Not offended at all, but think there’s a little miss understanding on my post.
Each 6 dB you go down on the WiiM remote or the WiiM knob, or the WiiM app you will loose 1 bit of information.
This is a fact, not an opinion. And is true to every DAC, no matter the construction. You can in someway attenuate this by over sampling all to 24 bit/192 kHz which all modern DACs do.
But you still retouch and loose information as down as you low the volume, and increase the noise.
With a bit perfect (or close to bit perfect if you equalize some modes by lowering gain at the desired frequencies) you will send the most of the original digital data as possible.
The difference is not a game changer, many tracks have enough data at 12-13 bits to be totally satisfactory, but complex recordings (I mean many instrumentals playing at same time, tiny dynamic mattering, high dynamic range between sections) maybe desirable to have a true preamp (voltage analogue attenuator in this case) to preserve the most of the original. As an extreme, a 16 bit CD played at -60 dBFS sounds like a bad bluetooth.
I find simplicity very attractive, but WiiM lack a good preamp section: only works at 2, 1, 0.8, 0.5, and 0.2 mV and that’s all.
At best, in my setup I can choose the 0.5 V rms signal output and keep the digital volume at 85% or more, still I don’t exactly how much this is in terms of dBFS
POST EDITING: It would cost barely nothing to WiiM team to put an analogue volume knob on the front of the hub, and let the remote or the amp to work digitally. I was quite deceived when I learned my 400€ all-in-one was only a streamer-DAC. I don’t think they can consider that is a DAC-preamp because lacks of analogue section. One can always choose its best preference to treat signal with the 3 block DAC, preamp, amp…