WiiM or a DAC/MINISPD system for better sound or better corrections ?

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

It is interesting to read how many of you here say that compared to wiim, replacing wiim with a better DAC and adding a mini-dsp vill not DIRECTLY improve the sound, with suggestions to rather spend money on a better speaker and efforts on the room.

However, it seems to me from what I understand here that with the wiim, sound corrections are nice but rather limited,

and this is where an upgrade from wiim to

a DAC/mini-dsp
or other solutions like the AUDIOPHONICS EVO-SABRE PACK DIY DAC Symétrique 2xES9038Q2M & Lecteur Réseau pour Raspberry Pi 4

would be a real evolution for improving the sound ?

If I understand things correctly,
(compared to WiiM Ultra),
it is not for the very small (and if at all any sound improvements of the hardware)
that one would buy

a "more open" system like a DAC MINI/DSP system or something like the EVO-SABRE (whether diy or not diy),

but rather for INCREASING THE CAPACITY of improving the sound with room correction features and other sound correction features,
(that the WiiM is not able to offer ?)

However there is it seems an intense learning period in order to learn softwares like DIRAC or other free sound correction software.

Perhaps as a beginner and without any exisiting source at the moment, buying a wiim ultra with 3E A7 seems a good solution for now so that once I am able to begin listening to music,

I can plunge myself into "our hobby activity" of learning more sophisticated sound and room correction systems like DIRAC and so on,
and perhaps one day I will replace the wiim once I learnt about
filters and crossovers, convolving, the some dozens of categories of functionalities of SPD, speaker EQ, Timing / delays / phase tuning as distinct from frequency / magnitude blending, PEQ as opposed to Room DRC, Loudness compensation vs plain volume control, etc.

If at all learning how to use these corrections will improve the WiiM Ultra sound ???

Because if not, why bother ?

Reading Floyd Toole's book that I have received on Sound Reproduction will probably teach all this.

 

[Keith_W]

It's very simple. The Wiim maxes out at 2.1 systems. If you need more than that, get a MiniDSP. And you don't need Dirac, just learn how to use REW to generate the corrections.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Thank you Keith.

I suppose you mean :

add a minispd to the wiim ultra
for more correction features and control,
2 stereo subs and so on ?

Instead of replacing the wiim ultra ?

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

And yes, as many of you here say :

difficult to grasp that the wiim is that good !

 

[Randolf]

The DAC of WiiM mini and WiiM Pro measures poorly, however the DAC of WiiM Pro Plus and WiiM Ultra measures very well and I personally would not see any need for an ever better DAC. Please note that the WiiM Ultra does not support Apple Airplay, which may or may not be a show stopper. They all have nice PEQ build in and a basic "RoomFit" room correction. Last time I tried an early version of WiiM RoomFit it was completely of for me, in contrast to Dirac Live on a MiniDSP DDRC-24. Maybe RoomFit meanwhile has improved. However a MiniDSP with DiracLive adds significant extra costs and to get a really good DAC you may want to avoid 2x4HD / DDRC-24 in favor of the Flex which is even more expensive. Personally I would suggest to start with the WiiM Pro Plus, get a MiniDSP UMIK-1 microphone and start measuring your setup using REW to learn and see if there are serious issues.

Personally I run WiiM Pro-(SPDIF)->MiniDSP DDRC-24 (DiracLive)-(Line)->Yamaha R-N803D

 

[Keith_W]

No need to overthink it. Buy the product with the features that you need. At the moment, I do not believe that ANY MiniDSP supports streaming natively. So if you need more than 2.1, you add a MiniDSP to your Wiim.

I subscribe to Pareto's Law - 80% of the benefit comes from 20% of the effort. The Wiim is not the Last Word in DSP. Actually, neither is a MiniDSP. But it's good enough.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Thank you.

I do not use Apple, lucky me. I will defenitly use REW and buy a good mike.

So what I get is that WiiM Ultra can get me started, then if I need more flexibility,
I can add a minispd even if this is a bit waste of money since
I will not use the internal DAC of the WiiM anymore but that is not really a big problem.

Doing it this way I am not stuck with WiiM Ultra and its limited 2.1 system.
I can add 2x stereo subs by buying a minispd, I can even evolve to Dirac later on,
still using the streamer of the WiiM Ultra.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Dear Randolf. Thank you.

Did you build your system below :

WiiM Pro-(SPDIF)->MiniDSP DDRC-24 (DiracLive)-(Line)->Yamaha R-N803D

as a planned from the beginning system ?

or did you add the MiniDSP DDRC-24 with DIRAC later on
to expand the limited 2.1 capacities of the WiiM Pro ?

I suppose that MiniDSP DDRC-24 with DIRAC from audiophonics
will work equally well with a WiiM Ultra + 3E7A system ?

 

[Redacted]

Doing it this way I am not stuck with WiiM Ultra and its limited 2.1 system.
I can add 2x stereo subs by buying a minispd, I can even evolve to Dirac later on,
still using the streamer of the WiiM Ultra.

I'm not following this "2.1" limit thing.
I use two subs on my system, driven from my amp's pre-outs to give me 2.2 - are you saying the Wiim amps being discussed here don't have pre-outs?

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Dear Redacted. I wrote limited to 2.1 system from what I read from Keith's message above :
The Wiim maxes out at 2.1 systems. So I assume that WiiM Ultra has some limitations,
but from what I understand, the WiiM Ultra can be expanded without any problems, later on.
I am not buying the WiiM Ultra with amp, but rather the 3E 7A amp to go with it. This way, if
I want to change the WiiM to something else later on, I can keep my amp.

 

[Keith_W]

I'm not following this "2.1" limit thing.
I use two subs on my system, driven from my amp's pre-outs to give me 2.2 - are you saying the Wiim amps being discussed here don't have pre-outs?

When we are talking DSP, we ideally want every speaker or subwoofer to be on a separate DAC channel. The Wiim has 3 analog outputs, so it can independently control L, R and ONE sub. What you are doing - using a Y splitter from the preamp to output to 2 speakers and 2 subs, means that you lose the ability to control your subs independently. Whilst it works, it's not ideal.

 

[voodooless]

There is of course another option to get a stereo sub output in the WiiM ecosystem: get another WiiM unit and sync it up wirelessly. Use the second one to get a stereo sub output.

 

[Redacted]

So you are saying the Wiim amp in question only has one line-level output and it's a filtered, mono, sub out.

I wouldn't go for an amp with no analogue pre-outs if I changed my setup.

In future, if I abandoned my current streamer/DAC/amp all-in-one, I would go for a streamer with a DAC and that would have line level out which can feed both a (new) power amp and my 2 existing L & R subs.

 

[Randolf]

Dear Randolf. Thank you.

Did you build your system below :

WiiM Pro-(SPDIF)->MiniDSP DDRC-24 (DiracLive)-(Line)->Yamaha R-N803D

as a planned from the beginning system ?

or did you add the MiniDSP DDRC-24 with DIRAC later on
to expand the limited 2.1 capacities of the WiiM Pro ?

I suppose that MiniDSP DDRC-24 with DIRAC from audiophonics
will work equally well with a WiiM Ultra + 3E7A system ?

It started with the R-N803D in 2018. I found its YPAO of very limited use for my Stereo setup. Therefore started experimenting with PEQ in software (REW+JRiver) with some improvement and finaly tried DiracLive free software trial license on PC, which was a huge improvement. Therefore I added the MiniDSP DDRC-24, but integrating it into the R-N803D turned out to be almost impossible. Therefore I added a Yamaha WXC-50 (WXC-50->DDRC-24->R-N803D). Nothing wrong with this but finally the (second hand) WXC-50 failed and I replaced it with the WiiM Pro. Last year i tried to replace all 3 devices with an NAD C-389 which was more or less a complete desaster (see my other threads on the NAD C-389), so I turned back to my previous setup. Given my age of 60 my HiFi journey is of course a lot longer and started ~45 years ago .

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

ok, thank you Keith for that very useful answer

Is there any way to use the WiiM Ultra without this Y problem ?

My question before buyingthe WiiM Ultra with 3E7A is,

is the WiiM Ultra with 3E7A
a good start which enables me to evolve later on :

1. to stereo subs with a DSP DAC without this Y problem you talk about ?

2. a Dirac or similar more sophisticated setup ?

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

It started with the R-N803D in 2018. I found its YPAO of very limited use for my Stereo setup. Therefore started experimenting with PEQ in software (REW+JRiver) with some improvement and finaly tried DiracLive free software trial license on PC, which was a huge improvement. Therefore I added the MiniDSP DDRC-24, but integrating it into the R-N803D turned out to be almost impossible. Therefore I added a Yamaha WXC-50 (WXC-50->DDRC-24->R-N803D). Nothing wrong with this but finally the (second hand) WXC-50 failed and I replaced it with the WiiM Pro. Last year i tried to replace all 3 devices with an NAD C-389 which was more or less a complete desaster (see my other threads on the NAD C-389), so I turned back to my previous setup. Given my age of 60 my HiFi journey is of course a lot longer and started ~45 years ago .

Thank you Randolf. Yes, so much experience on this forum, as a beginner to the digital, not easy to keep up bit by bit I will succed, just when I learned to walk

So today, if going from scratch as a beginner,
would you still begin with a WiiM Ultra + an AMP and then go from there ?

Or will I run into future complications with the WiiM when adding DSP and DAC's ?
Although it seems more complicated, I wonder if I should go straight to a DSP DAC's with DIRAC ?

I know some people here say that WiiM is so great but then I add two subs, and if later on I want DIRAC, it seems to be the wrong way to start ? but perhaps I am mistaken ?

Or am I as Keith here told me, perhaps overthinking ?

 

[Ruediger]

is the WiiM Ultra with 3E7A
a good start which enables me to evolve later on :

1. to stereo subs with a DSP DAC without this Y problem you talk about ?

2. a Dirac or similar more sophisticated setup ?

The Ultra gives you 3 options of digital out to go to another box for pocessing, if you need it.

Some people put another DAC to the WiiM's USB out for specific reasons. XLR outputs f.e.

 

[Keith_W]

Look, your options look something like this:

1. Make your purchase based on your current needs. Buy that Wiim with the 2.1 output right now and it will take care of your needs until you get more than 1 sub.
2. Make your purchases with future-proofing in mind. Buy the cheapest Wiim and a MiniDSP with 4 outputs (or maybe more, depending on how many subs you intend to get).

This is not a question the forum can answer for you. You have to decide. Sorry.

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

Yes, I understand

 

[RaymondFromThePyrénéés]

then for
2 main speakers + 2 stereo subs
could I go this way ? or am I missing something ?

WiiM Ultra
miniDSP 2x4HD
3E A7