Wiim pro initial impression

[onlyoneme]

Something like that, indeed.

 

[Brantome]

is that what you wife tells you?

As per the forum rules please keep responses courteous, and as suggested, the use of capitalised words and phrases in comments is unnecessary.

 

[eoseivissa]

As per the forum rules please keep responses courteous, and as suggested, the use of capitalised words and phrases in comments is unnecessary.

Thank you for you attention....sorry for the booboo...my first incursion driven by some beginners histeria

 

[Brantome]

Thank you for you attention....sorry for the booboo...my first incursion driven by some beginners histeria

In relation to your question, I can’t think of any reason why a directly connected device should sound better than the WiiM app unless you don’t have the settings correct somewhere.

 

[onlyoneme]

In relation to your question, I can’t think of any reason why a directly connected device should sound better than the WiiM app unless you don’t have the settings correct somewhere.

Atmos was mentioned in case of the direct connection, so it can make the sound different.

 

[Musician]

I received my much anticipated Wiim pro yesterday. I ordered it from amazon.com US and had it shipped to me in Scotland. Previously I have been streaming from my iPad into a chord mojo 2 dac and out to my pre-and power amplifiers and to speakers. I have been very happy with the sound but as I use TIDAL I was having to get out of my chair to browse and choose content from the Hifi set up where iPad was situated.My thoughts were that by using the Wiim Pro I would be able to do this remotely with no loss of quality to the sound.
I connected the wiim pro using the coaxial out to the coaxial in of my Chord Mojo 2. Set up of the hardware and settings within the Wiim home app as has been previously stated by many people was easy.
As I use tidal Hifi which is 44.1khz/16 bit this is what I set what I set the coaxial out resolution at.
My impressions…
Yesterday I spent some long periods listening to music and was sort of happy but in the back of my mind I was not quite sure that the quality was what it had been without the Wiim. It was just slightly dull. Then today my doubts motivated me to unplug the Wiim and stream the output tidal directly out of my ipad via it’s lightning cable to the Chord Mojo 2 dac and there it was again…all of the beautiful high frequency detail and dynamics that had been missing with the Wiim doing the streaming.
This got me thinking that I had missed something in the setup process. Maybe the Wiim internal dac was still in the signal path? Not so as far as I can tell. I have done a factory reset and been through the setup process again, checked my audio input/output settings,eq,WiFi is good and everything seems to be set as it should and yet the sound streamed from the Wiim through my Chord Dac is significantly inferior to that of when streamed from my iPad through the Chord Dac.
I’ve tried searching for a reason for this lack of clarity that I’ve been experiencing but with no success.
If anyone has any suggestions, I’d be very grateful if you’d pass them on otherwise I’ll need to revert back to my original setup and sell on the Wiim.
Thanks Jonny

I can see a couple of reasons for your experience :

1. Your original spdif cable might be defect. It should be short, have low Capacitance , heavy shielding and 75 Ohm caracteristic.

2. The WiiM pro needed some days of burn in , and sounded better after this even used as a bridge . Try your cheap spdif cable again to see if the sound has improved . This is something I reckognized myself with my WiiM pro.
This might explain the better sound a couple of days later , with the new spdif cable .

3. Further sound improvements might be possible with a better power supply .

4. WiiM pro sounds the best with the setting 24 bit 192 kHz enabled .

5. WiiM pro sounds slightly better when using ethernet instead of Wi-Fi , when using the spdif out. This is my subjective opinion.

..and if its not some of those reasons, then :

6. Having a cold or covid-19 can change your hearing in a bad way several weeks after the infection . In my case all treble dissapeared for several days after a Christmas flu.

 

[eoseivissa]

I can see a couple of reasons for your experience :

1. Your original spdif cable might be defect. It should be short, have low Capacitance , heavy shielding and 75 Ohm caracteristic.

2. The WiiM pro needed some days of burn in , and sounded better after this even used as a bridge . Try your cheap spdif cable again to see if the sound has improved . This is something I reckognized myself with my WiiM pro.
This might explain the better sound a couple of days later , with the new spdif cable .

3. Further sound improvements might be possible with a better power supply .

4. WiiM pro sounds the best with the setting 24 bit 192 kHz enabled .

5. WiiM pro sounds slightly better when using ethernet instead of Wi-Fi , when using the spdif out. This is my subjective opinion.

..and if its not some of those reasons, then :

6. Having a cold or covid-19 can change your hearing in a bad way several weeks after the infection . In my case all treble dissapeared for several days after a Christmas flu.

thank you for your feedback. Im presently running optical to my Mojo2 but wanted to experiment with coaxial. That said, Im confused regarding the coaxial cable needed, as there are multiple opinions alltrough the web. Any suggestions...is it worth it and were ro get it?I also read on the Wiim web that in order to get Amazon HD, Atmos qualty etc, you need to stream from Alexa instead of using the Wiim app. That would support my thoughts on the comprehensiviness of that app when compared with the "standard" android app.

 

[Mr Ee]

No difference in file support streaming Amazon from within the wiim app or via alexacast.
Both up to 192/24

 

[Brantome]

No difference in file support streaming Amazon from within the wiim app or via alexacast.
Both up to 192/24

Indeed, but not Atmos - support for that even from the amazon music app is very limited.

 

[Mr Ee]

Indeed, but not Atmos - support for that even from the amazon music app is very limited.

Yeah, I guess I sort of assumed Atmos was 'higher' than 192...

 

[Brantome]

I can see a couple of reasons for your experience :

1. Your original spdif cable might be defect. It should be short, have low Capacitance , heavy shielding and 75 Ohm caracteristic.

2. The WiiM pro needed some days of burn in , and sounded better after this even used as a bridge . Try your cheap spdif cable again to see if the sound has improved . This is something I reckognized myself with my WiiM pro.
This might explain the better sound a couple of days later , with the new spdif cable .

3. Further sound improvements might be possible with a better power supply .

4. WiiM pro sounds the best with the setting 24 bit 192 kHz enabled .

5. WiiM pro sounds slightly better when using ethernet instead of Wi-Fi , when using the spdif out. This is my subjective opinion.

..and if its not some of those reasons, then :

6. Having a cold or covid-19 can change your hearing in a bad way several weeks after the infection . In my case all treble dissapeared for several days after a Christmas flu.

2 and 3 are pretty subjective too, not just 5…

 

[eoseivissa]

Back to Alexa streaming vs using the wiim app....I can see a reason why at first instance when you use the wiim app, being a generic, it will offer you
free and therefore low level quality streaming, then when you connect through Alexa if you are a premiun Amazon music member, your membership will be reconized and therefore auromatically upgraded/stream upgraded on the Wiim app?....my best try!

 

[Brantome]

Back to Alexa streaming vs using the wiim app....I can see a reason why at first instance when you use the wiim app, being a generic, it will offer you
free and therefore low level quality streaming, then when you connect through Alexa if you are a premiun Amazon music member, your membership will be reconized and therefore auromatically upgraded/stream upgraded on the Wiim app?....my best try!

When it comes to streaming services, the WiiM app will play at the quality of the streaming service you're subscribed and linked to - it doesn't by default have access to a "free low quality service", it needs connected to a streaming service and that's what dictates what you get.

 

[Musician]

thank you for your feedback. Im presently running optical to my Mojo2 but wanted to experiment with coaxial. That said, Im confused regarding the coaxial cable needed, as there are multiple opinions alltrough the web. Any suggestions...is it worth it and were ro get it?I also read on the Wiim web that in order to get Amazon HD, Atmos qualty etc, you need to stream from Alexa instead of using the Wiim app. That would support my thoughts on the comprehensiviness of that app when compared with the "standard" android app.

This is probably a good spdif cable :

AUDIOPHONICS CANARE Digital coaxial cable 75ohm RCA-RCA 0.50m - Audiophonics

Voici un véritable cordon numérique coaxial, en version 75 Ohm, sa particularité est de comporter des connecteurs CANARE C5F, certifiés 75 Ohm.

www.audiophonics.fr

It is short, its 75 ohm ( important ) and with good connectors. I doubt you have to aim for a more expensive cable.

Edit: I just recognized that you need a 3.5 mm connector at one side ….

 

[JohnEss]

Anyone looking for reasonably priced and well made cables should look at Blue Jeans. https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/digital-audio/index.htm