WiiM is Linkplay's brand of very popular and affordable music streamer hardware that packs a ton of features and quality into a small and budget product line. The WiiM Ultra is their latest product and its one that quickly gained a lot of attention for a super feature rich streamer with a full touch screen for just $329 USD! That completely undercuts the touchscreen streamer market.
On top of that, the Ultra features headphone output and a preamp line-out feature for using with powered speakers, as well as taking in digital and analog inputs. It's not only a central digital hub, but also one for other devices too.
I jumped on buying my own when it became available on Amazon this past week and I'm fairly happy with the results so far.
The device just received Roon Ready certification at the beginning of August and it worked out well. I used the device originally with Chromecast Audio (Google Cast) for Roon and the results were rather mediocre. It was slow and album info and artwork did not work. But with the Roon Ready firmware update, everything works as intended! And it's glorious! The 3.5 inch screen can now show the album artwork in a couple different views or with a VU Meter instead. I switch between the three settings depending on my mood.
The Ultra can be controlled in three different ways with varying ease. The touchscreeen interface and the knob allow you to get a lot of stuff going to navigate through basic options and choose inputs and outputs and playback options. The knob is one of the worst parts of the device. It's pretty bad. It does not turn smoothly and feels very cheap. The lit up PLAY icon can also be turned off, thankfully.
The WiiM remote control also features the typical standard remote features, but the real heavy lifter for me is the WiiM app which gives you full control of the device as well as pick and choose music through the same interface, no matter the streaming source. I was able to quickly log into my Qobuz account and stream stuff over to the device without a hitch. I was also able to find local music quickly on my phone.
Some other negatives before I get into the sound quality:
You can only output to one device at a time. That means, you can not simultaneously output to coax and optical at the same time, nor can you plug in headphones and expect it to work automatically. You have to manually switch over.
And when you do switch to headphones, the volume does not reset! So if you are outputting to optical or coax at 100 on the volume dial, BE SURE TO LOWER THE VOLUME KNOB before putting your headphones in!
My other grip was not having Roon working out of the box, but that has now been rectified.
Sound Impressions
I listened to the WiiM Ultra as both a digital streamer transport to my FiiO K19 and also as a digital preamp and headphone amp, and will go over each of these configurations.
As a digital transport, the Ultra was paired to my K19 DAC with digital coax connection. The K19 was used with my desktop monitor speakers and also with my Hifiman Susvara headphones. In both cases, I found the Ultra was a clean and transparent digital path. I did not suspect any influence of the device into what the FiiO K19 already provided to my speakers or headphones. In general, it was a smooth experience and works just great.
The Ultra as a headphone amplifier, however, has some of its own character that I would not put as neutral. It's definitely on the warm and dark side when used with my Hifiman Susvara or my Subtonic Storm IEMs. Surprisingly, the Susvara was able to get quite loud on the upper echelons of the volume output settings, and remained bassy and punchy and this was likely due to the warmer characteristics of the headphone amp, which I also found on the Storm IEMs too.
It's a pleasant headphone amp which should be able to handle most headphones as it, but I would recommend pairing with something neutral or brighter, as it already has quite a bit of of bloomy bass characteristic to it, although still resolving.
As a line-out preamp to my speakers, I think the same warm and elevated bass was apparent on my setup. My speakers were punchier and bassier than I heard with the K19 on the same tracks, although I think I prefer the more neutral sound and bigger soundstage of the K19 more.
Final Thoughts
This is a crazy good value at $329 for a digital streamer that has a touchscreen display, Roon and Google Cast capability, as well as support for Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify, and others. On top of that, you get preamp and headphone amp capabilities built-in and the ability to use it as a receiver for your analog devices such as turntables, CD/DVD/Blu-Ray players, and more. Pretty feature-rich!
While it does cut some corners in the volume knob, and the lack of Airplay and Apple Music support, there is a lot to like about this streamer!
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Antdroid's IEM Ranking List and/or Antdroid's Headphone Ranking List
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