WiiM Ultra Streamer Preamp Review

[Romario]

On the first page of the RC I clicked the grinding wheel and limited the window to be measured from about 50 to 1700 Hz. The ultra remembers the
setting so I don't know what te default was. Maybe the answer lies there.

 

[Miguelón]

On the first page of the RC I clicked the grinding wheel and limited the window to be measured from about 50 to 1700 Hz. The ultra remembers the
setting so I don't know what te default was. Maybe the answer lies there.

Thanks, the answer was on the room settings, but I was right: the WiiM tried to correct primarily lows and mids and didn’t have more place for trebles.

I reduced the Q value to 6 to avoid so many corrections and too steep.

Now is correcting the elevated region above 8-10 kHz.

 

[Romario]

Thanks, the answer was on the room settings, but I was right: the WiiM tried to correct primarily lows and mids and didn’t have more place for trebles.

I reduced the Q value to 6 to avoid so many corrections and too steep.

Now is correcting the elevated region above 8-10 kHz.

Personally I prefer to adjust the trebles manually if needed, but it sure is nice to play with this feauture!

 

[AudioJester]

I have another curiosity, mine is obviating the elevation on the highs, or perhaps had exhausted the 10 parameter on the lows and mids…

View attachment 401831

Are you sure that treble elevation is real and not a measurement issue? What speakers?

 

[Miguelón]

Are you sure that treble elevation is real and not a measurement issue? What speakers?

Maybe a measurement issue, is constantly there in various speakers I tried. Also are a marble table at left side and the screen of the TV on the right.

Speakers are Genelec G Three, same as 8030C but with less sensitivity and an extra RCA input

 

[AudioJester]

Maybe a measurement issue, is constantly there in various speakers I tried. Also are a marble table at left side and the screen of the TV on the right.

Speakers are Genelec G Three, same as 8030C but with less sensitivity and an extra RCA input

Unless a definite audible issue, not sure I would try and correct that.

 

[Miguelón]

Unless a definite audible issue, not sure I would try and correct that.

I can try measuring in another place without reflecting surfaces or at closest distance to avoid returning sound. If it disappears should be a reflection (reflexion ?)

 

[EJ3]

I can try measuring in another place without reflecting surfaces or at closest distance to avoid returning sound. If it disappears should be a reflection (reflexion ?)

reflection is correct in this usage.

 

[AudioJester]

I can try measuring in another place without reflecting surfaces or at closest distance to avoid returning sound. If it disappears should be a reflection (reflexion ?)

Measuring and EQ are tools to help identify and fix an audible problem. Is there something you can hear?

If we just use eq to fix a squiggly line - it will often sound worse.

 

[TimW]

I've really been enjoying my Ultra but there has been a few issues with no sound output. Two or three times this happened with the HDMI ARC input, the TV would turn on as usual and so would the Wiim but there just wouldn't be any sound. Rebooting the wiim or turning on and off the TV would fix it. Today this happened but now there was no sound with the HDMI, optical, or line inputs. Only the wifi input produced sound. Rebooting the unit once again fixed the issue but it's just annoying to me and confusing to my roommate. I've never owned a consumer audio component that needed to be rebooted regularly to work properly.

 

[Miguelón]

Measuring and EQ are tools to help identify and fix an audible problem. Is there something you can hear?

If we just use eq to fix a squiggly line - it will often sound worse.

Yes, too much brilliant sound, since I changed the place of speakers.

With the room correction in automatic mode and some reductions of the gain to soften the EQ has improved a lot the low end and some irritarting mid-highs and trebles.

Since I always test recordings I know very well, don’t seem to be an issue of the recording, and also are present in my two setups (Genelec 8020 and Genelec G Three) in that place.

I guess are a combination of screen and marble surfaces, behind the speaker they are glass door and windows also, but is not probable that a 8 kHz sound go back and bounce on the glass…

 

[Romario]

Measuring and EQ are tools to help identify and fix an audible problem. Is there something you can hear?

If we just use eq to fix a squiggly line - it will often sound worse.

I think the RC in the Ultra is a great way finding that out on the cheap and without additional software, just a mic connected to a tablet. As I read somewhere is that above 300 Hz or so one is not correcting the room anymore but is eqing the speakers ( including placement).
Switching out speaker pairs and start over gave also more satisfying results to the ear. Let's play on!

 

[Miguelón]

I think the RC in the Ultra is a great way finding that out on the cheap and without additional software, just a mic connected to a tablet. As I read somewhere is that above 300 Hz or so one is not correcting the room anymore but is eqing the speakers ( including placement).
Switching out speaker pairs and start over gave also more satisfying results to the ear. Let's play on!

I didn’t lnow that you can connect a mic to the tablet, which mic and how do you connect it?

What you red is not true, they are reflections on many surfaces, I think it was only in the case of room modes.

But depending on the reflection coefficient of the materials, you can have troubles on any place of the spectrum.

Also is nothing bad about correcting the speaker frequency curve, if doing it subtle. In room response of Genelec 8030C for example, have a little dip on the marching interval between woofer and tweeter, boosting 2 or 3 decibels there it helps a more clean sound.

Usually you obtain good results correcting low end, and softening/gently boosting the main spikes /dips shown by the analysis. Ear is helpful there, don’t get auto corrections as literally

 

[Romario]

I bought the Umik 1 connected to the usb-c. But there are more alternatives.

 

[Miguelón]

I bought the Umik 1 connected to the usb-c. But there are more alternatives.

Thanks, the Umik 1 was recommended to me in another occasions, but didn’t know that can be plugged on the tablet and WiiM app accepted. Irrationally, no reasons whatsoever for the WiiM software to differentiate the onboard mic and reject a third party ones, but was one that stupid things one (or at least me) pass through the brain…

 

[harkpabst]

What you red is not true, they are reflections on many surfaces, I think it was only in the case of room modes.

But depending on the reflection coefficient of the materials, you can have troubles on any place of the spectrum.

Also is nothing bad about correcting the speaker frequency curve, if doing it subtle.

This is a massive simplification, at best.

Correction over the entire frequency range is usually something between difficult to do and pointless.

 

[Miguelón]

This is a massive simplification, at best.

Correction over the entire frequency range is usually something between difficult to do and pointless.

Hummm, I was not advising to correct the whole range but I don’t find any reason to limit only to 300 Hz.

If you’re going to stay on a sweet spot all time, reflecions are important. Of course if you move constantly (as I often do when listening to ambient music), just some room modes… I even let one single speaker on, if I’m not listening in front of speakers.

I agree, is a lot simplistic, but you can agree that if some dip or spike is bothering, whatever the frequency, one can freely modify it and verify the result. By mic and by ear

 

[EJ3]

Hummm, I was not advising to correct the whole range but I don’t find any reason to limit only to 300 Hz.

If you’re going to stay on a sweet spot all time, reflections are important. Of course if you move constantly (as I often do when listening to ambient music), just some room modes… I even let one single speaker on, if I’m not listening in front of speakers.

I agree, is a lot simplistic, but you can agree that if some dip or spike is bothering, whatever the frequency, one can freely modify it and verify the result. By mic and by ear

I rarely am sitting in the "sweet" spot and am almost always moving around.
In my living room there (where the stereo is) is a bay window (about triple the size of a normal window on the right (as you are facing the stereo), slightly longer side wall, naturally causing some side reflections. I do not have any form of DSP (yet) but have done something that is A. adjustable B. the adjustments affect the reflections form the bay window C. this was accidentally discovered through my wife's, natural design inclinations.
She had me hang a 2/3 height (from the bottom of the bay window 2/3 to the top of the bay window) standard grey (lets some light through but not shear) curtain that fits almost flush with the wall & 2 & 1/2" beyond the sides and is 1" longer than the bay window (this leaves about a 5" gap between the curtain & the bay window [she said so that I could walk around with no shirt on] {I am always warmer than she is, so, around the house, when she is dressed normally, I am in slippers, shorts & no shirt or a light T-Shirt} but could not be seen by people across the street during the day, yet some daylight could come in).
She also had me hang a full length shear curtain (just in front of and starting from 6" above the top of the bay window to the floor. This curtains folds back edges just touch the other curtains folds front edges.
In addition, she had me hang a third full length curtain that has alternating 14" normal & shear sections (both a bit thicker weight that a normal floor length curtain has) that run the width of the curtain 3" in front of that curtain.
The next time I turned the stereo on, I realized that the higher frequency reflections had been mitigated some & that I could adjust their effect by adjusting the curtains.
I hope that this information can help you with your problem in some fashion..
EJ3

 

[Abdo]

I’ve got my Wiim Ultra working as a streaming transport only using Roon. I use the USB output to SMSL M500 MKIII which delivers balanced to a Topping Pre90 and then out to my pair of HypeX Nilai500DIY mono blocks. All of which I’ve bought thanks to Amir’s reviews of each. It sounds superb. The small screen is a helpful display of album art and the eArc HDMI is a great input for the TV which also gives me volume control with the remote. For the price, and with these features, it’s great value. I’ve not used the native DAC and using the MM phono input via my existing chain just sounds very weird. Thanks for the review.

Good morning, the question I'm always asking but without an answer.
I bought the Wiim Ultra and I love the work it does, so much so that I had a CXN V2 and put the Wiim Ultra as the main one. My question is whether it's worth having a DAC between the Wiim Ultra and my MA 6800 (Mcintosh)?
I saw the notes of the SMSL M500 MKIII. And then I ask, will I have a gain in quality with it compared to what I'm using today?

 

[Miguelón]

I rarely am sitting in the "sweet" spot and am almost always moving around.
In my living room there (where the stereo is) is a bay window (about triple the size of a normal window on the right (as you are facing the stereo), slightly longer side wall, naturally causing some side reflections. I do not have any form of DSP (yet) but have done something that is A. adjustable B. the adjustments affect the reflections form the bay window C. this was accidentally discovered through my wife's, natural design inclinations.
She had me hang a 2/3 height (from the bottom of the bay window 2/3 to the top of the bay window) standard grey (lets some light through but not shear) curtain that fits almost flush with the wall & 2 & 1/2" beyond the sides and is 1" longer than the bay window (this leaves about a 5" gap between the curtain & the bay window [she said so that I could walk around with no shirt on] {I am always warmer than she is, so, around the house, when she is dressed normally, I am in slippers, shorts & no shirt or a light T-Shirt} but could not be seen by people across the street during the day, yet some daylight could come in).
She also had me hang a full length shear curtain (just in front of and starting from 6" above the top of the bay window to the floor. This curtains folds back edges just touch the other curtains folds front edges.
In addition, she had me hang a third full length curtain that has alternating 14" normal & shear sections (both a bit thicker weight that a normal floor length curtain has) that run the width of the curtain 3" in front of that curtain.
The next time I turned the stereo on, I realized that the higher frequency reflections had been mitigated some & that I could adjust their effect by adjusting the curtains.
I hope that this information can help you with your problem in some fashion..
EJ3

I knew the posibility of using curtains to avoid windows reflections, in fact was advised to do it.

But since I suffer from rhinitis I should avoid carpets and curtains, probably this is the reason of too many reflections on high region of the spectrum in my living room.

It doesn’t match exactly the “moderate reflective room” that is on the studies of acousitcs.

Before buying my WiiM and having no way to EQ, I always had fatiguing sensation from speakers, no matter the brand (I tried a lot of them). Finally the explanation came from some spikes on the mid-high and treble regions.

Now I’m sure that EQ improves a lot of things, also the bass is wonderful even if my 5 inches monitors are not very good on this side. The little I feel from a good bass guitar is wellcome