WiiM Mini Review (Streamer)

[Beershaun]

I only ask a few questions ...for understand ... :-0
has mr amirm:
is it common to observe such a powerful sinad at 1k but a rather disappointing j-test?
would a difference, even if upstream, in wifi frequency protocol in certain cases not influence the results in particular in j-test?
possible to the extent and as a precaution, to check it quickly each time?
impact of the toslink with j-test?( which has never had good press among audiophiles.. but has come back strong on streamers etc..)
(ps
the small harman also seems to offer a very good sinad in optic at 1k.. but you don't give a j-test measurement.. could have been interesting ;-) )

to the people working for this wiim who read us:
do you have any answers to these questions?
maybe there is firmware side to dig that will explain these results? to interview your experts?
can be something to study on the firmware side which could improve the little wiim on the jitter side which it seems to me is quite high... even if we know that a consumer product...?
a little challenge....
;-)
sorry for my """""""english"""""

What do you see wrong with the Jitter test? It seems very good to me. Also Amir comments no audible problems with it.

For wifi affecting sound quality. In my experience it's only throughput and stability. If I am playing a 24/192 size file I tend to need a 5ghz connection to pass the file fast enough for it not to starve the player. For mp3 2.4ghz is fine for me. There is no impact to sound quality from wifi itself. Tcp/ip has error correction and retry to ensure no packets are lost in transmission. It's only if something in the chain is resampling that you can get into differences in the final music file.

 

[morillon]

in the first place, to be clear, I'm happy, for my use (radio streaming and simple flac with deezer), of this little wiim... I hope that the follow-up will continue for a long time to advance the "home" software or improve it integration of the different tidal amazon deezer and co...seems a rather titanic job.
jitter side, we can see thanks to the j-test amirm that indeed surprisingly noisy, unrelated to the very good results sinad...
(especially since in relative value of the modest comparisons that I was able to make in toslink seemed to show that even less good than a chromescast which is not a thunderbolt on this point either....)
is it sufficient? especially for a 100 dollar solution...,
most certainly with a large party of recent dacs ...
but,
can this be improved on the firmware side.. I would like to hope ;-)
a bit like I hope we will hunt bugs or enrich the software, always improve the stability of the connection...

but it is also the indication "better sound in 5g", softer, is interesting, because it is also often associated with stories of jitter... where are my questions?

hoping that this new "affordable offer" continues to progress and that we can challenge it positively


make no mistake it is above all for sharing... and try to understand
;-)

 

[nothingman]

WiiM really needs to revise the description on the wifi setting. 5G is now an established cell phone technology which doesn’t even refer to a frequency band, and it means something completely different than 2.4 vs. 5 GHz band wifi.

 

[morillon]

WiiM really needs to revise the description on the wifi setting. 5G is now an established cell phone technology which doesn’t even refer to a frequency band, and it means something completely different than 2.4 vs. 5 GHz band wifi.

yes...
;-)

 

[Brantome]

WiiM really needs to revise the description on the wifi setting. 5G is now an established cell phone technology which doesn’t even refer to a frequency band, and it means something completely different than 2.4 vs. 5 GHz band wifi.

I’m sure if you submit a ticket to them asking to change the descriptions of 2G and 5G to 2.4GHz and 5GHz respectively, they’d be happy to comply.

Whîle WiiM support do have a presence here, I don’t think it’s meant to replace their existing reporting and support structure

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

I’m sure if you submit a ticket to them asking to change the descriptions of 2G and 5G to 2.4GHz and 5GHz respectively, they’d be happy to comply.

Whîle WiiM support do have a presence here, I don’t think it’s meant to replace their existing reporting and support structure

I really would believe most people would understand that they don’t mean cellular. But I assume they would correct it when they can. I don’t think it’s going to really cause too much trouble for anybody.

 

[JeffreyC]

Another thumbs up vote for the WiiM Mini. I first tried the Bluesound Node and hated it. I found a noticeable sound degradation relative to just using Airplay. As others have said, it just sounded flat. I tried all the connections - including the built in DAC and the optical out to the DAC in my Hegel amp - none sounded good.

So I ordered the WiiM Mini and the sound quality is great. I use the optical out to my Hegel DAC and stream Tidal - usually just using the WiiM app. The Alexa integration is also a plus.

Highly recommended.

 

[tsammyc]

I’ve solved my problems with uPNP from Audirvana 3.5 to WiiM. It was Audirvana. After increasing the buffer size to 800MB and converting DSD to PCM, everything works perfectly except for gapless playback. The gap is pretty big too compared with the foobar uPNP renderer. DSD pass through to the DAC works but unreliably and the dropouts are at exactly the same place. Perhaps WiiM will fix it when they officially support DSD. Audirvana sound from Tidal is far superior to my ears, especially MQA when played through the WiiM to my DAC.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Still looking for a solution to gapless playback with replaygain of local network media on the Wiim. Emby gets me gapless but no replaygain. LMS with the DLNA bridge should do both but I'm getting skipping at the end of each track. Ive posted in the DLNA bridge help thread at the LMS forum but no luck so far. If anyone else has any other players to try let me know!

 

[Brantome]

Still looking for a solution to gapless playback with replaygain of local network media on the Wiim. Emby gets me gapless but no replaygain. LMS with the DLNA bridge should do both but I'm getting skipping at the end of each track. Ive posted in the DLNA bridge help thread at the LMS forum but no luck so far. If anyone else has any other players to try let me know!

Did you try Minimserver as I suggested earlier? It supports replaygain and gapless as per this link https://forum.minimserver.com/archive/index.php?thread-3134.html

 

[Smitty2k1]

Did you try Minimserver as I suggested earlier? It supports replaygain and gapless as per this link https://forum.minimserver.com/archive/index.php?thread-3134.html

Thanks I seem to have missed that! Looks like it runs on Docker too so that's great I'll give it a go.

 

[Smartplug]

Another thumbs up vote for the WiiM Mini. I first tried the Bluesound Node and hated it. I found a noticeable sound degradation relative to just using Airplay. As others have said, it just sounded flat. I tried all the connections - including the built in DAC and the optical out to the DAC in my Hegel amp - none sounded good.

So I ordered the WiiM Mini and the sound quality is great. I use the optical out to my Hegel DAC and stream Tidal - usually just using the WiiM app. The Alexa integration is also a plus.

Highly recommended.

Both node and wiim does same thing fetch music on the music server but node need powerful cpu to do it while wiim doesn’t indicate what type of hardware inside. Node cost 500 while wiim cost 100. That’s a lot of mark up on node.

 

[morillon]

still no idea on what would justify a smoother sound in wifi 5ghz as indicated by "wiim" in prefrences wifi?
;-)

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Both node and wiim does same thing fetch music on the music server but node need powerful cpu to do it while wiim doesn’t indicate what type of hardware inside.

It’s an Allwinner R328 processor.

https://www.allwinnertech.com/uploads/pdf/20210204194727ac.pdf

 

[Jmudrick]

Firmware update now displays proper file specs.

 

[nothingman]

It’s annoying it doesn’t do it for a Tidal Connect stream. If I use the WiiM app exclusively to navigate and play Tidal, it shows the bit and sample rates. If I use Tidal Connect then pop over to the WiiM app, it shows basically every detail except that information.

 

[kukocz]

It is a pity that it doesn't show bitrate for internet radio...
When it comes to stream details - it is visible for local files and Vtuner but not for the Spotify and TuneIn...

 

[Jmudrick]

Qobuz in app is ok.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

Here is a thread on setting up a display for the most excellent WiiM Mini.

 

[Brantome]

It’s annoying it doesn’t do it for a Tidal Connect stream. If I use the WiiM app exclusively to navigate and play Tidal, it shows the bit and sample rates. If I use Tidal Connect then pop over to the WiiM app, it shows basically every detail except that information.

Seems to be like that for Spotify too, and it’s always been the case with Amazon Music’s AlexaCast that it can’t tell you that info either when casting. Is it maybe something in common with all casting protocols?

EDIT: I’ve raised a ticket with WiiM asking about this, and whether they can add bitrate as well as bit depth and sample rate.
UPDATE: Re adding bitrate as well as bit depth and sample rate, WiiM have replied that they'll look into it and try to implement it.
Re not showing the info for Tunein and when casting, WiiM say they'll fix it in the next app version.