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WiiM Mini Streamer

mssngpeces

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Hi Folks,

Looking for some advice. I have a wiim mini connected to a Denon 600NE integrated amplifier. The input sensativity of the amp is very low, when i connect the wiim via toslink i have very little headroom on the volume pot, when i connect the wiim via aux out i can reduce the Vrms. If i reduce it to 500mv does this truncate the singal and reduce the quality.

Also i read amirs review which say the aux out is worse than toslink. Am i losing a lot of quality using aux vs toslink and thoughts on the amp not performing at its best at around 9pm on the dial?

Sorry a few questions there any help would be appreciated.
Hello,

The Vrms has no effect on the SPDIF toslink ouptut level (hence the name "Aux output level). Make sure to toggle on the "Fixed volume output" in the same menu, so you get full volume from the Wiim (you'll then have to control volume with your Denon).
 

Raver

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Yes i understand the toslink does not have vrms settings like the aux out. That is why i am using the aux out at the moment to control the gain on the denon amp. I can reduce the vrms to 500mv and it then allows me to turn the amp volume to about 11 or 12 oclock which i have read allows the amp to perform better.

Just not sure if reducing the vrms leads to a reduction in quality.
 

Brantome

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Or maybe I understand a little better, I was just on Quboz and played a random playlist.. definitely a good half second, slight hiccup between tracks
Gapless is an album attribute where there’s no gap at all between track listings and the music continues uninterrupted when one ”track” finishes as another starts, or as this wikipedia entry says “where tracks are meant to segue into each other, such as some classical music (opera in particular), progressive rock, concept albums, electronic music, and live recordings with audience noise between tracks.”

What I think you’ve been referring to is minimal or no gap between unrelated tracks which isn’t what purists would term “gapless”.

You could try playing Pink Floyd or The Beatles Love album on the Amazon Music app itself and see/hear what gapless playback is (despite what some amazon staff may say, gapless playback has been available for amazon music for some time). Then play the same album on the Wiim and you will hear a gap between tracks as Wiim are still working on gapless playback.
 

Brantome

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Yes i understand the toslink does not have vrms settings like the aux out. That is why i am using the aux out at the moment to control the gain on the denon amp. I can reduce the vrms to 500mv and it then allows me to turn the amp volume to about 11 or 12 oclock which i have read allows the amp to perform better.

Just not sure if reducing the vrms leads to a reduction in quality.
I’d think using the WiiM’s aux out might not sound as good as the toslink out into your amp as I’d guess the amp has a better DAC than the WiiM Mini.
 

OldManMatt

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Gapless is an album attribute where there’s no gap at all between track listings and the music continues uninterrupted when one ”track” finishes as another starts, or as this wikipedia entry says “where tracks are meant to segue into each other, such as some classical music (opera in particular), progressive rock, concept albums, electronic music, and live recordings with audience noise between tracks.”

What I think you’ve been referring to is minimal or no gap between unrelated tracks which isn’t what purists would term “gapless”.

You could try playing Pink Floyd or The Beatles Love album on the Amazon Music app itself and see/hear what gapless playback is (despite what some amazon staff may say, gapless playback has been available for amazon music for some time). Then play the same album on the Wiim and you will hear a gap between tracks as Wiim are still working on gapless playback.

Gapless is an album attribute where there’s no gap at all between track listings and the music continues uninterrupted when one ”track” finishes as another starts, or as this wikipedia entry says “where tracks are meant to segue into each other, such as some classical music (opera in particular), progressive rock, concept albums, electronic music, and live recordings with audience noise between tracks.”

What I think you’ve been referring to is minimal or no gap between unrelated tracks which isn’t what purists would term “gapless”.

You could try playing Pink Floyd or The Beatles Love album on the Amazon Music app itself and see/hear what gapless playback is (despite what some amazon staff may say, gapless playback has been available for amazon music for some time). Then play the same album on the Wiim and you will hear a gap between tracks as Wiim are still working on gapless playback.
Thanks for the reply. In an earlier post I linked to a short screen recording of my phone while playing Pink Floyd on the WiiM app (you can slightly hear it in the background) where you can see the countdown to the end of the song and into the next. I will just compare it to after the next update. I can't even cast from the Amazon Music app to the WiiM, it doesn't recognize the WiiM..same with Quboz. Maybe I need to reset the WiiM to cast? Tidal connect will recognize it though. So if I want to listen to Amazon UHD or Quboz thru the WiiM I have to use the WiiM app
 

Brantome

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Thanks for the reply. In an earlier post I linked to a short screen recording of my phone while playing Pink Floyd on the WiiM app (you can slightly hear it in the background) where you can see the countdown to the end of the song and into the next. I will just compare it to after the next update. I can't even cast from the Amazon Music app to the WiiM, it doesn't recognize the WiiM..same with Quboz. Maybe I need to reset the WiiM to cast? Tidal connect will recognize it though. So if I want to listen to Amazon UHD or Quboz thru the WiiM I have to use the WiiM app
Two points re casting - the WiiM Mini doesn’t yet support casting for Amazon Music HD/UHD (it’s supposedly coming mid-August), and there isn’t such a thing as Qobuz Connect that would allow you to cast from its app to the Wiim or any other device for that matter (it’s been mentioned in the thread that Qobuz are supposedly developing that feature later this year).
 

Brantome

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Thanks for the reply. In an earlier post I linked to a short screen recording of my phone while playing Pink Floyd on the WiiM app (you can slightly hear it in the background) where you can see the countdown to the end of the song and into the next. I will just compare it to after the next update. I can't even cast from the Amazon Music app to the WiiM, it doesn't recognize the WiiM..same with Quboz. Maybe I need to reset the WiiM to cast? Tidal connect will recognize it though. So if I want to listen to Amazon UHD or Quboz thru the WiiM I have to use the WiiM app
Also, from watching your video, I would guess you’re not playing lossless Amazon Music HD/UHD as that track is showing a bitrate of 16/44.1 rather the 24/96 it shows on my WiiM app. As I recall, the WiiM app does support gapless playback for the lossy Amazon Music service, but not yet for the lossy hi res Amazon Music HD/UHD service.

Check that you’re on the latest version of the WiiM app and its latest public firmware 4.6.424434, and that in the Wiim app Amazon Music settings, you have Amazon Music HD/UHD toggled on.
 

OldManMatt

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Have you set up Alexa in the WiiM app? Amazon Music will cast to it currently once it's set up as an Alexa device. Just not in "hi-rez" quite yet.
No I haven't done that. But I went to the WiiM Home app, scrolled down to the bottom, switched from Wifi to Bluetooth and that will allow me to play anything from my phone to the WiiM into the stereo. I tried from the Amazon app, Quboz, and YouTube. Track from Quboz says 96khz but shows up as 44.1 on Dac
 

OldManMatt

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Also, from watching your video, I would guess you’re not playing lossless Amazon Music HD/UHD as that track is showing a bitrate of 16/44.1 rather the 24/96 it shows on my WiiM app. As I recall, the WiiM app does support gapless playback for the lossy Amazon Music service, but not yet for the lossy hi res Amazon Music HD/UHD service.

Check that you’re on the latest version of the WiiM app and its latest public firmware 4.6.424434, and that in the Wiim app Amazon Music settings, you have Amazon Music HD/UHD toggled on.
Thank you for that!!
 

OldManMatt

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Also, from watching your video, I would guess you’re not playing lossless Amazon Music HD/UHD as that track is showing a bitrate of 16/44.1 rather the 24/96 it shows on my WiiM app. As I recall, the WiiM app does support gapless playback for the lossy Amazon Music service, but not yet for the lossy hi res Amazon Music HD/UHD service.

Check that you’re on the latest version of the WiiM app and its latest public firmware 4.6.424434, and that in the Wiim app Amazon Music settings, you have Amazon Music HD/UHD toggled on.
That really cleared that up for me. I had toggled that off a couple days ago cause it said UHD Beta and I thought that had something to do with some beta testing or something I really appreciate y'all's patience with me.
 

Music1969

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Also, from watching your video, I would guess you’re not playing lossless Amazon Music HD/UHD as that track is showing a bitrate of 16/44.1 rather the 24/96 it shows on my WiiM app. As I recall, the WiiM app does support gapless playback for the lossy Amazon Music service, but not yet for the lossy hi res Amazon Music HD/UHD service.

Correct, as I mentioned yesterday too:
If gapless is working for you and you're not shown bitrate then you are doing lossy, not UHD casting.
 

Brantome

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No I haven't done that. But I went to the WiiM Home app, scrolled down to the bottom, switched from Wifi to Bluetooth and that will allow me to play anything from my phone to the WiiM into the stereo. I tried from the Amazon app, Quboz, and YouTube. Track from Quboz says 96khz but shows up as 44.1 on Dac
Bluetooth doesn’t have the bandwidth to support hi res tracks, certainly not those at 24/96. For example, the Pink Floyd track you showed has a bitrate of 2894kbps on my Wiim app, whereas even the highest Bluetooth codec supports around a fifth of that. If you want the highest quality playback, you need to use wifi and ditch Bluetooth.
 

thibodeaux

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My device just updated to 4.6.425154 (beta) and I can confirm that gapless streaming from Amazon Music in the WIIM app is working (tested both DSOTM and Inception soundtrack albums.) I did notice some odd behavior with the UI progress bar where it jumped back in time and then went forward during playback, but that did not impact the audio.
 

OldManMatt

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Correct, as I mentioned yesterday too:
Yes you did, I obviously had no idea what you were referring to lol. Especially since it was showing me a bitrate I just kinda disregarded it. I don't really use Amazon but I've been messing with it the last couple days due to this thread and trying to keep up with y'all's back in forth. That little toggle switch for UHD helped clear my head with the gapless lol, and again, thanks for the patience guys I appreciate it.
 

Music1969

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New firmware out.

Version x154

Gapless bit perfect Amazon Music UHD works perfectly inside WiiM Home app.

Next stop - gapless bitperfect UHD casting. Great job WiiM Team
 

Brantome

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New firmware out.

Version x154

Gapless bit perfect Amazon Music UHD works perfectly inside WiiM Home app.

Next stop - gapless bitperfect UHD casting. Great job WiiM Team
Yeah, just got it here too, and as above the progress bar does a lot of jumping around towards the end of a track, back to zero, then the end before it starts the new track again at zero. Sounds good though :)
 

Music1969

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Yeah, just got it here too, and as above the progress bar does a lot of jumping around towards the end of a track, back to zero, then the end before it starts the new track again at zero. Sounds good though :)
I just noticed that. It gives me anxiety because I expect a hiccup in sound but yep, sound is smooth :D

Its better to stare at @Ralph_Cramden Waveshare display anyway.
 

egbx

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My device just updated to 4.6.425154 (beta) and I can confirm that gapless streaming from Amazon Music in the WIIM app is working (tested both DSOTM and Inception soundtrack albums.) I did notice some odd behavior with the UI progress bar where it jumped back in time and then went forward during playback, but that did not impact the audio.
How can one get on the beta program?

eduardo
 

Brantome

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How can one get on the beta program?

eduardo
Email Wiim or use the feedback route in their app asking to be put on the beta whitelist, quoting the MAC address of your Wiim mini
 
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