WiiM Mini Streamer

[Pep2020]

Anyone else seeing the last few secs of songs go silent on DLNA occasionally??

Same for Bubbleupnp and hifi cast.

 

[Witterings]

wiim is a toy and we are beta testers i think its not really reliable , signal drop, bit perfect output flaky, it just breaks the music trance

I know there are a lot of "Fan Boys" out there but I'm 100% with you on this!

I'd literally just sat down at the end of an evening to relax and start started playing some music and switched on my laptop to look through the forum and the music just stopped ...... I did check it wasn't the Amazon App 1st and it wasn't.

Whilst this is potentially an outstanding piece of equipment for the price at the moment it's little more than a toy and the people that have bought it .... as you say and I've mentioned at least 2/3 times previously are just unpaid testers.

I mistakenly thought it was a Chinese product / company and previously mentioned how many Chinese companies seem to have little regard for their buyers and just treat them like testers delivering sub standard products and using their buyers as early stage testers that "The West" wouldn't find acceptable.

At a later stage, someone from WiiM commeneted they were an American company .... however they had a lot of senior Chinese staff .... seemingly trying to infer it wasn't run the way some Chinese companies seem to be.

If I was a betting man, I'd say the whole finance for this comes from China and they believe a US address lifts them to a higher level of credibilty but they still adopt the same way of running it that's seen as acceptable in China and if funded by them that's the way it'll be done irrespective of the address.

I have absolutely NO INTEREST in being their unpaid tester, I just want it to work FULL STOP!

If they actually want to take this product to the next level they need to understand their market, the Audiophiles / people happy to tinker with things like rasberry pie and are happy to be testers is probably less than 1% of the people that listen to music .... the rest just want it to work and be reliable!

 

[Music1969]

the rest just want it to work and be reliable!

100% works for me and 100% reliable

It's probably your networking

That was my issue initially too

 

[Turambar]

Me got E50 which is MQA renderer over optical . So that no work

But you can buy an MQA decoder over optical, and it will work.

 

[Narnian]

While I do not disagree that there is a lot of free testing going on for the WIIM, from my research there are plenty of more mature products that cost a lot more that have a lot of issues from looking at other forums and review sites. Here we have the ear of the company and get quick fixes that can take months (if ever in many cases) in other companies.

So far the only issue I had turned out to be a bad setting on the receiver that was incorrectly set out of the factory (Marantz) so even big companies make mistakes.

This product easily offers the best bang for the buck at the moment and, as a “fan boy”, I am rooting for them to put pressure on all other streamers to improve their products and lower costs like SMSL, Topping, etc. are doing for the amp and DAC markets.

Anybody who does not like their approach (frequent, small software updates, aka rolling releases) can always switch to a different streamer.

 

[JimmyMac]

Anybody else getting a stuttering problem when playing Tidal MQA tracks (via Tidal Connect) ? I get no stuttering at all with non-MQA tracks.
This only started happening this week, after the latest firmware (20221011). I'm using optical out to a Gustard X18 dac, and MQA decoding has been working perfectly up until this week.

And yes, I've submitted a ticked to WiiM.

Thanks! Jim

 

[Witterings]

100% works for me and 100% reliable

It's probably your networking

That was my issue initially too

And everytime I get a problem I instantly jump onto a speed tester (in favaourites and on it in 1/2 a second) and I'm sure you can guess what the results are.

The fact others are reporting it as well and I'm guessing they're not havng problems streaming Hi Def from Netflix / Amazon bearing in mind video is massively larger than music files.

 

[olbobcat]

I have had a lot of problems with tidal on NAD c658, Chromecast, and the Wiim. It all started after the update about a month ago. I get stops quite frequently and Tidal connect gets lost. Actually, the Wiim has the least amount of problems now. This is after 2.5 years of no problem. I would say that the Wiim might not always be the problem.

 

[mediocrebutarrogant]

And everytime I get a problem I instantly jump onto a speed tester (in favaourites and on it in 1/2 a second) and I'm sure you can guess what the results are.

The fact others are reporting it as well and I'm guessing they're not havng problems streaming Hi Def from Netflix / Amazon bearing in mind video is massively larger than music files.

i have no problems streaming 4k HDR , Mac to USB to dac , no problems, i have 5Ghz exclusive, and im a software engineer ,so its not me network, also wiim mqa beta stuttered and screeched like nails over chalk board screechhhhh!!

 

[mediocrebutarrogant]

I know there are a lot of "Fan Boys" out there but I'm 100% with you on this!

I'd literally just sat down at the end of an evening to relax and start started playing some music and switched on my laptop to look through the forum and the music just stopped ...... I did check it wasn't the Amazon App 1st and it wasn't.

Whilst this is potentially an outstanding piece of equipment for the price at the moment it's little more than a toy and the people that have bought it .... as you say and I've mentioned at least 2/3 times previously are just unpaid testers.

I mistakenly thought it was a Chinese product / company and previously mentioned how many Chinese companies seem to have little regard for their buyers and just treat them like testers delivering sub standard products and using their buyers as early stage testers that "The West" wouldn't find acceptable.

At a later stage, someone from WiiM commeneted they were an American company .... however they had a lot of senior Chinese staff .... seemingly trying to infer it wasn't run the way some Chinese companies seem to be.

If I was a betting man, I'd say the whole finance for this comes from China and they believe a US address lifts them to a higher level of credibilty but they still adopt the same way of running it that's seen as acceptable in China and if funded by them that's the way it'll be done irrespective of the address.

I have absolutely NO INTEREST in being their unpaid tester, I just want it to work FULL STOP!

If they actually want to take this product to the next level they need to understand their market, the Audiophiles / people happy to tinker with things like rasberry pie and are happy to be testers is probably less than 1% of the people that listen to music .... the rest just want it to work and be reliable!

Exactly, it should work , maybe they have put in too many features , just Amazon Music, DLNA, and Tidal enough.Why they need to enable everything on the planet i dunno

Anyone else seeing the last few secs of songs go silent on DLNA occasionally??

Same for Bubbleupnp and hifi cast.

This , i mean over DLNA also, too many issues.

 

[derl]

Hey everyone, new to the WiiM party (was using an iPod Touch into integrated amp) but having no sound at 24/192 when I'm running via Toslink through a Schiit Modi 3E, which according to specs should be able to handle it.

Is there something I'm doing wrong? 24/96 works fine.

 

[Brantome]

Hey everyone, new to the WiiM party (was using an iPod Touch into integrated amp) but having no sound at 24/192 when I'm running via Toslink through a Schiit Modi 3E, which according to specs should be able to handle it.

Is there something I'm doing wrong? 24/96 works fine.

I’m sure it’s been mentioned here that that DAC works ok at 24/192 (try searching the thread) withWiiM - can you try another cable? I presume you’ve done the spdif setting tests in the app

 

[morillon]

the toslink was originally not made to pass more than 96k..
can be your dac on this format can not receive more

 

[derl]

I’m sure it’s been mentioned here that that DAC works ok at 24/192 (try searching the thread) withWiiM - can you try another cable? I presume you’ve done the spdif setting tests in the app

Thanks, I was just using the cable included in the WiiM box.

the toslink was originally not made to pass more than 96k..
can be your dac on this format can not receive more

Hmm the Schiit Modi 3E specs say "Sample Rates and Bit Depths: 16/44.1 to 24/192 via USB, Coax, and Optical" https://www.schiit.com/products/modi-1

 

[morillon]

have you already played 192k via toslink on this dac with other sources?
(
well settled the digital output in 192k 24bit side wiim home?.
sometimes it also crosses souccis with certain connectors not so compatible in toslink)

 

[Jeromeof]

I find with the latest update that Amazon is back working reliably again, but I do agree with recent posts that the WiiM team are probably over stretching the technical capability of this device and we are at the "bleeding edge" of that technical capability. I would hope that a faster processor in the Wiim 'Pro' would provide a more reliable base for all the current capabilities and their Roadmap.

So for me, for the price, I think its a perfect device but I am mainly using it with Amazon Music (and some Alexa devices) and DLNA (for a fairly reliable DLNA server in my house - DLNA in my experience can be incredible problematic - too many point of failure - but this Wiim does a pretty good job with DLNA also). I also find it pretty reliable for the occasional Airplay casting (though this is usually just from a podcasting app on my iPhone). But the fact that it "supports" Spotify, Deezer, Tidal etc and now has EQ and various other new capabilities have I imagine caused software issues within the rapidablly changing WiiM codebase. (I am a software engineer so I appreciate the difficultly of 'CI' - continuous integration).

Other "stable" streamers IMO might be great with the set of features they were originally tested with and shipped with but I find that those products rarely if ever get updates and can quickly become useless 'bricks' because they haven't kept up to date with the latest changes in the streaming space. For example, I used to use Spotify and therefore Spotify Connect was incredible important for me but I moved over to Amazon and certain products I bought previously are gathering dust.

But if there was 1 feature I would like the WiiM team to provide now, it would be a way to selectively install (and stay on) a particular version of their software. For me the current version solves some of the problems that I have had in the past month or so (Around Amazon and DLNA) - so I would really really like to now stay with this version. If there are now problems with supporting the Deezer API's or Tidal or MQA or whatever other services (it personally doesn't interest me but I worry that by fixing them it will again cause unreliablity with my preferred services (I believe the device is being 'memory bound'). But I do appreciate that they keep moving forwards so if in say 6 months, I decide to switch to Tidal etc that I could then at that point update the software/firmware on the WiiM to provide 'stable' Tidal (or whatever future services they add support for).

 

[Narnian]

I worked in IT for 43 years and I cannot tell you how many times the network team insisted the issues were not the network, only to discover it was the network And the storage, database, server and other teams often said it was not their issue as well when it was. As the data center manager I had to push all the teams to work together because of the complexity of the systems (7,000 servers and 45,000 clients world wide). Interfaces are complex and often a source of problems.

Home networks are surprisingly complicated nowadays with all of the devices (endpoints) and even one out of whack can mess up a network. Speed tests are of limited usefulness and few users can do packet capture and inspection.

The fact that some people have no WIIM issues while others do shows this as each users setup is unique. I am using mostly Tidal and some DLNA off of a local NAS at this point and Tidal is one of the more mature implementations. Even then I had issues with the DLNA server that came with the NAS and switched to a Plex DLNA server and that helped as the Plex was a better server. The issue was not WIIM but it would have been easy to blame WIIM.

I have lots of IOT (Internet of Things) devices (light switches, cameras, etc.) In fact I have at least 50 of them as I have a highly wired house and my network is constantly buzzing with packets flying everywhere. Careful network design (using managed switches, Quality of Service (QOS), VLANs, etc.) can help improve traffic management and facilitate troubleshooting. The problem is this is beyond most home users ability and it is easy to get frustrated.

 

[MrX]

One issue with Amazon Alexacast is that after a while my Amazon app disconnects from the Wiim while playing and I have to go to the Wiim app to control the stream. It's like there's a timeout or something. Spotify Connect is still the gold standard. I sure wish Spotify would go lossless

I just want to mention, I have an Amazon Echo Link and it displays the exact same behavior.

 

[telemike]

I just want to mention, I have an Amazon Echo Link and it displays the exact same behavior.

Pretty sure it happens with my echos too

 

[thibodeaux]

One issue with Amazon Alexacast is that after a while my Amazon app disconnects from the Wiim while playing and I have to go to the Wiim app to control the stream. It's like there's a timeout or something. Spotify Connect is still the gold standard. I sure wish Spotify would go lossless

Spotify HiFi coming soon

https://www.reddit.com/r/truespotify/comments/y3zz63

I've seen several other posts confirming the information in the above post - Google is your friend