Wiim Pro distortion on spdif input

[JVN01]

@JVN01 Are you using the optical or coax out on the Wiim Pro?

I'm having similar issues with the optical out from my Samsung TV into the Wiim Pro, and then into an external DAC. The sound is sibilant and unnatural. No dropouts though.

I've found it much worse sounding when using the coax out rather than the optical out.

Hadn't noticed any issues previously when the Samsung TV was connected directly to my DAC.

I've only got a few days left in the return window, unfortunately I'm thinking I'm going to have to return it.

I'm only using the internal Wiim DAC, haven't got my own DAC connected. So I'm going TV spdif OUT > Wiim spdif IN. It's just awful. Was much better for a few weeks, but a recent firmware update has taken it back to being worse than it was in January when I first bought the unit.

It's interesting the comments regarding this TV spdif distortion along the lines of "ah yes but you've bought the Wiim to be a streamer, so you're using it for a secondary purpose it's not intended for!".... how bizarre, yes the primary function is to be a streamer (and it does a good job of that) but I bought the Wiim Pro precisely because it also has an spdif input for all the times I'm not streaming (which is pretty often, since Netflix and Prime get watched quite a bit in our house). In that case, in the 5 or 6 years that I've been using my own DAC and/or my Yamaha WXC-50, along with a variety of TV's from Panasonic, Sony and now Samsung, I've never had a jot of spdif distortion, never mind dropouts, until I bought the Wiim Pro.

I guess the bottom line is unless the Wiim Pro can offer the option to clock itself off the external spdif signal (not exactly an unusual approach after all) then it's never going to be usable in the real world with real world TV's, regardless of whose 'fault' it is in the strictest technical terms...

 

[JVN01]

I'm only using the internal Wiim DAC, haven't got my own DAC connected. So I'm going TV spdif OUT > Wiim spdif IN. It's just awful. Was much better for a few weeks, but a recent firmware update has taken it back to being worse than it was in January when I first bought the unit.

It's interesting the comments regarding this TV spdif distortion along the lines of "ah yes but you've bought the Wiim to be a streamer, so you're using it for a secondary purpose it's not intended for!".... how bizarre, yes the primary function is to be a streamer (and it does a good job of that) but I bought the Wiim Pro precisely because it also has an spdif input for all the times I'm not streaming (which is pretty often, since Netflix and Prime get watched quite a bit in our house). In that case, in the 5 or 6 years that I've been using my own DAC and/or my Yamaha WXC-50, along with a variety of TV's from Panasonic, Sony and now Samsung, I've never had a jot of spdif distortion, never mind dropouts, until I bought the Wiim Pro.

I guess the bottom line is unless the Wiim Pro can offer the option to clock itself off the external spdif signal (not exactly an unusual approach after all) then it's never going to be usable in the real world with real world TV's, regardless of whose 'fault' it is in the strictest technical terms...

It's a real shame as I build active speaker systems and other audio kit for people, and I was about to start recommending the Wiim Pro as the killer drop-in easy-to-use product for the streaming/TV spdif combination, but this relegates it back to the realms of a quirky experiment for now...

 

[JktHifi]

I'm only using the internal Wiim DAC, haven't got my own DAC connected. So I'm going TV spdif OUT > Wiim spdif IN. It's just awful. Was much better for a few weeks, but a recent firmware update has taken it back to being worse than it was in January when I first bought the unit.

It's interesting the comments regarding this TV spdif distortion along the lines of "ah yes but you've bought the Wiim to be a streamer, so you're using it for a secondary purpose it's not intended for!".... how bizarre, yes the primary function is to be a streamer (and it does a good job of that) but I bought the Wiim Pro precisely because it also has an spdif input for all the times I'm not streaming (which is pretty often, since Netflix and Prime get watched quite a bit in our house). In that case, in the 5 or 6 years that I've been using my own DAC and/or my Yamaha WXC-50, along with a variety of TV's from Panasonic, Sony and now Samsung, I've never had a jot of spdif distortion, never mind dropouts, until I bought the Wiim Pro.

I guess the bottom line is unless the Wiim Pro can offer the option to clock itself off the external spdif signal (not exactly an unusual approach after all) then it's never going to be usable in the real world with real world TV's, regardless of whose 'fault' it is in the strictest technical terms...

What do you think the sound quality of Yamaha WXC-50 compared to Wiim Pro as streamer? Any other disadvantages?

 

[JVN01]

What do you think the sound quality of Yamaha WXC-50 compared to Wiim Pro as streamer? Any other disadvantages?

I've always used the WXC-50 with my own home built DAC (although the internal DACs sound also good in their own right imo). The WXC-50 hardware is superbly implemented (good selection of inputs and outputs, quality metal case, rotary volume knob, properly implemented power on/off modes etc. The biggest weakness is the dire Musiccast app interface which is clunky and frustrating, hopeless on music search and is unreliable with device detection on network. I stuck with it for several years until the Wiim Pro arrived but with the Wiim spdif issues I'll probably go back to it until/unless Wiim can get the Wiim to play properly with real-world TVs.

One word of caution - the WXC-50 uses an on-board switch mode psu which floats the metal chassis at 1/2 AC mains potential (due to the internal mains filter capacitors connected to the chassis). This means that if you plug a phono lead from the Yamaha into another piece of equipment (eg amp or active speaker) then until the phono shield connects you are injecting 1/2 mains AC into the phono input, with potentially catastrophic results.... grounding the WXC-50 chassis with a separate ground wire solved the problem..

 

[JktHifi]

I've always used the WXC-50 with my own home built DAC (although the internal DACs sound also good in their own right imo). The WXC-50 hardware is superbly implemented (good selection of inputs and outputs, quality metal case, rotary volume knob, properly implemented power on/off modes etc. The biggest weakness is the dire Musiccast app interface which is clunky and frustrating, hopeless on music search and is unreliable with device detection on network. I stuck with it for several years until the Wiim Pro arrived but with the Wiim spdif issues I'll probably go back to it until/unless Wiim can get the Wiim to play properly with real-world TVs.

One word of caution - the WXC-50 uses an on-board switch mode psu which floats the metal chassis at 1/2 AC mains potential (due to the internal mains filter capacitors connected to the chassis). This means that if you plug a phono lead from the Yamaha into another piece of equipment (eg amp or active speaker) then until the phono shield connects you are injecting 1/2 mains AC into the phono input, with potentially catastrophic results.... grounding the WXC-50 chassis with a separate ground wire solved the problem..

I’m using my old soundbar with HT Controller app from Yamaha. It does good job to provide sound processing (EQ) such as Movie, Music, TV Program, Game, or Sports. Its IR Remote can’t do this.
Have you try other app for your Yamaha WXC-50? There are so many apps from Yamaha corporation in app store.

 

[BenjaminB]

The biggest weakness is the dire Musiccast app interface which is clunky and frustrating, hopeless on music search and is unreliable with device detection on network.

Yes, the Musiccast app has its limitations. Search is not its best feature - myself I have skipped that since long using my own file/folder structure which works fine (best actually) for the kind of music I listen to. However, I have never had any problems with device detection - I have BSD, Linux, Windows units in my network, all are nicely detected - much better detection than eg Windows does. Then, all these units are DNLA "compatible".
Generally, I find the Musiccast app (on Android) superior to the WiiM app, in most aspects. Maybe not very fair, Musiccast has been going since 6-7 years, whereas WiiM is rather new - the developers at Wiim crank out updates every second week these days. We'll see.

One word of caution - the WXC-50 uses an on-board switch mode psu which floats the metal chassis at 1/2 AC mains potential (due to the internal mains filter capacitors connected to the chassis).

This problem I do not have at all. 1/2 AC mains is noticable (would be 120 V in my case); have moved around the unit many times, so I doubt this (lack of 120 V at chassis) can be explained by orientation of power plug.


//BB

 

[zeppelin2]

I'm only using the internal Wiim DAC, haven't got my own DAC connected. So I'm going TV spdif OUT > Wiim spdif IN. It's just awful.

Since you have an external DAC, do you mind adding that to the digital output of the Wiim Pro? Which digital connector does it accept? Curious if you still experience the degradation in sound quality.

It's interesting the comments regarding this TV spdif distortion along the lines of "ah yes but you've bought the Wiim to be a streamer, so you're using it for a secondary purpose it's not intended for!"....

Again, I'm in the same camp. Music listening on my home stereo used to always start with a Google Chromecast (HDMI) into the TV, then into an external DAC via an optical cable. I wanted a more "pure" music listening experience, so I added the Wiim Pro to the mix so that I could stream music directly from the Wiim Pro to my DAC (bypassing the Chromecast and TV), while retaining the convenience of Netflix, YouTube, etc. passing audio from my TV into the Wiim Pro and then onto my DAC, all while using the same input on my DAC (which accepts both optical and coax).

Other than the sound quality issues, the other inconvenience I've noticed with the Wiim Pro is that switching inputs (e.g. between WiFi and SPDIF In) on the Wiim Pro isn't quite as slick as it could be.

 

[JVN01]

Since you have an external DAC, do you mind adding that to the digital output of the Wiim Pro? Which digital connector does it accept? Curious if you still experience the degradation in sound quality.


Again, I'm in the same camp. Music listening on my home stereo used to always start with a Google Chromecast (HDMI) into the TV, then into an external DAC via an optical cable. I wanted a more "pure" music listening experience, so I added the Wiim Pro to the mix so that I could stream music directly from the Wiim Pro to my DAC (bypassing the Chromecast and TV), while retaining the convenience of Netflix, YouTube, etc. passing audio from my TV into the Wiim Pro and then onto my DAC, all while using the same input on my DAC (which accepts both optical and coax).

Other than the sound quality issues, the other inconvenience I've noticed with the Wiim Pro is that switching inputs (e.g. between WiFi and SPDIF In) on the Wiim Pro isn't quite as slick as it could be.

My DIY DAC is currently out of service due to being in bits being upgraded/rebuilt into a new unit along with a CDpro2 drive and xmos USB interface so I'm unable to try it, but others have reported similar distortion using TVspdif > Wiim Pro > extra DAC...

 

[JVN01]

Again, I'm in the same camp. Music listening on my home stereo used to always start with a Google Chromecast (HDMI) into the TV, then into an external DAC via an optical cable. I wanted a more "pure" music listening experience, so I added the Wiim Pro to the mix so that I could stream music directly from the Wiim Pro to my DAC (bypassing the Chromecast and TV), while retaining the convenience of Netflix, YouTube, etc. passing audio from my TV into the Wiim Pro and then onto my DAC, all while using the same input on my DAC (which accepts both optical and coax).

Exactly the same for me. I could add a second spdif input to my own DAC, and connect TV direct to there, but then I'll need to add some spdif switching to my DAC rebuild (which may be the way to go...)

 

[JVN01]

This problem I do not have at all. 1/2 AC mains is noticable (would be 120 V in my case); have moved around the unit many times, so I doubt this (lack of 120 V at chassis) can be explained by orientation of power plug.

You won't notice unless you disconnect all audio cables from the Yamaha and plug it into the mains then measure volts AC between the Yamaha case and mains earth. You'll prob see 115V or so. If you touch mains earth with your body and brush the side of your hand over the Yamaha case you may well feel the telltale tingle of 115v AC. If you've got the phonos already connected to downstream equipment then they will bleed the AC away to ground via the phono screen. It's when you have nothing connected and then plug phonos in (with the Yamaha powered up) the potential for sparks occurs. I actually tried to discuss the issue with Yamaha and they said it was 'normal' and denied it was a problem....

 

[JVN01]

Yes, the Musiccast app has its limitations. Search is not its best feature - myself I have skipped that since long using my own file/folder structure which works fine (best actually) for the kind of music I listen to. However, I have never had any problems with device detection - I have BSD, Linux, Windows units in my network, all are nicely detected - much better detection than eg Windows does.

I use(d) the Yamaha with Tidal and the search function within Musicast is close to unusably poor...
I also wanted to use it with my Amazon Prime music subscription but it doesn't support it hence my excitement at the Wiim...

 

[JVN01]

Hang on - are we saying that this is how the wiim pro is managing SPDIF clock differnce? Unsynced fifo?

It is not implementing a PLL to sync internal/ouput clock to input?

Or are we just speculating.

That seems to be the case, sadly...

 

[JVN01]

Right.


So the decision to use internal clock for spdif in-out transfer instead of incoming clock seems to be wrong for the most probable scenario, which is a TV connection.

I don't understand why Wiim won't just use external spdif clock when spdif input is selected? Why insist on FIFO mode when it causes so many problems for what is essentially a user convenience feature (spdif in from TV setups)?

 

[onlyoneme]

I don't understand why Wiim won't just use external spdif clock when spdif input is selected? Why insist on FIFO mode when it causes so many problems for what is essentially a user convenience feature (spdif in from TV setups)?

It seems to partially use an external clock, based on my short tests, but only in the scenario when incoming clock is faster than Pro's one. I haven't observed it when the clock was slower.

 

[phofman]

It seems to partially use an external clock, based on my short tests, but only in the scenario when incoming clock is faster than Pro's one. I haven't observed it when the clock was slower.

I am not sure what you are describing is technically viable to implement. Also the inside images do not suggest any extra circuits.

 

[ClassicGuy]

I was planning to feed my LG TV's optical out into a WiiM Pro, so I can either stream music or watch TV using my speakers. Sounds like I might run into issues.

 

[onlyoneme]

I am not sure what you are describing is technically viable to implement. Also the inside images do not suggest any extra circuits.

I don't know it either, but as number of samples recorded on my ASRC device changes in time the only explanation I have is that the Pro not always uses its own clock.

 

[phofman]

IIUC you are measuring how long a specific music piece takes, measured by the independent clock. Adaptive resampling would generate various numbers of output samples, depending on the resampling ratio. Typically it takes some time for this ratio to stabilize and during this time the pitch will differ.

IIUC your measurements could be explained by adaptive resampling changing the ratio throughout time which is what typically happens in SW.

 

[onlyoneme]

"Adaptive resampling" performed by which device?

 

[phofman]

By the streamer, in SW, which can be impacted by the firmware update.