WiiM amp, Mac mini and Audirvana - advice request please

[Ramen]

Hello all,
can anyone suggest the best way of directly connecting my Mac Mini 2014 (mojave) to the WiiM amp. Currently I’ve an ancient Griffin iMic as a DAC attached via USB to a 3.5 jack to audio-in on a very basic amp.
I could go with this into the WiiM amp audio line-in but I guess I would lose the possibility of Audirvana accessing the WiiM amp’s DAC? Is there a way of connecting to take advantage of this and link the DAC to Audirvana?

 

[cooky560]

I would skip all of this and just airplay from your mac to the amp. That way you can even keep the dac as a second sound card you should need to.

The amp does work with hdmi and usb, perhaps some scope here?

 

[Brantome]

The amp does work with hdmi and usb, perhaps some scope here?

Just HDMI ARC which I wouldn’t expect a pc soundcard to support and USB is currently only for the connection of a USB drive, so I don’t see either helping in this case.

 

[Ramen]

Thank you. I’m looking at getting a WiiM Amp so i can’t try myself - it would be great to know from anyone if when wirelessly connected or Ethernet wired/ with UPnP the WiiM’s internal DAC is seen and able to be used by Audirvana - presumably airplay or chromecast is ‘one-way’? anyone with hands-on or similar?

 

[es6rd6z]

What do you mean by 'seeing the Wiim's internal DAC'? And in what way would you need 'two-way' Airplay? It sounds like you're making things more complicated than they are - The Wiim Amp announces itself as an audio output via Airplay, and your computer (or phone) will be able to select the Wiim Amp as an audio output.

 

[Ramen]

Im trying to find the best output from the Mac and Audirvana I can sensibly manage - I’m hoping to remove this and take full advantage of the WiiM DAC audio resolution.

 

[SeeRM114]

I have a Wiim Amp connected to my Late 2014 Mac Mini (running Catalina) via optical - using the headphone jack. I believe it's limited to 96 kHz (but I don't need 192). But - as others have said - Airplay also works great. So at the moment I could choose either Optical or Airplay for output to the Wiim Amp. I have a TV connected to the Mac via HDMI - that's my "monitor" - so I have not tried connecting HDMI to the Wiim.

I don't use Audirvana but I can't imagine that either Optical or Airplay would be a problem.

 

[Ramen]

Thanks for the info - great to hear you have that working. I only read about 2 hours ago that the 2014 Mac Mini headphone is also optical out (one of the last models which has this I read)

 

[joostdh]

the 2014 Mac Mini headphone is also optical out

This is indeed a great feature and somewhat overlooked feature. I would prefer this over Airplay because of the latency the latter introduces.

 

[Ramen]

This is indeed a great feature and somewhat overlooked feature. I would prefer this over Airplay because of the latency the latter introduces.

As noted elsewhere the wiim amp’s usb is read in-only for an external drive.

Audirvana Origin on my Mac (mojave) can ‘see’ the WiiM amp and also send to it via:
1 chromecast
2 via the toslink optical from Mac mini (shows as ‘built in output’)
3 via UPnP
4 Airplay (2) (and via Airplay 1 if you have an old AirPort Express (higher res) into e.g. toslink - I have one but I haven’t tried, yet)

1 chromecast - up to 96 KHz / 24-bit
2 toslink - hardwired, up to 192 KHz / 24-bit set in the built-in Mac midi app
3 UPnP - up to 192 KHz / 24-bit (as far as I can make out)
4 airplay (2) up to 44.1/16-bit

1 chromecast
Wiim app: change gain, play/pause reflected in Audirvāna, no cover art or metadata in wiim
2 toslink
gain handed to Wiim and unavailable in Audirvāna remote app, but all other controls remain with Audirvāna, no cover art or metadata in wiim all of which is a bit disappointing. But:
3 UPnP
Wiim app: change gain, scrub, and play/pause reflected in Audirvāna, no next/prev, shows cover art and metadata

Based on the above I’m not sure why UPnP can’t do next/prev? It can do everything else, and seems to be at the highest res. Is this behaviour common for UPnP / Audirvana?

 

[Fender]

Is Chromecast really gapless??

 

[Ramen]

Is Chromecast really gapless?

Yes it is for me - I just checked with some live mix albums (playing on Audirvāna) - EDIT it isn’t in itself - as @simbun notes this must be Audirvana’s work

 

[simbun]

Yes it is for me - I just checked with some live mix albums (playing on Audirvāna)

The Chromecast protocol isn't gapless. Audirvana must be processing the queue and sending the WiiM a single audio stream, which is why you're not seeing metadata refreshed in the WiiM app.

 

[Ramen]

You’re quite right. For clarity the wiim app isn’t showing *any* metadata via chromecast at any time

 

[simbun]

Ok good to know - you’re quite right. For clarity the wiim app isn’t showing *any* metadata via chromecast at any time, gapless or not.

Is there a gapless option for Chromecast in Audirvana?

Going by this page it seems there's a forced gapless toggle for UPnP speakers, but I had assumed that Chromecast would be enabled by default because it can never be gapless.

If you enable that mode for WiiM's UPnP interface then you'll probably lose metadata in the WiiM app.

 

[Ramen]

Is there a gapless option for Chromecast in Audirvana?

Going by this page it seems there's a forced gapless toggle for UPnP speakers, but I had assumed that Chromecast would be enabled by default because it can never be gapless.

If you enable that mode for WiiM's UPnP interface then you'll probably lose metadata in the WiiM app.

Metadata disappears in the wiim app interface if, in UPnP Wiim mode, you toggle ON the ‘universal gapless playback mode ..recommended for devices not natively capable of gapless playback’. It would appear the wiim amp is natively capable. This option doesn’t exist in the Audirvāna chromecast settings, so looks like this is implemented in Audirvāna as a matter of course for Chromecast hence no metadata.