WiiM Mini Review (Streamer)

[Music1969]

Cheers I'll take a look at that although I'm not really getting any dropouts at the moment ... only thing I was fairly recently was if I paused a track and then re-started, it might play the track for a few seconds and then jump to the end of the track and play the next one OR go back and play the same track from the start.

No worries, but as per my linked post, if someone could reproduce my issue it would help me to be confident that is the problem

And I can report it to WiiM and they can look at it

Seems pretty reproducible at my end though. Turn on DoT and I have Alex connection issues.

Turn DoT off and its perfectly fine.

But would be nice for someone to confirm (even if they don't have issues right now)

 

[Brantome]

Cheers I'll take a look at that although I'm not really getting any dropouts at the moment ... only thing I was fairly recently was if I paused a track and then re-started, it might play the track for a few seconds and then jump to the end of the track and play the next one OR go back and play the same track from the start.

Is that using the beta firmware with lossless AMHD casting to the WiiM Mini? It must be said that the Amazon Music app can be a bit temperamental so bug fixing by WiiM could be frustrating as the issue maybe doesn’t lie within their purview…

 

[Witterings]

No worries, but as per my linked post, if someone could reproduce my issue it would help me to be confident that is the problem

And I can report it to WiiM and they can look at it

Seems pretty reproducible at my end though. Turn on DoT and I have Alex connection issues.

Turn DoT off and its perfectly fine.

But would be nice for someone to confirm (even if they don't have issues right now)

I can't during the day as my work VoIP goes through the same router and can't take out the phone line on a whim by rebooting the router.

If I#m not having an issue though it's not going to create it anyway?

Is that using the beta firmware with lossless AMHD casting to the WiiM Mini? It must be said that the Amazon Music app can be a bit temperamental so bug fixing by WiiM could be frustrating as the issue maybe doesn’t lie within their purview…

No I haven't asked for the Beta it was just the normal.

 

[Music1969]

If I#m not having an issue though it's not going to create it anyway?

How would you know you don't have an issue, if you currently don't have DoT enabled and try it?

Anyway I'm not demanding , just asking anyone to try it and report back.

For the sake of helping WiiM fix it and helping others down the line.

No big deal obviously

Wouldn't want it to interfere with anyone's work.

More like a quiet weekend job (if possible)

 

[absolutezero]

How would you know you don't have an issue, if you currently don't have DoT enabled and try it?

Anyway I'm not demanding , just asking anyone to try it and report back.

For the sake of helping WiiM fix it and helping others down the line.

No big deal obviously

Wouldn't want it to interfere with anyone's work.

More like a quiet weekend job (if possible)

Hi Music1969 - DoT works for me on the same router, responded in another thread here

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

@amirm @John Atkinson

 

[Witterings]

@amirm

View attachment 212888

At least it'll keep the 3 people in the world that use Roon happy

 

[Sel53]

WiiM Mini Measurements
My first tests were using Aiplay 2.0 as initiated by my Roon player. As usual, Airplay itself becomes the bottleneck as we see with Toslink digital out:

My apologies for the simple question… What is the signal actually being measured for the “Toslink digital out” signal? Is it the Toslink being fed through a reference DAC, or something else? It sure doesn’t look like a a Toslink signal itself, but like an audio signal.

If it is a reference DAC, which one please? Doesn’t that show more about the ability of the DAC to tolerate a digital signal’s characteristics, rather than the quality of the digital signal itself?

Or am I just reading this wrong.

Thanks much,
sl

 

[Music1969]

If it is a reference DAC, which one please?

It can't be a DAC because he shows a SINAD of 140 dB with optical out when using WiiM app ...

Clearly it is digital capture

 

[Sel53]

It can't be a DAC because he shows a SINAD of 140 dB with optical out when using WiiM app ...

Clearly it is digital capture

A Toslink signal is an SPDIF signal, right? So I would expect the spectrum to be 2+MHz, not 1kHz. Something decoded the Toslink and made an audio signal. What did that?
Maybe an SPDIF signal analyzer?

 

[Music1969]

A Toslink signal is an SPDIF signal, right? So I would expect the spectrum to be 2+MHz, not 1kHz.

?

The analyzer simply has TOSlink input. Nothing more complicated than that.

Simple digital capture as i said

Have a look at what he wrote for measuring Chromecast Audio toslink output:

I connected the Toslink output of the Chromecast Audio to the input of my APx555 Audio Precision analyzer Toslink input.

 

[Sel53]

?

The analyzer simply has TOSlink input. Nothing more complicated than that.

Simple digital capture as i said

Have a look at what he wrote for measuring Chromecast Audio toslink output:

Thanks for the link.

So it seems the AP analyzer is quite capable of properly decoding the Toslink digital input into the digital domain. But it also seems that really doesn’t show the quality of the Toslink signal itself from the device, upon which a DAC relies and hence may or may not render nicely into an analog signal. I am wondering why this approach was taken rather than, for instance, the jitter measurements done with the Allo Digione.

 

[Music1969]

But it also seems that really doesn’t show the quality of the Toslink signal itself from the device

The only thing that matters with TOSlink source is bit perfect transfer.

My RME bit perfect test file passed 24/192k from WiiM Mini output . Don't need any more information from APx555 for the source side

 

[Jpdelaney.tml]

As of the new firmware, my use case for using the Mini is complete.
1) iPhone 7 (surplus wife's old one for streamer display and remote control.
2) spdif from mini to Yamaha RX-V620
3) spdif from AVR to Balanced/single ended DAC (Soncoz LX)
4) balance out from DAC to Numark SA-3000 amp.
5) single ended out from DAC to CD-in RX-V620
6) Peavey PBX-12 monitor speakers (Numark) and Polk Atrium 4 (RX-V620) when needed.
All old stuff, added new DAC and Mini for $350, and now feel pretty good with my Amazon UHD subscription.
Hurray! Nice job Wiim.

 

[fquails]

One of my three Wiims just upgraded firmware to 4.6.421455. But I can’t find info about what the update was for. And my other two Wiims did not update.

 

[Mat]

So is this a better medium for 48k Airplay than things like the Airport Express or Apple TV for optical-out to a proper DAC (in terms of performance, jitter, whatever), or are they all going to do the same job?

Or maybe more specifically, does the ($120) WiiM perform better than the results of the ($20, used) 1st gen Airport Express?

 

[Music1969]

So is this a better medium for 48k Airplay than things like the Airport Express or Apple TV for optical-out to a proper DAC (in terms of performance, jitter, whatever), or are they all going to do the same job?

Supports only 16/44.1k on Airplay at the moment - exactly like Airport Express

They've asked Apple to approve 24/48kHz but waiting

Apple TV resamples everything to 48kHz

 

[Mat]

Supports only 16/44.1k on Airplay at the moment - exactly like Airport Express

They've asked Apple to approve 24/48kHz but waiting

Apple TV resamples everything to 48kHz

but quality wise, same or better? its funny you mention they want to approve 48k since most people see that as a downside of the ATV, since Airplay is fixed at 41k

I find with the ATV I get random dropouts, buffering, and (there's a trick to this but when cranking my amp volume and putting the music volume to zero, theres a massive amount of noise buried in the signal that auto-mutes after a second of nothing playing, not sure if thats an AppleTV issue or Airplay protocol one). So if there's a streamer that does a better job I'm all for it...

 

[Music1969]

its funny you mention they want to approve 48k since most people see that as a downside of the ATV, since Airplay is fixed at 41k

Well no, they've asked apple to approve 24/48k and WiiM want to try bit perfect

That would be different to an ATV since it resamples everything to 48k, as prev mentioned.

Anyway what they'd like to do and what is technically possible, they're waiting to hear back from Apple

 

[Music1969]

I find with the ATV I get random dropouts, buffering, and (there's a trick to this but when cranking my amp volume and putting the music volume to zero, theres a massive amount of noise buried in the signal that auto-mutes after a second of nothing playing, not sure if thats an AppleTV issue or Airplay protocol one). So if there's a streamer that does a better job I'm all for it...

AirTunes? Are you using a really old model?

My AirPort Express is running latest Airplay2 and works perfectly, no dropouts or strangeness