WiiM Pro Preview

Dpak · Nov 22, 2022

Jim Shaw said:
Let us switch gapless off.

Majority of folks want gapless. Pushing your need over everyone else's is a bit presumptuous, no ?
It would be more constructive to ask for an option to enable and disable gapless.

onlyoneme · Nov 22, 2022

Dpak said:
Majority of folks want gapless. Pushing your need over everyone else's is a bit presumptuous, no ?
It would be more constructive to ask for an option to enable and disable gapless.

I guess that's why he asked for a switch.

canard · Nov 22, 2022

onlyoneme said:
I guess that's why he asked for a switch.

least bad solution
;-)

Dpak · Nov 22, 2022

onlyoneme said:
I guess that's why he asked for a switch.

Ok my bad then.

d6jg · Nov 22, 2022

You guys are confusing gapless with crossfade.

Gapless is where the musician intended two or more pieces of music to play without any gap between them. Think Dark Side of the Moon. Early media servers couldn’t cope with this at all but gradually servers and players were updated to do so.

Crossfade is something entirely different. It is what is used by a Club DJ to create a gapless sound or mix by fading one track into another.
Some of the streaming services use crossfade on their curated “stations” or “mixes” but if you play a specific album it should not have crossfade applied.

Then there is something that exists only in very clever media server software - Smart Crossfade. This is where if your playlist contains adjacent tracks from the same album crossfade won’t be applied in case the two are gapless - eg DSOTM again - but where there are tracks from different albums in the playlist they can be subject to crossfade.
In case people are interested the media server I am referring to is LMS. It’s been around for years and is now a very mature product with its own unique protocol that offers multi room sync and has done for nearly 20 years.
Gapless as defined above is a given but crossfade options and smart replay gain are set at player level.
I am pleased to say that by using a upnp plugin to LMS WiiM Mini (and Pro) acts almost exactly like a native LMS player.
The only media server software that is arguably better is Roon but frankly it’s a very close call. LMS is Open Source so it wins hands down for me.

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dmcbroom1971 · Nov 22, 2022

WiiM Team said:
Here's a rendering of what WiiM Pro will look like. We're expecting WiiM Pro to launch by late November to early December and will be sold through Amazon.com. More info will be on our website www.wiimhome.com. Please stay tuned! In the meantime, we'd love to hear your thoughts on what you think of WiiM Pro

View attachment 1 View attachment 2

Tech Specs
Software

Chromecast Audio

AirPlay 2

DLNA

(Roon expected in Q4)

MICless Amazon Alexa Voice Service
(AVS) MRM (Multi-Room)

BT A2DP Source and Sink

Linkplay streaming services and multiroom

Spotify Connect/TIDAL Connect/Amazon Music cast

HD Output 24-bit/192kHz

Bit perfect output

True gapless playback

10-band EQ or 24 Preset EQs

TI Audiophile DAC

Frequent FW/App updates

Mobile and PC App

Button and LED

Capacitive touch control: Play/Pause, Volume +, Volume -, 1 x Presets

LED: BT/WiFi/Line-in modes

Hardware

Connectivity: Wi-Fi 2.4G/5G, BT5.1, Ethernet (100M）

Line In RCA

Optical In

Line out RCA

Digital Coaxial Out

Optical SPDIF Out

USB Type-C power

12v Trigger for AMP

Mic for Multiroom audio auto-sync

SBC and AAC codec

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BJDY6D1W

So looking forward to this coming out. Hope to be one of the first here in Scotland to buy one, and try it out. Looking forward to leaving all things review shortly after.

wadrych · Nov 23, 2022

WiiM Team said:
Just wanted to share some new pics of WiiM Pro! Our team received a batch of samples today from our production run. We'll let you know we're live on Amazon.com. Also attached a screenshot of the app that shows that WiiM Pro has Chromecast support.

So excited for this one! Do you have any estimates for availability in Europe market? Specifically Amazon PL or Amazon DE?

Brantome · Nov 23, 2022

dmcbroom1971 said:
So looking forward to this coming out. Hope to be one of the first here in Scotland to buy one, and try it out. Looking forward to leaving all things review shortly after.

Hopefully next Tuesday, I’ll be one of the first in Scotland with a test unit

dmcbroom1971 · Nov 23, 2022

Brantome said:
Hopefully next Tuesday, I’ll be one of the first in Scotland with a test unit

I'm sure together in the coming weeks, we can give all other fellow wiimer's around the planet a belting review x 2.

Firstman · Nov 23, 2022

Another Wiimer waiting eagerly for the Wiim Pro - in Vancouver, Canada.

I'm replacing my Node 2i with all this... so once the Wiim Pro arrives, I'll be getting a new balanced DAC (my tube integrated is balanced, so a balanced DAC would serve well). Source is Amazon UHD. So far, it's between a Schiit Modius E or a Topping E50... Or some other DAC I dig up in the online research rabbit hole!

dmcbroom1971 · Nov 23, 2022

Loving hearing all your systems girls n guys.

Where to begin with mine.
I'm hoping in the new year to become all things Hi-fi guru.

Setting up my very own HiFi oasis, from all around our wonderful planet at the moment, including all things:

Naim (UK), Auralic (China), Roksan (UK), PMC (UK),
Chord Electronic (UK), Monitor Audio (UK), Sennheiser (Germany),
Audioquest (USA), IFI (UK), Dali (Denmark),
Beyerdynamic (Germany), Signalyst (Finland), Denon (Japan),
Rel (UK), DH Labs (USA), Atacama Audio (UK)

Looking to add to this, with of course the WIIM Mini Pro by the end of December, and also hoping over the coming weeks and months,
to add some EarMen (Serbia/USA), Roon Software (USA), KEF (UK), and Arcam (UK) to all the sauce I currently have.

Some gorgeous stuff in my Musical buffet. And on that all you can eat, lyrical note, Goodnight.

Balthazar B · Nov 24, 2022

John Darko just posted a discussion of the Pro:

Brantome · Nov 24, 2022

Balthazar B said:
John Darko just posted a discussion of the Pro:

Fair enough appraisal, but since he’s not a subscriber, it underplays its support of Amazon Music HD and its world-first capability to support casting from the Amazon Music app which appeared to be the main driver for a lot of users on ASR

Balthazar B · Nov 24, 2022

Brantome said:
Fair enough appraisal, but since he’s not a subscriber, it underplays its support of Amazon Music HD and its world-first capability to support casting from the Amazon Music app which appeared to be the main driver for a lot of users on ASR

Sure, and it would have been nice to see what Amazon and WiiM are bringing to the table in this regard. If Amazon does it the usual Amazon way, though, there will be really boneheaded lapses that make the user experience wanting, even terrible, which WiiM may be able to only partially remedy through its presentation of the service in their app (although they will not be able to provide anything Amazon simply doesn't support or allow on the back end). I'm very interested in this myself, since Amazon *could* be a great value proposition if they bother to put even a quarter of the effort services like Qobuz, Spotify, Apple, etc. bring to the table...but which, so far, Amazon has shown no interest in doing...frankly, because they don't have to (and Amazon rarely does anything they don't have to). Still, hope springs eternal.

As I said up above, if Apple were to set up an AppleCast capability which can be leveraged by third parties (like WiiM), it would make life very, very difficult for all their streaming competition, given the emphasis Apple places on a quality user experience.

Brantome · Nov 24, 2022

Even as it stands and with its current foibles, the Amazon Music app does most of what I need a music app to do - play my playlists or other music I select. For music recommendations, I’m happy listening to Radio Paradise for inspiration and even Amazon’s My Soundtrack/Discovery mixes, and feeding tracks from their back into my playlists.

Witterings · Nov 24, 2022

Brantome said:
Fair enough appraisal, but since he’s not a subscriber, it underplays its support of Amazon Music HD and its world-first capability to support casting from the Amazon Music app which appeared to be the main driver for a lot of users on ASR

Those were exactly my thoughts on the review.
Biggest thing I took away from it is unless you're using multiroom for the vast majority of users the Pro isn't really necessary, I'll probably end up having to get them simply because I don't want to keep enabling / disabling Ultra/HD ... if it wasn't for that the Mini does everything I need so it's just paying for convenience and seeing what I can get back for the Mini's 2nd hand.

Brantome · Nov 24, 2022

Yeah, it’s a pity that the Mini hit memory issues with Amazon Music HD/UHD MRM - guess it’s something that they really couldn’t have foreseen. I even occasionally hit issues around drop outs and stalling playing 24/192 tracks that they also put down to memory issues - I’ve even been trying limiting the output to 24/96 to see if that would help. Continuing that line of thought, I wonder if restricting output to 24/48 or even lossless 16/44 might even overcome the Mini’s MRM issues, but having said that, I guess it’s something the WiiM engineers might have already tested and ruled out.

kevinek · Nov 24, 2022

Strange. I have never had an issue with drop outs with amazon music. My main concern is lack of casting in Poland and limited favorites.

onlyoneme · Nov 24, 2022

michal.wiatr said:
Strange. I have never had an issue with drop outs with amazon music. My main concern is lack of casting in Poland and limited favorites.

Pretty common for me. It could even hang in the worst case.

kevinek · Nov 24, 2022

Are you using 5GHz wifi?

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