WiiM Ultra Streamer Preamp Review

[JaccoW]

I understand your disappointment but "High end device" and bluetooth sound bad in the same sentence.

The Topping D70 with LDAC is a high-end device as well.
Support for up to 990 kbps over Bluetooth means most lossless FLAC files will work perfectly fine.

It's just a very convenient protocol with a very wide support.

Or are you the only one that can play back music on your system? Having friends enjoy it through their device with their own playlists is a pleasure of mine.

 

[RoA]

Jack of all trades, master of none? Even so, amazing what they've packed into it.

I hope others will follow soon.

 

[Petrushka]

Jack of all trades, master of none? Even so, amazing what they've packed into it.

I hope others will follow soon.

You don’t have to be better than transparent.

I’m curious if the Ultra could run Dirac.that would be interesting.

 

[pewe]

Features and price are great on the Ultra. But, ultimately I want better build quality, XLR out and a "proper" room correction, like Dirac. I would gladly pay double to get that. The upcoming Bluesound Node Icon looks promising but at a much higher price.

 

[Brian Hall]

and what would you connect to the already existing line input?

Analog out from a CD player. Analog out from my 24 track digital recorder. Analog out from a DAP. Analog out from another DAC since the Ultra didn't provide coax or USB C inputs.

Lots of possibilities.

 

[Romario]

Maybe it doesn't measure better than a Pro + or a Pro with external DAC, but it sure does look better than those flimsy little plastic boxes.

Thanks for the review!

 

[TonyJZX]

the behavior of the rj45 and wifi is the same as consoles

you can run either but not both - - remeber these things are designed for bulk numpties like consoles and there will not be a normal situation where you need BOTH

also i think i read on their forums that they are using a qca3000 level bt chipset so sbc and aac is all you get but they implied that they know its an issue for some people and they will accomodate that in the next model

my feelings about analog device input ins that i can see how some people might like to add eq to an analog signal however i'm probably of the opinion more people would love to add peq to a SOTA digital source

but this company is very receptive to customer input and will release updates at a whim and for a mere $329 tis is not even question in this industry where they will ghost you if you spend several thousand

 

[Left]

An easily overlooked feature for those who are looking for FIR or convolution filters: the Ultra has per input equalization filters. Each input remembers the last profile it used. As both Roon and LMS provide FIR filters, for those that stream primarily from these sources, they are 50% of the way there. Changing streams would require changing the equalization preset but first world problems. It does neatly address those that use the Ultra with their TV. The HDMI input would have its own, low latency equalization.

 

[ryanmh1]

Reality check though; comprehensive inputs (including HDMI arc), room correction, PEQ (so manual adjustments to the RC), sub management (crossover, with timing management quite likely in a firmware update), transparent DAC and with a headphone amp and phono stage thrown in ... all for £350. How much would it cost to get the same functionality and quality with alternatives?

I wanted this to be better, in reality though it's probably more than good enough

If you want a screen in this form factor, I don't think you can do better for less or even similar price. True, the analog section could be better, but if you're all digital, this is already great, particularly if the room correction actually works. Hook this to a Hypex and you're kinda at end game setup. Which is annoying. Because it's boring and takes all the fun of playing with gear out. This sort of stuff is really for people who like listening to music and not playing with stereo equipment.

EDIT: I don't see that the line out max voltage was tested. I assumed it would push 3V since the headphone output will. If it will not do that and will only meet spec sheet of 2.1V, there's an issue with using a Hypex on line out since most of them cannot be driven to full output with 2V. So there's a minor question mark, but I suppose you could always use the headphone output. [Spec sheet of this (which is not unreasonable at 2.1V) is a prime example of why I made a big stink about the ridiculous gain structure of the Hypex default implementations, and other "low gain" amplifiers. Who the @#$% wants to buy something that doesn't work with vast numbers of line outs as they are specified from the factory?! Instead, you're left with hope and faith that line outs exceed spec, or wait for someone to test it]

All that said, a line out measurement would probably be useful for people with Hypex or Topping low gain amps.

 

[shuppatsu]

Lack of LDAC or any high end bluetooth is a deal breaker for me on a high end device that wants to do everything.

I understand your disappointment but "High end device" and bluetooth sound bad in the same sentence.

I'll come from the opposite direction. AAC is high end bluetooth in that it provides just as high quality as LDAC.

As you can see, both the iPhone 11 (2019) and iPhone 14 Pro (2022) performed really well on the tests. THD+N scored better than -70dB and TD+N better than -65dB. These numbers are similar to the best that LDAC 909kbps achieved in Android. But the great thing is that Bluetooth transmission using AAC is only at 256kbps with the iPhones which means improved reliability (no dropouts) and range.

The caveat is that Android phones muck it up, so you need an iPhone. But that's not the receiver's fault.

 

[JustCoolin‘]

Not happy at all how they handled the (lack of) Airplay situation. They may have lied, and they definitely informed their official distributors too late, so I had to cancel my preorder.

Worst of all, they locked every thread that so much as mentioned the evil word AirPlay, even those with helpful workarounds (like Chromecast). An email I‘ve sent got no response whatsoever.

All deeply unprofessional and a bit silly, really. I own a Pro Plus and a Mini, but they‘ve lost me as a customer for now.

 

[BrooklynNick]

In this case the DAC is excellent so I don't see a need for digital out.

Given that the headphone output is not good and that a lot of us already own DAC/headphone amp combos that measure a lot better than the Ultra, I think it makes a lot of sense to use the digital outs rather than the analog outs. One less cable and better performance (although probably an inaudible difference).

 

[mlsstl]

Not happy at all how they handled the (lack of) Airplay situation. They may have lied, and they definitely informed their official distributors too late, so I had to cancel my preorder.

Worst of all, they locked every thread that so much as mentioned the evil word AirPlay, even those with helpful workarounds (like Chromecast). An email I‘ve sent got no response whatsoever.

All deeply unprofessional and a bit silly, really. I own a Pro Plus and a Mini, but they‘ve lost me as a customer for now.

In the absence of additional info, I'm unwilling to place 100% of the blame on WiiM for the Airplay situation. After 40+ years of dealing with many big corporations in a variety of circumstances, I strongly suspect that Apple also played a negative role in how things developed. And I also believe that, for legalistic and/or business reasons, neither entity is interested in providing any further details as to what happened and how, especially if there is a possibility of the situation still developing further.

In the meantime, one of the other things I've noticed over the years is that when a company won't tell you what's going on, people will make up their own story to explain what happened, and that story in inevitably darker and worse than reality.

That said, it doesn't surprise me that many Apple fans are ticked about where things stand right now.

 

[D700]

Yeah, I was all set to buy 3 of these for all our listening through the house, really wanted ability to see/select what was playing without being chained to a screen. I actually was first post suggesting the Ultra name and asking for the feature set over on Wiim....but dang:

1) Lack of airplay 2 is killer...I was really hoping for a switch to force Airplay 1 lossless codec but now they've gone backwards
2) Screen is toooooooo small
3) No balanced out
4) No coax out

I was really expecting all of above for around $500. Without at least Airplay and a larger screen, no reason to upgrade from the Pro. I applaud that they're focused on <$400 devices, I guess I need to move up to the $800 range Eversolo.

 

[BrooklynNick]

Yeah, I was all set to buy 3 of these for all our listening through the house, really wanted ability to see/select what was playing without being chained to a screen. I actually was first post suggesting the Ultra name and asking for the feature set over on Wiim....but dang:

1) Lack of airplay 2 is killer...I was really hoping for a switch to force Airplay 1 lossless codec but now they've gone backwards
2) Screen is toooooooo small
3) No balanced out
4) No coax out

I was really expecting all of above for around $500. Without at least Airplay and a larger screen, no reason to upgrade from the Pro. I applaud that they're focused on <$400 devices, I guess I need to move up to the $800 range Eversolo.

It has coax out. To the right of the phono out.

 

[TraverS]

I'll come from the opposite direction. AAC is high end bluetooth in that it provides just as high quality as LDAC.


The caveat is that Android phones muck it up, so you need an iPhone. But that's not the receiver's fault.

Topping BC3 Review (Bluetooth Receiver) & BT CODECs

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping BC3 Bluetooth receiver and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the online seller, Yaoyaotiger HIFI Audio Store and costs US $69. This is a follow up to our previous tests of Bluetooth receivers and investigating performance of...

www.audiosciencereview.com

From the test here, LDAC is better. And I remember reading about AAC having dynamic low frequency noise some where here, that is probably more noticeable than any distortion.

 

[JustCoolin‘]

In the absence of additional info, I'm unwilling to place 100% of the blame on WiiM for the Airplay situation. After 40+ years of dealing with many big corporations in a variety of circumstances, I strongly suspect that Apple also played a negative role in how things developed. And I also believe that, for legalistic and/or business reasons, neither entity is interested in providing any further details as to what happened and how, especially if there is a possibility of the situation still developing further.

In the meantime, one of the other things I've noticed over the years is that when a company won't tell you what's going on, people will make up their own story to explain what happened, and that story in inevitably darker and worse than reality.

That said, it doesn't surprise me that many Apple fans are ticked about where things stand right now.

I hear you, but I don‘t blame them for the lack of AirPlay support, really, I blame them for their unprofessional way of handling the situation when it turned out the device doesn’t have AirPlay. Whether it‘s Linkplay or Apple who are to blame is almost irrelevant.

 

[mlsstl]

I hear you, but I don‘t blame them for the lack of AirPlay support, really, I blame them for their unprofessional way of handling the situation when it turned out the device doesn’t have AirPlay. Whether it‘s Linkplay or Apple who are to blame is almost irrelevant.

Since all of their previous devices have Airplay, I can't help but wonder if they were proceeding as normal for the Ultra and only discovered too late in the game that Apple had moved the goalposts. It's fairly common for a big company to keep new products or changes a secret until they are ready to make a formal public announcement. It may have just been bad luck for WiiM as respects the timing of the Ultra. From a few search-engine results, compare Linkplay with its roughly 100 employees and $10 or $15 million in revenue to Apple's 160,000 employees and $360 billion in revenue -- Apple is not going to spend much time thinking about what impact their decisions have on a peanut-sized company. And, when the sh*t officially hits the fan, WiiM has to be very careful about what they say if they ever hope to work cooperatively with Apple in the future, which explains their poor and awkward public announcements.

From my perspective, I'm surprised things like this don't happen more often.

 

[shuppatsu]

Topping BC3 Review (Bluetooth Receiver) & BT CODECs

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping BC3 Bluetooth receiver and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the online seller, Yaoyaotiger HIFI Audio Store and costs US $69. This is a follow up to our previous tests of Bluetooth receivers and investigating performance of...

www.audiosciencereview.com

From the test here, LDAC is better. And I remember reading about AAC having dynamic low frequency noise some where here, that is probably more noticeable than any distortion.

That review is entirely consistent with what I wrote:

Switching to AAC shows the poor quality we have seen which I am guessing is due to Android implementation of AAC encoder (meant to test this with an iPhone but forgot -- will do so later)

Narrator: He did not in fact test with an iPhone later.

 

[pablolie]

I'd prefer them to skip phono inputs - anyone that's halfway serious about vinyl would get a dedicated preamp instead of using these ho-hum implementations, I'd expect (caveat: I abandoned vinyl in the late 90s). I'd rather see that useless $ in development going towards a better headphone amp.

I'd also prefer a coax analog input, rather than a coax digital output (I guess that's what the coax out it).

That said, for a bit over $300 this is an awesome list of features and very good performance as a preamp-streamer.