Airplay 2 Cast Beta - Testing experiences

[Brantome]

Please use this thread only to discuss your personal experience with the testing of the Airplay 2 Cast feature and the beta firmware you requested. This thread should not replace submitting tickets as that route provides WiiM support with the necessary device and app logs to diagnose and hopefully fix any issues.

From what WiiM have already posted:

“For those testing please see the tutorials below.

• AirPlay 2 Casting

We appreciate your ongoing participation as a Beta tester. To use AirPlay 2 Cast, please update your WiiM Home App to the newest version. For iOS users, please update to version 2.5.5, and for Android users, please update to version 2.5.4.

Firmware 4.8.525058 only includes the AirPlay 2 Cast feature.

If you encounter any issues during the update process or while using this function, please do not hesitate to contact us. Your feedback is invaluable to us.

Thank you for your continued support and contribution to our Beta testing program!”

 

[Brantome]

iOS app updated to 2.5.5 on my iPad, and Android app updated to 2.5.4 on my Moto Edge 30 Fusion phone this morning. WiiM Pro already updated to firmware v4.8.525058 yesterday.

First quick look is that the iOS app looks good and selection of Airplay 2 output speaker(s) from my WiiM Pro‘s Now Playing screen is intuitive and quite slick, taking me to a page where I can see my three Airplay 2 targets (my other two WiiM devices and my Linn amp). The Android app however shows “Change” rather than “Connect” on the same output menu, but doesn’t list any target airplay devices. While I appreciate Airplay isn’t native to Android, I would have expected it to pick up the targets that the Pro, not it, can see. First ticket submitted before I got out of bed

I’ll actually try to use the feature later…

 

[onlyoneme]

After very rough testing it looks like the content is resampled to 44.1/16 and the transmission is not lossless even between 2 WiiMs.

 

[Brantome]

After very rough testing it looks like the content is resampled to 44.1/16 and the transmission is not lossless even between 2 WiiMs.

Yeah, just tried that sending a 24/48 track to my WiiM Mini and Wiim Pro Plus - the Mini shows 16/44.1 while the Pro Plus didn’t show any resolution info. I also had added my Linn amp and it nearly blew the roof off - guess I should have unset max fixed volume in the Wiim Pro settings before having done that…

Maybe worth another ticket…

 

[onlyoneme]

Yeah, just tried that sending a 24/48 track to my WiiM Mini and Wiim Pro Plus - the Mini shows 16/44.1 while the Pro Plus didn’t show any resolution info. I also had added my Linn amp and it nearly blew the roof off - guess I should have unset max fixed volume in the Wiim Pro settings before having done that…

Maybe worth another ticket…

I can see resolution details on my Pro Plus sometimes, but there are also situations when it's missing. I do not see a pattern here.

 

[onlyoneme]

A closer look reveals strong clipping issues (44.1/16 source content):




Above for multitone signal with peaks at -0.1 dBFS.


Situation looks much better for lower level signals, like -4 dBFS peaks:

 

[onlyoneme]

-0,6 dBFS peaks look fine but -0.4 dBFS peaks look bad, although not as nasty as at -0.1 dBFS:

 

[jeromeof]

So I submitted a few tickets to the @WiiM Support team already related to this so far - but here is my experience with Airplay 2:
1. Worked to an Denon AVR (but no album art)
2. Worked to other LinkPlay devices (I have another Wiim and a Belkin Speaker)
3. Didn't work to my Samsung TV or my Apple TV - both required a PIN which was displayed on the TV but when entered into the Wiim App didn't connect. I switched the Samsung TV method to a fixed password instead of a PIN and it worked - but again no album art)
4. Turning off the Airplay PIN an my Apple TV did not work - its still seemed to require a PIN - not sure if this is Apple or Wiim's issue.

I also noticed that muting issue again once this morning - very intermittent.

Overall its a great feature though - I forgot my Denon had Airplay 2 - so I don't need to use the HEOS app anymore and being able to setup a group with a few devices from different manufacturers all playing synced music is great

 

[Brantome]

I guess these are with fixed volume and EQ off, although the latter doesn’t seem to impact airplay 2 cast from what I can hear.

 

[onlyoneme]

I guess these are with fixed volume and EQ off, although the latter doesn’t seem to impact airplay 2 cast from what I can hear.

Yes, fixed vol and EQ off.

 

[Brantome]

So I submitted a few tickets to the @WiiM Support team already related to this so far - but here is my experience with Airplay 2:
1. Worked to an Denon AVR (but no album art)
2. Worked to other LinkPlay devices (I have another Wiim and a Belkin Speaker)
3. Didn't work to my Samsung TV or my Apple TV - both required a PIN which was displayed on the TV but when entered into the Wiim App didn't connect. I switched the Samsung TV method to a fixed password instead of a PIN and it worked - but again no album art)
4. Turning off the Airplay PIN an my Apple TV did not work - its still seemed to require a PIN - not sure if this is Apple or Wiim's issue.

I also noticed that muting issue again once this morning - very intermittent.

Overall its a great feature though - I forgot my Denon had Airplay 2 - so I don't need to use the HEOS app anymore and being able to setup a group with a few devices from different manufacturers all playing synced music is great

Apart from the muting issues which I haven’t experienced on the new firmware, pretty much my experiences too, and three tickets submitted so far. Hopefully WiiM will react and get these issues wrinkled out asap

Good first beta though imho, clipping issues aside.

 

[Brantome]

I also notice that the airplay connection to my amp drops if I pause the stream although the other WiiM devices in the group remain selected.

 

[onlyoneme]

3. Didn't work to my Samsung TV or my Apple TV - both required a PIN which was displayed on the TV but when entered into the Wiim App didn't connect. I switched the Samsung TV method to a fixed password instead of a PIN and it worked - but again no album art)
4. Turning off the Airplay PIN an my Apple TV did not work - its still seemed to require a PIN - not sure if this is Apple or Wiim's issue.

I've tried with my Apple TV which didn't require the password by default, and providing a PIN didn't work. It started to work when I set a password on the Apple TV to be mandatory.

 

[WiiM Support]

Hi

After very rough testing it looks like the content is resampled to 44.1/16 and the transmission is not lossless even between 2 WiiMs.

Hi Onlyoneme,

The 44.1/16k is the resolution required by AirPlay 2 protocol. Thank you!

 

[onlyoneme]

Hi

Hi Onlyoneme,

The 44.1/16k is the resolution required by AirPlay 2 protocol. Thank you!

Ok, but is it also required to sent 44.1/16 stream in non bit-perfect manner?

 

[jhaider]

I don’t have the skills or ultimately the interest in digital signal purity that some of y’all do - and realistically the main use case for this feature IMO is broadcasting from a turntable to zone systems or HomePods anyway, filling a HUGE hole in the market - but from the perspective of a layperson it seems to work well so far to launder Apple Music from an iPhone to a Wiim Mini or Pro over a WiiM Pro with the beta installed (the others do not because I need them to be stable, and betas are betas).

 

[onlyoneme]

From my perspective it's preferred to have the digital stream unaltered. Or secured with proper headroom against distortions if the stream must be altered in any way.

 

[jhaider]

To be sure - my above post wasn’t a critique of people with the skills and ability to improve this feature. I just think it’s amazing that it works stably at all, given nobody else has ever seemed to be able to it work. I trust that y’all will make it even better before wide release. But hats off to WiiM for even developing this feature and adding it to devices in the field.

 

[onlyoneme]

To be sure - my above post wasn’t a critique of people with the skills and ability to improve this feature. I just think it’s amazing that it works stably at all, given nobody else has ever seemed to be able to it work. I trust that y’all will make it even better before wide release. But hats off to WiiM for even developing this feature and adding it to devices in the field.

Don't worry, I didn't take it as a criticism.

 

[onlyoneme]

I think these clipping/saturation issues I've reported are related to the way WiiM works as an AirPlay receiver actually. I recognize that I was able to get lossless and bit-perfect transfer over AirPlay to my WiiMs when the Mac was used as the sender, but it no longer works.