Help with (wired) Wiim Amp connection to laptop

[cobaltico]

My laptop is docked (connected to a monitor) I plan to use the wiim amp as the primary audio source (to feed my speakers) for my laptop. How do i connect it to my laptop (wired) with the highest possible bitrates. Thanks in advance!

Edit: i dont plan to buy a dac any time soon because most budget dacs will become obsolete once i get better dacs. I will eventually buy a dac (eversolo z8) but I'll actively avoid buying budget dacs as much as possible.

 

[Mr Ee]

My laptop is docked (connected to a monitor) I plan to use the wiim amp as the primary audio source (to feed my speakers) for my laptop. How do i connect it to my laptop (wired) with the highest possible bitrates. Thanks in advance!

Edit: i dont plan to buy a dac any time soon because most budget dacs will become obsolete once i get better dacs. I will eventually buy a dac (eversolo z8) but I'll actively avoid buying budget dacs as much as possible.

What's on the laptop that you want to play? What bitrate?
You could connect laptop optical out (if it has one) to wiim amp optical in, but probably easier to stream / cast to the wiim and not do any crazy upsampling as that seems to cause some issues, from other posts here with people trying to feed > 192khz to wiims.

 

[Mr Ee]

Regarding the (non-budget) dac - the only way to use an external dac with the wiim amp is to have sonething else (such as your laptop) be the source and use the wiim amp's line in.
i.e. you can't use any of the streaming functionality of the wiim amp (spotify, tidal, amazon, anything played via wiim home app etc.) and send that to an external dac.

 

[cobaltico]

What's on the laptop that you want to play? What bitrate?
You could connect laptop optical out (if it has one) to wiim amp optical in, but probably easier to stream / cast to the wiim and not do any crazy upsampling as that seems to cause some issues, from other posts here with people trying to feed > 192khz to wiims.

Hi tbh 96khz is already enough with me. I mostly stream on tidal but i have a few terrabytes of local files ranging from dsd to mp3. As for stream/cast, i play games on the side so little to no delay would be best. The way im setting it up itll be like a desktop nearfield than as a loudspeaker.

 

[cobaltico]

As for the optical, i plan on getting a usb to optical converter and connect the optical via usb to my laptop.

Edit: im just unsure if itll actually work

 

[cobaltico]

Regarding the (non-budget) dac - the only way to use an external dac with the wiim amp is to have sonething else (such as your laptop) be the source and use the wiim amp's line in.
i.e. you can't use any of the streaming functionality of the wiim amp (spotify, tidal, amazon, anything played via wiim home app etc.) and send that to an external dac.

As for the streaming, i will not actually use it. Itll be a forgotten feature for my set up.

 

[cobaltico]

Its sad yes but this is one of the very few things that fit my bill of being small, slick looking (nothing like the sprout) decent power and overall ratings. Ill be upgrading from my smsl ad18 to this.

 

[Mr Ee]

I mostly stream on tidal but i have a few terrabytes of local files

I'm not asking to try to be awkward, but am genuinely wondering about your laptop usage...
Do you have a phone / tablet you could use instead of the laptop?
There is a laptop version of the wiim app, but not as fully featured. I've not used it to comment further...

Why not Tidal Connect straight to the wiim amp rather than go via the laptop usb output and a converter?
If no phone/tablet, can the laptop version / website (can you tell I don't use a laptop for music!) of tidal do Connect?

As for the files, how do you play them? Do you have a media server on the laptop?
The wiim amp can effectively pull them directly from the drive (via upnp/dnla) to play them, again no need for usb to optical.
The dsd files could be an issue - maybe do a search on the forum for dsd.

Edit - although I do appreciate that when you do get a dac that you'd be ignoring the streaming capabilities, so might want to get usb to optical etc. working now anyway, but the Z8 has a usb input... so why bother with the conversion?

 

[cobaltico]

I'm not asking to try to be awkward, but am genuinely wondering about your laptop usage...
Do you have a phone / tablet you could use instead of the laptop?
There is a laptop version of the wiim app, but not as fully featured. I've not used it to comment further...

Why not Tidal Connect straight to the wiim amp rather than go via the laptop usb output and a converter?
If no phone/tablet, can the laptop version / website (can you tell I don't use a laptop for music!) of tidal do Connect?

As for the files, how do you play them? Do you have a media server on the laptop?
The wiim amp can effectively pull them directly from the drive (via upnp/dnla) to play them, again no need for usb to optical.
The dsd files could be an issue - maybe do a search on the forum for dsd.

Edit - although I do appreciate that when you do get a dac that you'd be ignoring the streaming capabilities, so might want to get usb to optical etc. working now anyway, but the Z8 has a usb input... so why bother with the conversion?

Mate you misunderstood. Im using the wiim amp mainly as an amp. I dont really care much for the other features. Like ive said before ill be using the wiim amp for everything that needs sound. I.e. netflix, youtube, hulu, etc. Its not just limited to tidal. So anything aside from the amp section of the wiim amp im disregarding.

Edit: wireless i dont really care much for it since im not moving around nor am i transporting the rig anywhere. It basically functions as a desktop pc minus the space id have to sacrifice for a pc. Im not really limiting my listening to only music, its really just any content i decide to play on windows. As for the why bother with the conversion, ive said it above that im not getting a dac any time soon. Space is a luxury for desktops you see... so until i upgrade from my concept 40's im not bothering on getting dacs.

Edit 2: i dont see why would i need to stream via a media server (?) The files are already on my laptop and or my harddrives. Having it streamed would become unnecessary fluff to the otherwise striaght connection. I dont plan on playing the music anywhere but this rig.

 

[d6jg]

In your use case get the USB to Optical converter but be aware there will be some inherent delay in the signal path. May not be good enough for lip sync or gaming.

 

[Mr Ee]

No worries!
One question (possibly for others here) - you originally said "with the highest possible bitrates" and also that you'll get a decent dac later.
I'm wondering whether the wiim amp converts the line in signal to digital to be able to perform any dsp on it (even if no eq etc. is chosen) which sort of defeats the purpose of having a decentc dac upstream.