays an old organ where latency can be >100ms purely due to distance between pipes and keyboard, let alone any electromechanical delay between them. It's like speaking with your voice delayed in headphones - initially difficult but you adapt. It may be similar to live video feeds, depending on how far away you are - >100ft differences between speakers are normal while some of the audience are at nominal ground zero at the stage (still probably ~100ft from stacks or video walls.)

Games are something else, and audio timing may or may not be critical depending on the game, or potentially the player.