Wiim Pro or Denon receiver for Amazon Music ?

[Bsmooth]

Right now I use a Firestick for my Amazon HD music and have it hooked to my TV for selections, and also to my Yamaha receiver. Works well but output is very low and have to turn my Receiver up very loud. Normal setting for volume control for music is 30-35, with Amazon music it has to be at around 24 for same volume.
I noticed the Denon receivers use HEOS, but not sure whether this will be visible on my TV for music selections, and also does it output 24/192 ?
Recently I noticed the Wiim Pro, and it gets great reviews, but can I view it on my TV ? I don't want to go the phone or tablet route.
Also noticed its getting its own Remote, anyone heard about this at all ?

 

[MacCali]

Right now I use a Firestick for my Amazon HD music and have it hooked to my TV for selections, and also to my Yamaha receiver. Works well but output is very low and have to turn my Receiver up very loud. Normal setting for volume control for music is 30-35, with Amazon music it has to be at around 24 for same volume.
I noticed the Denon receivers use HEOS, but not sure whether this will be visible on my TV for music selections, and also does it output 24/192 ?
Recently I noticed the Wiim Pro, and it gets great reviews, but can I view it on my TV ? I don't want to go the phone or tablet route.
Also noticed its getting its own Remote, anyone heard about this at all ?

Why not just buy the mini?

You can use HEOS but I don’t think the TV has a HEOS app or airplay function. I use airplay which automatically switches my marantz into HEOS mode but I never use the app. So you get lossless cd quality sound at least and most receivers hardly hit the threshold of cd quality.

You may as well just use your phone unless you really want to see album or something. Also you can broadcast your phone on your tv and play with airplay on the newer phones I believe. But I am not certain

 

[Bsmooth]

I went the Phone route using a Node which I returned. I suppose its either a phone or the TV, but the TV's bigger and my eyes aren't getting any better. So does the mini or the Pro use the TV, or should I say can they ?

 

[Joffy1780]

Right now I use a Firestick for my Amazon HD music and have it hooked to my TV for selections, and also to my Yamaha receiver. Works well but output is very low and have to turn my Receiver up very loud. Normal setting for volume control for music is 30-35, with Amazon music it has to be at around 24 for same volume.
I noticed the Denon receivers use HEOS, but not sure whether this will be visible on my TV for music selections, and also does it output 24/192 ?
Recently I noticed the Wiim Pro, and it gets great reviews, but can I view it on my TV ? I don't want to go the phone or tablet route.
Also noticed its getting its own Remote, anyone heard about this at all ?

HEOS outputs 24/192 for Amazon HD and it displays a 'now playing' screen on your TV, but you have to use the app to choose tracks. It is not the most slick user interface, but it does the job I suppose.
I also have a Wiim Pro, which is a little easier to use, but not massively better to be honest. If you were going to buy a Wiim Pro and use it through your Yamaha AVR you wouldn't have any display on your TV etc to show what's playing.
If you were planning on getting a Denon AVR anyway, HEOS would be ideal really.

 

[MacCali]

I went the Phone route using a Node which I returned. I suppose its either a phone or the TV, but the TV's bigger and my eyes aren't getting any better. So does the mini or the Pro use the TV, or should I say can they ?

You can use your phone to play, and broadcast your phone on your TV.

It’s not going to be huge, my tv for example with use 1/3 of the entire screen. But clearly it’s larger than your phone. Far easier to see

 

[elmoe420]

Subjective but I think the HEOS UI is truly awful and I would definitely recommend the WiiM Mini/Pro. If I had to rate the mobile UIs it would be Bluesound > WiiM >> HEOS. However if a mobile UI is out for you this may be moot because that leaves with you zero options other than HEOS.

Other critical issues we had trying to use HEOS:

It won't show you purchased music from Amazon or things like saved playlists. What you would typically expect under 'My Music' is totally absent from HEOS.

After some time playing music, HEOS would simply freeze and I had to hard power cycle our Marantz AVR by unplugging it before it would play music again. This happened probably once a day.

Alexa integration was terrible. Same issue I had with using Bluesound. WiiM devices integrate with Alexa Multimedia APIs so voice UI is flawless and doesn't require using a third party skill. Caveat you can't get bit perfect playback this way but for family members other than myself this was deal breaker.

 

[Joffy1780]

Subjective but I think the HEOS UI is truly awful and I would definitely recommend the WiiM Mini/Pro. If I had to rate the mobile UIs it would be Bluesound > WiiM >> HEOS. However if a mobile UI is out for you this may be moot because that leaves with you zero options other than HEOS.

Other critical issues we had trying to use HEOS:

It won't show you purchased music from Amazon or things like saved playlists. What you would typically expect under 'My Music' is totally absent from HEOS.

After some time playing music, HEOS would simply freeze and I had to hard power cycle our Marantz AVR by unplugging it before it would play music again. This happened probably once a day.

Alexa integration was terrible. Same issue I had with using Bluesound. WiiM devices integrate with Alexa Multimedia APIs so voice UI is flawless and doesn't require using a third party skill. Caveat you can't get bit perfect playback this way but for family members other than myself this was deal breaker.

It has improved very slightly since then and will at least now show your playlists in Amazon Music.
I've never had any issues with freezes etc on my Denon 3600, so maybe this was an issue with the AVR?
That being said, I would definitely go for the Wiim Pro/Mini, great piece of kit and fantastic value for money.

 

[philgo01]

If you are asking HEOS vs WiiM Mini / WiiM Pro when streaming Amazon Music, hands down, WiiM Mini/WiimPro is so much better than HEOS as with WiiM, you can use the Amazon Music app itself and cast to the WiiM device (as if it were an Echo device ) and will also be in high resolution ! Use an external DAC for best results. That's how I've been doing it since WiiM Pro came out. HEOS needs a lot of work.

 

[Dillman23]

Jimbo if I streamed amazon music to the wiim and the wiim to my denon 4700h, which I belive to have a dac in it, I'm a newb! Would that dac be considered the external dac in your comment? Thanks

 

[Graham849]

I recommend the WiiM and purchase a dedicated tablet eg lenova 7" or 8" to drive it. Leaves phone free for other stuff.

 

[JLGF1]

Would that dac be considered the external dac in your comment?

Yes, in other words, use one of the digital outputs on the WiiM (optical or coax), not the analog mini output jack. Then the Denon will decode the digital signal. Make sure to have the Denon input configured correctly (Auto should work).

 

[timmo]

Yes, in other words, use one of the digital outputs on the WiiM (optical or coax), not the analog mini output jack. Then the Denon will decode the digital signal. Make sure to have the Denon input configured correctly (Auto should work).

That’s what I do … optical out from WiiM Pro into Denon AVR (X1700H). Sounds pretty darn good, and I also plug optical out from my LG OLED TV into the WiiM Pro in case I want TV audio to my other WiiMs (I have 3 now). One thing to note is that in the WiiM Home app settings I can only set the max output for Optical to 96/24 from WiiM Optical Out to Denon. That appears to be the maximum Denon can handle (at least for my AVR). Probably the same for coax too but haven’t used that at all. Just something to keep in mind as it was once driving me crazy trying to get the max resolution and realized it was my Denon with the limitation

**EDIT**
Forgot to mention above … the reason I mentioned my TV optical out into WiiM is so that I can use my smart TV apps to see on the screen what is playing when playing smart TV apps (for example SiriusXM) that can also get streamed to other rooms (i.e. WiiMs). I like to see what’s playing on the big screen as well and this works pretty well. Would work the same if you use the Amazon Music app on smart TV. Ultimately a WiiM Home app for Apple TV and smart TVs would be the dream.

 

[Jimbob54]

I can only set the max output for Optical to 96/24 from WiiM Optical Out to Denon.

I dont think the sending device knows the specs of the receiving device via optical. Something else at play there stopping you setting optical out to 24/192 I think. Multiroom setup?

 

[timmo]

I dont think the sending device knows the specs of the receiving device via optical. Something else at play there stopping you setting optical out to 24/192 I think. Multiroom setup?

To clarify, WiiM would let me set 24/192, but I got no sound out of my Denon. So I thought I had a defective WiiM unit until I dug further into my Denon specs and realized it doesn’t support 24/192 (went down a deep rabbit hole and wasted a lot of time and energy thinking it was WiiM’s fault … lol). Just something to keep in mind if you don’t hear anything out of Denon depending on your settings in WiiM.

 

[Jimbob54]

To clarify, WiiM would let me set 24/192, but I got no sound out of my Denon. So I thought I had a defective WiiM unit until I dug further into my Denon specs and realized it doesn’t support 24/192 (went down a deep rabbit hole and wasted a lot of time and energy thinking it was WiiM’s fault … lol). Just something to keep in mind if you don’t hear anything out of Denon depending on your settings in WiiM.

Ah, got you now. Thought you meant the Wiim app wouldn't let you set it to 192.

 

[jcarys]

If there's nothing wrong with your Firestick, I'd just turn the receiver up. Unless it's overheating or clipping, that's what the volume knob is for.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

I can’t help but think that Amazon are continuously shooting themselves in the foot here.

The Fire TV stick could be a superb streamer - indeed, it already is, if they’d only add a digital out, or allowed digital audio out over USB, and included a small number of tweaks to the Amazon Music app.

Cost them next to nothing - potentially nothing other than writing a few lines of code.