WiiM Ultra Streamer Preamp Review

[kyuu]

There's no difference in the "preamp section" of the Wiim Ultra vs. the Pro Plus, as far as I'm aware, so there's no reason to expect it to sound any different. Of course, there's also no plausible mechanism whereby either could be doing anything to the sound for it to sound muffled as you describe, presuming you have made sure there isn't any processing going on that might explain it (EQ settings, errant Room Correction feature). Also, I'm assuming you've tried varying the volume settings between the source, the Wiim, and the amp to make sure you don't have a gain staging issue or a device being driven to severe distortion in the chain.

 

[murielpeak]

Unfortunately, I have to take back my comments about WiiM customer support. After an initial promising interaction where they offered to replace my WiiM Ultra due to defective coax/optical out, it’s now been one month and I have not received a new unit and they stopped responding to my inquiries 3 weeks ago. Radio silence. So I guess I’m stuck with a WiiM Ultra with unusable coax/optical out. Instead I’m using the usb out to a dac (for the xlr connection on the dac), which means i cannot connect my usb music library. Bummer, not what I was expecting.

I stand corrected. Just a day or two after writing this post, WiiM customer support contacted me to say the replacement unit has been shipped (I guess patience is a virtue). It arrived yesterday and the digital out is working normally- problem resolved. I’ll post again if I have any future issues.

 

[murielpeak]

Try posting your WiiM ticket number in the WiiM forum (https://forum.wiimhome.com/) for the attention of the admin team (RyanwithWiim, WiiM Team, WiiM Support) and see if that jolts them into action. I presume your ticket gave details of where you bought the unit etc.

You can simply add a small usb hub like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0CQRN5CB9/ and you can use the Ultra’s USB out as well as connecting your USB library - I and many others already do that.

Good suggestion, but as a matter of principle, I think all the outputs should be working normally and as advertised. I just posted that after a month wait they did replace the unit. So all good now!

 

[murielpeak]

Is this common.
Are there many cases of defective digital connections.
Is there a dedicated thread for this anywhere?

I would think probably not - I haven’t found any threads on the topic. My unit was working fine until suddenly it wasn’t, so I’m not really sure what happened.

 

[Romario]

I asked this question because with the Wiim Pro Plus the preamp section is not good, I had to use a passive preamp

Many people, including myself, use the Wiim products as streamer only connected to a pre amp. It's just trial and error.

 

[antcollinet]

I hear a sound like there is a blanket in front of the speakers

Then there is something wrong with your test setup, or you are hearing the result of your (very human) perceptive biases.

The Pro Plus internal DAC is fully transparent, and differences between it and any other well performing DAC are too small to be heard by any human.

 

[Romario]

Then there is something wrong with your test setup, or you are hearing the result of your (very human) perceptive biases.

The Pro Plus internal DAC is fully transparent, and differences between it and any other well performing DAC are too small to be heard by any human.

I use the Wiim DAC connected to the line in of the pre amp. All the extra electronics degrade the sound probably which gives a slightly different sound signature.

 

[Pritaudio]

does the ultra allow for the app volume control to be disabled. I would rather use the physical volume knob on the unit.
This is so it doesn’t get accidentally swiped in the app.

Also, can I disable the touchscreen display, I don’t want it on.

 

[Deleted member 72219]

does the ultra allow for the app volume control to be disabled. I would rather use the physical volume knob on the unit.
This is so it doesn’t get accidentally swiped in the app.

Also, can I disable the touchscreen display, I don’t want it on.

Display can be disabled.

Sorry, not sure if the soft volume slider can be disabled without also disabling the volume control at the dial.

-Ed

 

[Romario]

The issue with the volume is that the Ultra only sleeps and thus the volume you left it with is the one you start with. To bypass that, I first wake m up and adjust the volume before playing a tune.

 

[Pritaudio]

Is there any problem with toslink cable lengths on the Wiim.
Such as optical in or optical out.
I tried to connect my tv 4-5m away via toslink and I get problems with the signal.
I know I can use hdmi, but I had this problem with the Wiim pro model before.

 

[Deleted member 72219]

Is there any problem with toslink cable lengths on the Wiim.
Such as optical in or optical out.
I tried to connect my tv 4-5m away via toslink and I get problems with the signal.
I know I can use hdmi, but I had this problem with the Wiim pro model before.

Have you tried coax? Or a different optical cable?

-Ed

 

[Good Vibes]

I recently received and am impressed by the Ultra however, when I bought it, I didn’t realise the USB port could not be used to connect a laptop. Connecting a laptop via USB is an important feature to me, is there perhaps something I can buy and connect to the WiiM to give me this connectivity? I am hoping there will be a relatively cheap yet competent solution.

 

[Deleted member 72219]

I recently received and am impressed by the Ultra however, when I bought it, I didn’t realise the USB port could not be used to connect a laptop. Connecting a laptop via USB is an important feature to me, is there perhaps something I can buy and connect to the WiiM to give me this connectivity? I am hoping there will be a relatively cheap yet competent solution.

Any way to give your laptop a USB to TOSLink adapter? Something like the SMSL PO100 or Douk U2 might work.

-Ed

 

[90sNintendoKid]

I recently received and am impressed by the Ultra however, when I bought it, I didn’t realise the USB port could not be used to connect a laptop. Connecting a laptop via USB is an important feature to me, is there perhaps something I can buy and connect to the WiiM to give me this connectivity? I am hoping there will be a relatively cheap yet competent solution.

I have USB from my computer into a SMSL PO100 Pro then optical into a Wiim Ultra.

 

[Mort]

I recently received and am impressed by the Ultra however, when I bought it, I didn’t realise the USB port could not be used to connect a laptop. Connecting a laptop via USB is an important feature to me, is there perhaps something I can buy and connect to the WiiM to give me this connectivity? I am hoping there will be a relatively cheap yet competent solution.

@EddNog has my preferred solution. Skip USB and connect with Toslink. Lots of those, cubilux makes a reputable one.

You could connect another DAC to the USB and go from there. I've done that but it's kludgy.

 

[uofmtiger]

@EddNog has my preferred solution. Skip USB and connect with Toslink. Lots of those, cubilux makes a reputable one.

You could connect another DAC to the USB and go from there. I've done that but it's kludgy.

Yeah, I use a Topping D10 Dac for this, but I already had it in my possession, so the added expense was zero. It does occupy more space than some of the other options, but not a big deal in my setup.

 

[Good Vibes]

@EddNog has my preferred solution. Skip USB and connect with Toslink. Lots of those, cubilux makes a reputable one.

You could connect another DAC to the USB and go from there. I've done that but it's kludgy.

Thanks for all responses.

I see the SMSL PO100 Pro has been impressively measured on here and seems like a good option. The cubilux is more wallet friendly and has a smaller footprint, will it maintain a high quality audio signal? Do you know if it has been tested anywhere?

 

[Audio Science Pal]

Someone wanting a stereo might read this thread and get the impression that things are complicated, so I just wanted to describe that I have a WiiM Ultra connected to a stereo amplifier that powers a pair of speakers. Simple.

 

[vantagesc]

Do I need a separate pre-amp in my stereo system if running all my sources through the Wiim Ultra? This has been touched on several times in this thread, but wanted to make sure I am understanding things correctly. My chain is the Wiim Ultra --> Denon AVR --> Linkwitz Orion speaker system (powered by analog crossover and Rotel 1048 8ch amp with 1V input sensitivity). Since I'm not using the Denon AVR for anything but volume control, I'd like to remove it from the chain.

It sounds like I could simply connect the Ultra directly to the analog crossover / Rotel and limit the output to 1V in the settings. Different people have different opinions on the efficacy of using the Ultra's digital volume control in terms of sound quality, but the view on this forum is that the digital volume control is fine. That aside, I do have concerns about one day running into a software bug that causes full volume to be input into my Orions.

So wondering if perhaps something like a Schiit Sys would do the trick or whether a full-on preamp that can buffer the output signal is needed.

Thanks all.