WiiM Mini Review (Streamer)

[DeepSpace57]

Again, with a proper DAC, like an RME, it’s utterly irrelevant.

Do not agree with you!

 

[fquails]

Oops. Not to be one of those guys, but I still seem to have a glitch. It seems strange. After making the new settings you kindly provided, when I play Amazon Unlimited on either WiiM alone, an UltraHD album seems to play at 24/96, BUT IF I play both WiiMs with the same album synced, it won't go above 16/48. I'm not at all sure what's going on with that.

I'm quite willing to live with it for a while, but I'd like to solve it, eventually. My WiFi is typically 30 MHz down, 3 MHz up, 5 GHz. Nothing else but the WiiM app is crowding that when this happens.

Thanks again for your help.

Multi-room playback for the Wiim is limited to 16/48, unfortunately.

 

[jmtocali]

Multi-room playback for the Wiim is limited to 16/48, unfortunately.

There's a way to overcome. If you create a Wiim "zone", UPNP will play at the original resolution. Tested with mconnect, bubbleupnp and Roon using RopieeXL bridge. With Roon using the PEQ while Wiim releases it's own solution.

 

[Brantome]

There's a way to overcome. If you create a Wiim "zone", UPNP will play at the original resolution. Tested with mconnect, bubbleupnp and Roon using RopieeXL bridge. With Roon using the PEQ while Wiim releases it's own solution.

Not for AMHD though which was the original context

 

[fquails]

There's a way to overcome. If you create a Wiim "zone", UPNP will play at the original resolution. Tested with mconnect, bubbleupnp and Roon using RopieeXL bridge. With Roon using the PEQ while Wiim releases it's own solution.

Another workaround when I stream from my laptop using foobar. I set the foobar dlna output to 24/192, play my hi-res files on the laptop, and set each of my three Wiims to “capture the playback stream” from the foobar dlna server. .

 

[amper42]

There's a way to overcome. If you create a Wiim "zone", UPNP will play at the original resolution. Tested with mconnect, bubbleupnp and Roon using RopieeXL bridge. With Roon using the PEQ while Wiim releases it's own solution.

How do you create a WiiM Zone? I would love to see high res audio with multi-room setup. I am unable to do so at this point. Limited to Airplay2 resolutions now. Step by step details would be helpful.

 

[jmtocali]

It's easy: you select your first member. Up at right there's a plus sign, you add the second member and so on. I have a couple of devices joined and I can even setup in this arrangement if one is the left and the other the right or if both are going to play stereo.

 

[amper42]

It's easy: you select your first member. Up at right there's a plus sign, you add the second member and so on. I have a couple of devices joined and I can even setup in this arrangement if one is the left and the other the right or if both are going to play stereo.

I have three WiiM setup in multi-room mode but the DACs report hi-res audio files are down sampled to 44.1Khz even though all three units are setup to support 192kHz. Whenever I use multi-room mode downsampling to 44.1kHz (Airplay2) is the only option. If I unlink all of the Wiim pucks then 192kHz is possible with each unit individually.

I though you were saying you had a way to play 192kHz while in Multi-room mode with multiple pucks. I have not found that possible with my Wiim units.

 

[Jim Shaw]

I’ve a feeling that might be a limitation of the WiiM Mini itself - I think it uses Airplay 2 for its multi room and that can’t go beyond 16/48. Best asking WiiM directly about that - use the settings/feedback page in their app

Apparently, others here concur. Now, I seem to have entered another skirmish with the WiiMs: Even with just one selected for playing - actually the second one on the list, the living room -- I can't get that room to play at high res. Individually, each will play test tones at 24/96 -- and if I turn off the living room, the bedroom will play high res -- but if I turn off the bedroom, the living room won't play high res, just 16/48. (I'd prefer that it was just the opposite: living room high res, bedroom 16/48.) C'est la vie.

It is odd, but all software is odd. I'll be patient with it. Maybe it is, indeed, a sync-software engine issue that just will only do it its way. <sigh> For $89, I cannot expect the whole cake with frosting and candles.

 

[Brantome]

Apparently, others here concur. Now, I seem to have entered another skirmish with the WiiMs: Even with just one selected for playing - actually the second one on the list, the living room -- I can't get that room to play at high res. Individually, each will play test tones at 24/96 -- and if I turn off the living room, the bedroom will play high res -- but if I turn off the bedroom, the living room won't play high res, just 16/48. (I'd prefer that it was just the opposite: living room high res, bedroom 16/48.) C'est la vie.

It is odd, but all software is odd. I'll be patient with it. Maybe it is, indeed, a sync-software engine issue that just will only do it its way. <sigh> For $89, I cannot expect the whole cake with frosting and candles.

Yeah, definitely one for WiiM to answer - I only have one WiiM Mini but would have thought that each mini would have had its own set of settings in the WiiM app. Maybe the few people in the thread who do have more than one can help too

 

[Smartplug]

Wiim have fall behind on their target roadmap date.

 

[amper42]

Wiim sucks with Audirvana. It plays a few tunes in an album and stops. Have to manually restart it each time. It has no problem with Amazon but everything else sucks. Maybe Amazon will buy the company and give the pucks away free with a one year membership.

 

[photodesignch]

Wiim sucks with Audirvana. It plays a few tunes in an album and stops. Have to manually restart it each time. It has no problem with Amazon but everything else sucks. Maybe Amazon will buy the company and give the pucks away free with a one year membership.

I actually had some experiences on this. So what I found out was audiravna is acting as upnp yet “transcode” on real time. So when it sends real bits to renderer, it depends on renderer and dac. Some codec simply can’t play smooth or it will have odd issues. The reason I found that out was because I tried cast from audiravna, roon, my own DLNA server and bubbleupnp (transcoding). So let’s say a DSD file! Both roon and audiravna will transcode real time because I see my mac cpu went up! And renderer reported it’s WAVE format (meaning it’s not true DSD). So rendering is based on how fast and how smooth your computer that runs media server is working hard or not.

Why do I say that? Because when I use DLNA media server to serve DSD file through upnp into my dac (which somehow I Found out my dac doesn’t support DSD natively). It will play with no audio sound! (Meaning it can’t decode). But from audiravna and roon can!

To further test my theory! I added bubbleupnp into play! Which will transcode if dac doesn’t support playback! Sure enough! Same DLNA server! But sending track from bubbleupnp instead of using wiim’s app. It worked flawlessly and reported as “WAVE”.

So if your audiravna isn’t working properly! Then It’s your media server is slowing down on transcoding! But the mix here is it could also be your WiFi speed isn’t fast enough. Or media server don’t buffer enough before sending.

So what I am suggesting here is… it’s really not wiim’s fault if your source is causing issues. I fed in so many different sources of the same track and tested around to find what really happened. I would say go check your internet and media server first.

 

[amper42]

I actually had some experiences on this. So what I found out was audiravna is acting as upnp yet “transcode” on real time. So when it sends real bits to renderer, it depends on renderer and dac. Some codec simply can’t play smooth or it will have odd issues. The reason I found that out was because I tried cast from audiravna, roon, my own DLNA server and bubbleupnp (transcoding). So let’s say a DSD file! Both roon and audiravna will transcode real time because I see my mac cpu went up! And renderer reported it’s WAVE format (meaning it’s not true DSD). So rendering is based on how fast and how smooth your computer that runs media server is working hard or not.

Why do I say that? Because when I use DLNA media server to serve DSD file through upnp into my dac (which somehow I Found out my dac doesn’t support DSD natively). It will play with no audio sound! (Meaning it can’t decode). But from audiravna and roon can!

To further test my theory! I added bubbleupnp into play! Which will transcode if dac doesn’t support playback! Sure enough! Same DLNA server! But sending track from bubbleupnp instead of using wiim’s app. It worked flawlessly and reported as “WAVE”.

So if your audiravna isn’t working properly! Then It’s your media server is slowing down on transcoding! But the mix here is it could also be your WiFi speed isn’t fast enough. Or media server don’t buffer enough before sending.

So what I am suggesting here is… it’s really not wiim’s fault if your source is causing issues. I fed in so many different sources of the same track and tested around to find what really happened. I would say go check your internet and media server first.

It positively is a Wiim error. Disconnect the Wiim and use RPI4 with Moode instead and all the issues disappear. Put Wiim back in chain and all the failures occur with Audirvana. Easy to see and repeat. Wiim is the issue. Eliminate Wiim and problems disappear.

In addition, these errors did not occur on Wiim until the last few firmware updates.

 

[photodesignch]

It positively is a Wiim error. Disconnect the Wiim and use RPI4 with Moode instead and all the issues disappear. Put Wiim back in chain and all the failures occur with Audirvana. Easy to see and repeat. Wiim is the issue. Eliminate Wiim and problems disappear.

In addition, these errors did not occur on Wiim until the last few firmware updates.

Well! I don’t know moode. But I can say that LMS has its own upnp. Bubbleupnp has its own (used by volumio, aka openhome), and rest upnp has its own.

For example! I’ve tried to stream bubbleupnp into LMS (after a song cut off rest of playlist). I’ve used LMS push to wiim (no sound). Then I’ve tried LMS to volumio. (Skips and can’t forward and drops after 30 seconds).

It’s more of which UPnP standard those things are running and we are mixing matching.

WiiM is following the most standard upnp by the way. Not openhome, not Raat… so I guess we need experts to explain what exactly moode uses

 

[Steve Rogers]

WiiM Mini streaming D/A preamplifier

www.stereophile.com

Kind of ironic that Stereophile gives this budget component a better review than Amir, well done @John Atkinson

 

[Jim Shaw]

After messing about with 2 WiiMs for a while, playing mostly Amazon HD (single user account), I cannot get Amaz HD to play on more than one WiiM at a time. In fact, if I try to play just one WiiM while the other is just doing TuneIn, the Amaz one seems to revert to 16/48. But if I power off one of the WiiMs, the other will play UltraHD Amaz at 24/96. (Both WiiMs are connected to individual DACs and amps.)

Apparently, Amazon's sheriff has noticed the two WiiMs trying to play the same music while synched -- one WiiM just goes silent. Worse, if both WiiMs are powered up, one idle, the other to AmazHD, all I get is 16/48 and Amazon won't play better than lossy versions of the music (which is comparatively crappy).

So, either I must anti-up for the higher-priced multi-user AmazHD or I'll probably return the 2nd WiiM.

 

[Brantome]

After messing about with 2 WiiMs for a while, playing mostly Amazon HD (single user account), I cannot get Amaz HD to play on more than one WiiM at a time. In fact, if I try to play just one WiiM while the other is just doing TuneIn, the Amaz one seems to revert to 16/48. But if I power off one of the WiiMs, the other will play UltraHD Amaz at 24/96. (Both WiiMs are connected to individual DACs and amps.)

Apparently, Amazon's sheriff has noticed the two WiiMs trying to play the same music while synched -- one WiiM just goes silent. Worse, if both WiiMs are powered up, one idle, the other to AmazHD, all I get is 16/48 and Amazon won't play better than lossy versions of the music (which is comparatively crappy).

So, either I must anti-up for the higher-priced multi-user AmazHD or I'll probably return the 2nd WiiM.

The 9.99 individual Amazon Music plan allows one /stream/ at a time, whether that be to one device or one group of devices, so nothing to do with Amazon sheriffs…

The latest WiiM release notes day multi room music isn’t currently supported viz.

“*Known issues:
Amazon Music UHD won't work with the multiroom audio. Please disable the Amazon Music UHD when playing audio in group to resolve this issue. The step is to go to Browse tab -> Amazon Music > Setting > turn off the Amazon Music HD/UHD Beta on the WiiM App. We'll fix this issue by the end of August.”

 

[Jim Shaw]

The 9.99 individual Amazon Music plan allows one /stream/ at a time, whether that be to one device or one group of devices, so nothing to do with Amazon sheriffs…

The latest WiiM release notes day multi room music isn’t currently supported viz.

“*Known issues:
Amazon Music UHD won't work with the multiroom audio. Please disable the Amazon Music UHD when playing audio in group to resolve this issue. The step is to go to Browse tab -> Amazon Music > Setting > turn off the Amazon Music HD/UHD Beta on the WiiM App. We'll fix this issue by the end of August.”

Thanks so much for this response. At a glance, it explains my experience to date. I am encouraged by WiiM's track record in adding features and fixing bugs. I think I'll keep the 2nd WiiM in the expectation that I'll eventually be able to use it to 'cast the same Amazon UHD music to two systems simultaneously. I'd rather not pay Amazon an additional $6 per month to hear the identical stream on two systems. We'll see about that.

I have considerable sympathy for WiiM in producing this little hockey puck. It's a very significant software chore* they have taken on. This is exactly the reason I hesitated so long to buy a dedicated streaming appliance; I had little confidence in most companies' follow-thru on long-term support -- without which my streamer would become a doorstop. I still am occasionally using my former iPad/DAC solution for just one music playback system with Amazon UHD. Its primary deficiency is its inability to simultaneously bring one stream to two synched systems at some distance.

Thanks for your product knowledge and kind education on the present realities of WiiM.
.....
*I recall a YT Q&A with Jason Stoddard of Schiit. Asked if Schiit would be offering a streamer, he approximately said that Schiit tended to avoid software-based products like streamers. They aren't primarily a software-oriented company, beyond what they need to do firmware for dedicated products. I recall admiring his response. Software is quite a different animal from hardware.

 

[Brantome]

Thanks so much for this response. At a glance, it explains my experience to date. I am encouraged by WiiM's track record in adding features and fixing bugs. I think I'll keep the 2nd WiiM in the expectation that I'll eventually be able to use it to 'cast the same Amazon UHD music to two systems simultaneously. I'd rather not pay Amazon an additional $6 per month to hear the identical stream on two systems. We'll see about that.

I have considerable sympathy for WiiM in producing this little hockey puck. It's a very significant software chore* they have taken on. This is exactly the reason I hesitated so long to buy a dedicated streaming appliance; I had little confidence in most companies' follow-thru on long-term support -- without which my streamer would become a doorstop. I still am occasionally using my former iPad/DAC solution for just one music playback system with Amazon UHD. Its primary deficiency is its inability to simultaneously bring one stream to two synched systems at some distance.

Thanks for your product knowledge and kind education on the present realities of WiiM.
.....
*I recall a YT Q&A with Jason Stoddard of Schiit. Asked if Schiit would be offering a streamer, he approximately said that Schiit tended to avoid software-based products like streamers. They aren't primarily a software-oriented company, beyond what they need to do firmware for dedicated products. I recall admiring his response. Software is quite a different animal from hardware.

Thanks.

It’s been mentioned earlier in this (or the other) very, very long thread that in Amazon’s terms, the WiiM Mini’s support of Amazon Music HD/UHD has been developed under Amazon’s Alexa MRM (multi room music) development model I.e. it takes on the look and behaviour of an Amazon echo device and so can be part of an Alexa multi room music group. That, in part, is why you need to enable Alexa in the WiiM app, as well as that allowing support of AlexaCast to allow you to cast music from the Amazon Music app, in much the same way as you would cast to an echo.

Under that MRM model, one device in the group takes on the role as receiver of the amazon music stream from the cloud and it then distributes that over your local wifi network to other devices in the group (that fits in with my single stream comment earlier). This is separate from WiiM’s own multi room implementation which I think uses Airplay and is limited to 16/48 quality. I guess it’s this receiver/ sender role for Amazon Music HD/UHD that WiiM are hoping to implement by the end of the month as indicated in their release notes.