WiiM Ultra Streamer Preamp Review

[aagstn]

There is definitely some talk / concern about this over on the WiiM forum:

RCA ports a bit fragile?

Hi, So my cables are pretty hard to fit and a have to use a little force on the Ultra to get them to stay put. Yesterday I took one of the cables out and could se that one of the ports was draged out just a little, I had to push it back in with my finger. Do you thinks it is alright as long as...

forum.wiimhome.com

I also found inserting/removing cables from the RCA outs difficult and worried that I would damage something...

Wonder if they designed them for the monoprice cables that fall out if you barely touch the device.

 

[aagstn]

No AirPlay makes it useless to me.

This is a weird omission. I used this quite a bit when I had a Pro Plus.

 

[mlsstl]

This [Airplay] is a weird omission. I used this quite a bit when I had a Pro Plus.

I'm not an Apple device user so have no horse in this race, but I have followed the various discussions on the WiiM and other forums. Previous WiiM devices include Airplay capability (and apparently still work) and the original announcement of the Ultra said it would also do Airplay. Then, suddenly, an announcement was made that Apple was now going to require specific hardware going forward for a device to handle Airplay and the Ultra didn't meet this spec. Apple has said nothing on the subject and WiiM's comments have been very circumspect. As such, it is hard to know to what extent WiiM made incorrect presumptions or missed a notice about changes in what's required versus Apple moving the goalpost. So, it strikes me as a dispute between a small corporation and a behemouth over licensing legalities. But that's just my guess.

 

[GXAlan]

A Friend of mine reported me yesterday that this wiim is far better than his McIntosh d100 ... He's just so surprised ... An audiophile dream just vanish

Electronics and DACs are computers. The D100 gave him audible transparency in 2012. It’s still worth over $1k used, so he can still sell the McIntosh and then get the new WiiM Ultra.

The real power is in the EQ, and McIntosh had the MEN220…

So the magic of modern products is that things normally reserved for the wealthy are available to all. Think about cars with airbags, ABS, driver assistance

 

[Willyspu]

I am 9 pages in to the review and no one has mentioned one of the greatest aspects of the WiiM family of products. All of the WiiMs as long as they are on the same network can be linked together to create multiple music room environments all controlled by your phone app.
We are building a new home and I have already identified 6 zones where I want music: family room, bedroom, den, outdoor room, by the pool, workout room. Each of these rooms will be a "zone" with it's own WiiM located in my electronics closet. I will be able to choose music for each zone, the volume etc. They can have the same music or different music.
Yes, this is available in commercial systems for big money on complex set ups or using SONOS for 3x the WiiM price. But with these little and relatively inexpensive WiiMs, I can set up many zones and manage them all with an app or have a cheap tablet in each room for control. I can use the higher quality WiiMs where sound matters and the cheaper ones where I just need some background music and they all work together.

I see this as a breakthrough for whole home sound systems.

 

[aagstn]

I'm not an Apple device user so have no horse in this race, but I have followed the various discussions on the WiiM and other forums. Previous WiiM devices include Airplay capability (and apparently still work) and the original announcement of the Ultra said it would also do Airplay. Then, suddenly, an announcement was made that Apple was now going to require specific hardware going forward for a device to handle Airplay and the Ultra didn't meet this spec. Apple has said nothing on the subject and WiiM's comments have been very circumspect. As such, it is hard to know to what extent WiiM made incorrect presumptions or missed a notice about changes in what's required versus Apple moving the goalpost. So, it strikes me as a dispute between a small corporation and a behemouth over licensing legalities. But that's just my guess.

That makes sense. It has to be tough for a small company like WiiM trying to hit a competitive price point to do everything needed to get Airplay and Chromecast support.

 

[GXAlan]

That makes sense. It has to be tough for a small company like WiiM trying to hit a competitive price point to do everything needed to get Airplay and Chromecast support.

WiiM is LinkPlay, which is small relative to Massimo or Sonos, but they have been around since 2012 and are venture capital backed by companies like Baidu, Edifer and raised a Series C in 2017.

 

[khuntim]

It's hooked up to a Topping E50 DAC and sounds great in my setup,

Have you tried the USB out to the E50 DAC?

 

[pogo]

I need to purchase a WaxWing for another $500 to spin my records.

Which is more of an advantage.

 

[Appleguy33]

Pretty good pricing!

 

[Gremlins]

To connect to active speakers with coax input is a need.
Preferable than going through the DAC only to feed back into an ADC.
It’s one of the features, along with room correction that is critical for my use case.

Would you think there would be bugs with digital output?

Its clean as ever, don't worry and don't think its critical

 

[Gremlins]

Electronics and DACs are computers. The D100 gave him audible transparency in 2012. It’s still worth over $1k used, so he can still sell the McIntosh and then get the new WiiM Ultra.

The real power is in the EQ, and McIntosh had the MEN220…

So the magic of modern products is that things normally reserved for the wealthy are available to all. Think about cars with airbags, ABS, driver assistance

He actualy has the wiim, sitting next to his 2012 McIntosh... And he acknowledge that wiim is far better ... No surprise to me, but for being fan of this brand he canot understand how this IS possible...

 

[AndreaT]

I still find confusing enough to understand if it can read and play FLAC files stored, with album cover art, on a SSD external drive. As a streamer, not being a server, probably not. For those like me who have transferred over 90thousand music files from their decades old CD collection it is of paramount importance. My experience so far has been excellent with the expensive Weiss MAN-301, so-so with the Cambridge and the Topping servers. The archive system and the user’s interface are also of paramount importance: most excellent on Weiss, horrible on the other two mentioned.

 

[khuntim]

Not sure if it has wireless rears like the NAD M10 or if it just decodes Dolby Digital for the benefits of dynamic range normalization and virtualization of the rear channels.

It would be nice to have Dolby Atmos support since virtualization of the height channels is better than no virtualization.

Interested in the dynamic range normalization with my Ultra. when using the ARC input I seem to always be raising the volume to hear dialog, then lower it on higher volume material.

I do prefer using DD out from my Sony TV as opposed to setting it to PCM using Ultra's AC3 decoder..

I have the source Onn Pro box set to output stereo though, still messing with different ideas, trying to get more even volume.

This is really the only issue I have, works well for music. Thanks for any ideas.

 

[Oski1928]

Don’t want to ask for further testing as I’m sure this was already a lot of work, but does anyone know what the best performing DAC filter is on this unit?

 

[JSmith]

does anyone know what the best performing DAC filter is on this unit?

From what I read there is no filter selection available, however the default used is fine;

JSmith

 

[Oski1928]

From what I read there is no filter selection available, however the default used is fine;

View attachment 395785


JSmith

I got mine today, and there is definitely a bunch of option. Fair enough though lol.

 

[JSmith]

there is definitely a bunch of option.

Ah, good to know... Amir couldn't find the settings so I assumed they set one filter only rather than showing the ESS filter options;

Frequency response is nice which is a good thing as I didn't see any option of changing the filter:

JSmith

 

[Mort]

Ah, good to know... Amir couldn't find the settings so I assumed they set one filter only rather than showing the ESS filter options;



JSmith

It's only for line out.

 

[uofmtiger]

No AirPlay makes it useless to me.

If you have another Wiim device, you can currently AirPlay to it and link the Ultra. AirPlay 2 is lossy, so probably not an ideal way to use the Ultra, but I like it for convenience. I have several ways to AirPlay to the Ultra, but the biggest shortfall is the lack of album art on the LCD screen… though, Airplaying to my TV puts artwork on that larger screen and plays audio via HDMI through the Ultra. I can live with the workaround. I mainly use Amazon Music with the Ultra, though.