Wiim Pro Measurements - the horror, the horror + crazed fanboi

Wiim's astroturfing efforts have me thinking of the MQA debacle. MQA could have served a niche, and was a step up from MP3 and similar compression codecs, but why did they have to oversell it to such a point?

Remember, it was supposed to be the greatest thing in audio ever - a literal slice of the Copernican revolution. Those who rightly said "no it isn't" were savaged by the legacy audio media and various astroturfing operations.

Frankly to their discredit, almost all the significant audiophile gear manufacturers rushed to incorporate support. MQA however could not gain traction in the pro and streaming worlds, I suspect mostly because they saw through the game on both the technical and $licensing$ fronts, and it ended up dying.

In any case, the wiim pro has at least one output that is flat out broken and so I don't see giving this thing a recommendation even for garage duty unless it is fixed (in a future version)

 

BTW, I meant the theme of this thread, not the site!

 

I understood you were being too damned nice like I was attempting to be earlier by pointing out that yes there is a space in the world for products that prioritise ease of use and ergonomics over sound quality

 

Return to this
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...r-the-horror-crazed-fanboi.15113/#post-445379
then read the following comments and learn from how personal comments targeted at me can escalate a thread.

BTW The Ultra's spdif signal is of the better quality than the Pro's. I pasted a graph as a suggestion for these inquisitive.


I can see a try to ban me. At least don't make comments which I cannot answer. And I do not write Wiim, I use WiiM instead. So I cannot be a 'Wimm Beta Tester'.

 

Honestly, how would you rate the Wiim Pro's spdif output? Would you say it is of "acceptable" quality, or even "good"? Or would you say it is "bad" or even "broken"?

In other words, would you recommend anybody to use the spdif output of the Wiim Pro?

 

I'm going to do my best to hold back from embarrassing you any further, but you introduced yourself as a beta tester for the product in question (in the new members thread). While there's nothing wrong with chiming in, you represent an insanely biased perspective that everyone in this thread has identified and rightly shown extreme caution in taking seriously. You've also not helped your case by ONLY posting in the Wiim thread, proving you have a vested interest in promoting this product and nothing else.

Imagine if I was an apple beta tester and went to an apple centric forum, more specifically a Siri thread where most were (rightly) crapping on its horrid functionality... to not only defend it, but to only post in that specific thread, suggesting I was little more than a mouthpiece for apple marketing... wouldn't it only be fair to call me out for being biased? Wouldn't it make sense to highlight my shaky credibility, especially when I've also been combative? Why would anyone listen to me at that point? Please tell me the logic centers in your brain are functioning properly enough to see this.

 

Let's say "acceptable, but may require a very good DAC or an spdif signal cleaner if an existing DAC doesn't like it". Usually I do not recommend using the spdif electrical output of the WiiM Pro.

 

I think you could do better to hold back from insulting me, so my only answer is: my brain is fine.

 

Is it still desired for me to make measurements on one of the units @purr1n has?

 

The fact that you didn't answer any of my other questions only further harms your credibility. What is your goal at this point? Because you are not going to convince anybody using these tactics. So why are you here?

 

To be fair, the DIY for a Pi based USB endpoint DIY is literally putting a PCB board into a small case. Don’t even need to use a screwdriver for some cases. Balena etcher is free and pretty easy. RopieeXL is incredibly stable and bork free.

I paid about $350 for my SOtM Neo 200. It’s been absolutely flawless. Sounds incredible too. Project and MiniDSP make products competitive to WiiM pricing.

I have a Windows 11 micro PC from Amazon from MeLE that I run Roon headless with zero issues.

So, yeah there’s a good amount of options outside of the WiiM hype machine. But, I get the allure of the seemingly good “bang for buck” appeal of WiiM.

 

You don't have to sell me on those, my Pi2AES orders date back to 2019...

However that isn't what I asked about. It doesn't matter if it's 1 screw or 5, that kinda solution (and troubleshooting it) is still well outside of the realms of anyone but enthusiasts. I'm not knocking them, amazing value IMO, but it's not something anyone else in my family is gonna touch... And it does get pricey if one is looking to put one in every room.

OTOH the family will use the old Google CCAs because it's transparent to them, they just exist (outside of a few rare instances where something went sideways) and they press one button on their phone and the audio is on whatever the CCA is connected to, and they could've set those up themselves.

Those ran like $35 back in the day, the lower end Wiim seem to be around $150-220... For the average buyer (which is none of us here) those things are worlds apart from a $500 streamer or anything that requires any DIY or a full blown OS. I'm just disappointed the dropoff is so steep in some ways... The CCA SPIDF out worked fine though (just can't lose the little adapter).

There's no reason the low end Wiim should take hardware shortcuts for the price, might as well have left the SPIDF out entirely and this thread wouldn't exist.

 

I bought a WiiM Ultra partially on the hype. Primary intended use case feeding the tv HDMI-arc in and some combination of spdif or analog out to my KEF LS60 active speakers (which can take digital input, in which case the WiiM Ultra was serving basically as an hdmi->spdif bridge purely so I could control volume with my tv remote). Secondary use case was wifi streaming.

Overall I thought it sounded good. No hi rez or anything. Maybe youtube music at the best of times. Very easy to setup, lots of points in its favour there. My partner had no trouble connecting and streaming spotify etc.

Why did I return it? Because it kept glitching out about every two days and muting from the tv/hdmi input (streaming wifi was fine), and the only way to fix it was to power cycle the whole thing. Maybe it was just a particular tv+wiim combo whatever, but I dunno and after a week of troubleshooting I gave up. If it wasn't for that I would have kept it.

 

Greed and a lack of basic integrity. War, war never changes.


The only thing that this shitty astroturfing attempt has achieved was to warn a bunch of people about ever touching Wiim devices with someone else's bargepole. This might be a small site but it comes up in search engines surprisingly frequently. Well done word salad sockpuppet, you've helped people dodge a bullet.

 

I don't have a device, was checking ASR Wiim Pro review.
I've just figured out that work laptop is also not an option as I cannot correctly install Equalizer APO without admin account.

 

That's a fair point. The CCA was an incredible little thing. I still have a couple lying around. But also to your point, your family won't likely hear or care about the fuckery mentioned here. So, a $90 Wiim still makes sense in your case.

I go one step easier than you for my non-audiophile family. I skip everything and go Sonos AIO. The Roam is a remarkable little speaker. The old One series had pretty decent sound that could fill a room easily. Overall a pretty reliable system.

 

That's also fair, I guess the distinction between DIY/high end streamers or low end ones versus any discrete components at all is an even bigger one... I've purposely avoided Sonos but I do have a handful of Google Nest Audio smart speakers around the house and a RIVA Arena in the kitchen (shout out to Donald North)... The latter has no smarts but it's still a Google Cast & Spotify Connect target, sounds surprisingly good for the money & size.

My hangup here, and my desire in wanting something like the Wiim or CCA at that's perfectly usable by the masses, is largely price. A pair of LSR305 (or whatever the FotM is) and a cheap steamer can sound a ton better for the money than any AIO, but to your point I guess that's tempered by the fact that most people don't multiple boxes at all, regardless of the value proposition.

So any low end streamer/transport exists in a grey space, basically for cheap enthusiasts... I still think the Wiims could be so much better in that space, and I'm not picking on them cause of this thread per se, but because they've been one of very few solutions in that space so I was actually hopeful.