In praise of the Wiim (other amps are available)

[Paul Drawmer]

In another thread, some months ago:

heisthegaffer said:

What about a Wiim amp pro?

This was a recommendation for my son in Turkey.
In the end we bought him one (I got a deal from Richer Sounds) and when he came over at Christmas he took it back with him...

Anyway, we had a look at it, and a month ago we I bought one as well to replace my aging Denon AVR.

When I bought the Denon about 20 years ago, the idea was to use 2.1 sound and improve the flat screen TV sound. I had dreams of fitting full surround, but in reality rarely watch films, so that didn't happen. We don't watch our music either, it's mostly watched for speech.

And in fact over the two or three new TVs since the sound hasn't been that good either. OK, but not actually 'good'

So, in with the Wiim, and out with the Denon.
TV sound is better but not a lot. I'm now using HDMI arc and the TV is controlling the Wiim nicely.

Until yesterday, when I found that via the App, I could use different equaliser default settings for each input. So I've utilised the preset "Spoken Voice" for the HDMI input. It's a massive leap in speech quality off the TV. I have just earned a zillion brownie points from the Studio Manager.

Oh, and the elderly REL quake is now fed via the RCA sub out from the Wiim which has settings for volume, roll off, phase etc, so it has software control of the sub's audio, really easy to set up.

My usual streaming is from Spotify. I've always had the amp connected via ethernet, but the Wiim is waaay quicker to pick it up. And I've been able to set all those rips I have on a network hard drive as a favourite, so that's a lot easier to use as well.

There's a load more stuff to find I'm sure. But it's really made a difference here.

Thank you for the suggestion, I've stepped forward 20 years.

[NDA]

It's a shame he came so close to having the Ruarks - you can't say you didn't try!

But I'm glad you're enjoying them, they were surplus for me (as you know) but I loved them when I bought them - really nice speakers.

I don't know the Wiim, but I'm locked into streaming in a big way - with Roon and Qobuz. Such a huge difference in experience to buying records back in the 1970's.

[Paul Drawmer]

Neil,
The Ruarks are stunning. They've kick-started me into listening again. They are why the Wiim got bought!

[andy_s]

I love stuff from the eighties, no-sand amps, fiddly record players and crackly vinyl but my recommendation to my kids when they asked about it was 'get a Wiim'. There is only so much you should burden your children with.

ETA - I had a set of Ruark Preludes since the nineties that have only recently given up on life, great sound.

[heisthegaffer]

Soundd good.

I really fancy one to replace my ancient Yamaha AV amp

[curvature]

I’ve just had the Ultra streamer and really like it.

[James-gbg1e]

Now you need to add a Fiio K13 R2R DAC to your stack, great little box.

[Paul Drawmer]

James-gbg1e said:

Now you need to add a Fiio K13 R2R DAC to your stack, great little box.

Forgive me as I know not what I ask...
How would adding a DAC to the Wiim actually be done, and how would it make any difference?

[NDA]

Paul Drawmer said:

James-gbg1e said:

Now you need to add a Fiio K13 R2R DAC to your stack, great little box.

Forgive me as I know not what I ask...
How would adding a DAC to the Wiim actually be done, and how would it make any difference?

I am probably wrong Paul, but I think you'd need a streaming DAC - essentially replacing the front end of your Wiim. The new DAC would probably be of a higher quality than the Wiim's internal DAC - and there are some big differences between DAC's, so yes, it would make a difference.

It would plug into an RCA input on the back of your Wiim, 'Aux' most probably.

As with all things hi-fi, it's a slippery slope.


ETA - see my further post below, now that I've read the Wiim manual. I don't think you can bypass the internal DAC.

Edited by NDA on Friday 27th March 08:56

[James-gbg1e]

Paul Drawmer said:

Forgive me as I know not what I ask...
How would adding a DAC to the Wiim actually be done, and how would it make any difference?

A DAC is effectively a way of colouring in the music, digital music is often clinical and cold, a DAC can give you the warmth and analogue feeling but also alter the characteristics of it too, sound stage/instrumentation etc.

There's normal DAC's, tube DAC's, R2R like the K13... They all have different properties.

You'd link your sound source (cd player/digital stream) to your amp, then pass it to the DAC via an optical/coax and the DAC would then output to speakers via RCA/Phono.

If you want to dip your toe in, grab an SMSL SU-1 for £50 from AliExpress or Amazon, I think you'd be surprised.

[stevoknevo]

Other way about, you link your source - in this case a Wiim Ultra - to the DAC via optical connection (the Wiim only has an optical output which is theoretically capable of 24/192 but many implementations are limited to 24/96...not that it really matters because how well the source music is mastered is key!) you'd then connect the DAC to the amp via RCA/analogue.

[Paul Drawmer]

The Wiim amp pro built in DAC (from What HiFi)
"The DAC chip has also been upgraded to the ES9038 Q2M Sabre DAC – the same one used in the five-star WiiM Ultra streamer – and it can handle hi-res files up to 24-bit/192kHz."

However, the 'one box' solution appeals to me, I don't particularly hanker after a 'stack'.

To be frank, the increase in quality after upgrading the Denon AVX-1000/ MS10s to Wiim amp pro / Ruark Prologue2 and then better tailoring of the old Sub is still something I'm really enjoying, it's so much better than before.

[DoubleSix]

andy_s said:

I love stuff from the eighties, no-sand amps, fiddly record players and crackly vinyl but my recommendation to my kids when they asked about it was 'get a Wiim'. There is only so much you should burden your children with.

ETA - I had a set of Ruark Preludes since the nineties that have only recently given up on life, great sound.

Would the kids of today (and perhaps some of the newcomers to audio tech on this thread) be better served by a set of high end active speakers? For truely wireless, plug and play solutions?

[NDA]

DoubleSix said:

Would the kids of today (and perhaps some of the newcomers to audio tech on this thread) be better served by a set of high end active speakers? For truely wireless, plug and play solutions?

I am no kid or newcomer and have been right through the hifi journey from Rega to LP12 and from NAD to Krell, with everything in between. I moved to streaming actives with a pair of KEF LS60's - which are very easy to live with. There are more positives than negatives but they are almost painfully accurate/neutral. With hindsight I should probably have bought active speakers rather than active streamers to allow more front end creativity.


Back to the Wiim, I just had a look at the user manual and you can't 'loop' a DAC in - in other words bypass the internal DAC. So you'd be going from external DAC and then to internal Wiim DAC. I have the same 'issue' (not an issue at all really) with the LS60's, an external DAC would still have to pass through the internal DAC.

This information needs checking as I am no expert on the Wiim!