When you’ve unboxed a Macbook or Macbook Professional, you’ve already unboxed the WiiM AMP. The WiiM’s field dimensions, materials construction, graphic design and slow-release lid are all extraordinarily just like Apple’s. Get your ruler out although and also you’ll additionally see how the AMP’s 19cm x 19cm high plate sits inside a whisker of the MacMini’s 19.7cm x 19.7cm. Additionally very Apple-esque are the WiiM AMP’s color choices: ‘Area Gray’ or ‘Silver’. Furthermore, the WiiM emblem reduce into the AMP’s high plate, which reads identically from both finish, recollects the upside-down considering behind the Sonos title. Linkplay – the producer behind the WiiM model – clearly is aware of a successful components when it sees one. Or two. 😉
Not that Linkplay hasn’t already developed a successful components of its personal. For the final 12 months and a half, WiiM has prodded cash-conscious audiophiles with its Mini, Professional and Professional Plus community streamers that put a mixture of Google Chromecast, Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Join, Tidal Join and Roon Readiness in a single field for not very a lot cash. The WiiM Professional Plus, for instance, provides larger streaming flexibility than the €449 Sonos Port – and it does for 2 hundred fewer {dollars}.
Loaded with the identical streaming energy because the Professional Plus, the brand new WiiM AMP makes an ever-better first impression. The plastic casework has been changed by aluminium on all sides however the underside and there’s a bodily quantity wheel that we press for pause/play if we don’t really feel like reaching for the equipped distant wand or a smartphone app. And since that distant connects to the WiiM AMP over Bluetooth LE, the amplifier could be stashed away out of sight ought to we so want. Not that the AMP is in any respect bodily intrusive or displeasing to the attention. For me a minimum of, it’s the epitome of understated hi-fi minimalism.
Take be aware: on the time of writing, Roon isn’t but Prepared for the AMP. As a substitute, I despatched Roon streams to the Chromecast enter – and wirelessly as a result of my new sideboard’s internals aren’t but Ethernet-equipped – however the AMP is. (Sure, I may have simply as simply streamed to the AirPlay 2 enter). Then there’s WiiM’s personal House app which integrates Qobuz and Amazon Music HD plus analogue, TOSLINK and HDMI ARC inputs on the again panel, all for US$299/€349. Crikey!
I not have a Sonos AMP (€799) at hand for a side-by-side comparability with the WiiM AMP however you possibly can drive a bus by the €450 worth hole between the 2. The WiiM benefit doesn’t finish there. It’s extra extensively spec’d on streaming choices, it provides us bodily management buttons and the entire thing feels extra substantial within the hand. I’m, frankly, amazed that WiiM managed to wrap their AMP in aluminium for below half of the plastic-shelled Sonos AMP’s asking and with out farming out the ability provide to an exterior brick.
Time to get techy.
On amplifier energy, the interior Class D Texas Devices TI 3255 chip is rated at 60wpc into 8 Ohms and 120wpc into 4 Ohms. These aren’t baller numbers however they’re loads for a pair of Professional-Ject Speaker Field 5 S2 (€649/pair), right here well wearing a mustard yellow.
I double-checked with WiiM: the ADC that manages the AMP’s analogue enter was pulled from the Professional Plus however regardless of initially planning to carry the DAC circuit throughout as properly, the AMP’s DAC circuit has been constructed round one in every of ESS Labs’ earlier flagship chips, the Sabre ES9018.
Chip-spotters ought to unzip their anoraks to think about what they don’t know: a DAC chip’s implementation issues greater than the silicon itself: we should contemplate the analogue stage that follows the chip and the ability provide that juices it. However energy provides and output levels not often include make/mannequin numbers. There’s nothing else to do however put down the keyboard and take a pay attention.
Just like the Mini, Professional and Professional Plus, the WiiM AMP is a cinch to onboard onto a wi-fi community. On first use, the House app routinely discovers the AMP, injects the wifi community’s password into the AMP and pulls down any firmware updates. We’re up and operating with music in lower than 5 minutes after unboxing.
Unexpectedly, WiiM has added voice messages that play out of the amp and into our audio system to inform us when it’s network-connected. Flip the AMP on and off once more and we hear a start-up sound that lets us know when the system is able to use. A restart takes all of thirty seconds.
Me? I used to be keen to listen to, but once more, The Mountain Goats’ Jenny From Thebes. The WiiM/Professional-Ject pairing provides larger precedence to the album’s rhythm and swing with the string part and acoustic guitar strum’s tonal traits taking a little bit of a again seat. That a lot I additionally heard from Ricardo Villalobos’ Artichokea not too long ago re-issued minimal techno basic.
Moritz Von Oswald’s Silence and John Cale’s Fragments Of A Wet Season inform us that the WiiM’s transparency is extra overt than its supply of a piano’s timbre. And it’s an identical story with the string sections that hang-out Laurel Halo’s in any other case ambient-washed Atlas. In WiiM/Professional-Ject fingers, they take pleasure in properly focussed soundstage placement however come up ever-so-slightly brief on the inflections we get from extra luxurious amplification.
Sure, I’m being tremendous nit-picky; however please know that the WiiM doesn’t sound gray or washed out. It’s simply not as tonally saturated because the €1000 Marantz Stereo 70s. And given the worth differential, we wouldn’t count on it to be. The WiiM attracts instrument shapes with crisper edges than the Marantz. The Marantz sounds extra pure. No amplifier blows the opposite out of the water. Nothing will get ‘destroyed’. (The best way I see it, those that would use such terminology to explain the variations between hi-fi elements by no means actually grew out of taking part in Battleships).
No, the WiiM AMP merely belongs to the clear, lean and lit-up college of sound replica. I instructed my pal and colleague Terry Ellis (over at Pursuit Good System) about this and he recommended I make use of the House app’s graphic or parametric EQ to assist the WiiM AMP sound fleshier. That works – however solely to a degree. EQ alone gained’t flip the WiiM into an Audiolab 6000 Play (€999), which sounds comparatively hotter and fuller-bodied.
If the WiiM is a glowing white to the Audiolab’s creamier Chardonnay then the AMP’s closest sonic and useful cousin is the Bluesound Powernode Edge (€650). The Canadian field pushes ahead the synthesized hi-hats heard on Biopshere’s Microgravity with marginally much less urgency. The Bluesound sounds somewhat extra relaxed: a full cease to the WiiM’s exclamation mark. However that’s a delta so small that I wouldn’t swear on it. What I’m extra assured of is how the Bluesound and the WiiM are higher suited to Björk’s fashionable pop or Daniel Avery’s electronica than the string-driven works of Richard Strauss or Vivaldi. Assume: pizzicato over legato.
The WiiM distant’s 4 preset buttons and its speedy response occasions would possibly make us miss much less the contact panel on the entrance of the Edge however you continue to want the Bluesound in case you want an old-school wired headphone socket.
Do you know that each one WiiM merchandise now provide two-way Bluetooth, similar to BluOS? I didn’t till I caught up with Linkplay’s livid fee of software program growth, as detailed within the House app’s launch notes. It’s a pointy reminder that Future-Fi is as a lot about software program as {hardware}. And listener satisfaction with Biosphere’s Microgravity is as a lot about sub-bass heft as it’s crisp n’ clear hi-hat supply. A subwoofer turns into important when operating standmounts that don’t simply dip beneath 50Hz with out the room’s help.
After connecting a bass maker to the subwoofer output on the again of the WiiM, we pull up the House app to which WiiM’s software program builders have added a bass administration pane. That is the place we set the subwoofer crossover level – but additionally acquire and section settings. The latter two make it simpler to mix the subwoofer with the loudspeakers from the listening place. I didn’t should get out and in of my seat to regulate the KEF KC62’s acquire rotary or experiment with its close by section toggle as I did when utilizing the Bluesound Powernode Edge to cross the KEF sub over with the Professional-Ject standmounts. There are not any subwoofer acquire and section settings (but) within the BluOS app.
And that DSP-powered bass administration additionally means we get the added advantages of high-passed filtered loudspeaker outputs, simply as we do with the Powernode Edge. The on-paper advantages for a two-way just like the Professional-Ject Speaker Field 5 S2 go one thing like this: 1) a excessive move filter is utilized to the audio system to deprive them of low bass duties which then 2) reduces the mid/bass driver’s tour which in flip 3) reduces the voice coil warmth that might in any other case trigger 4) the mid/bass driver’s enter impedance to rise sufficient to five) compress dynamics.
And with a 2.1 system in play, possibly different WiiM listeners will hear Ricardo Villalobos’ minimal techno or 4 Tet’s Reside At Alexandra Palace as I do: as soon as the subwoofer is accurately dialled in and the primary audio system high-pass filtered, any need to swap out the loudspeaker amplifier for one more mannequin is severely blunted. If you wish to hear first-hand what the high-pass filtering is doing to the loudspeaker, bodily disconnect the subwoofer earlier than turning the subwoofer ‘on’ and ‘off’ within the app. When ‘on’, it is best to hear much less bass wallop but additionally extra midrange readability.
The upshot is that any audible variations between the Bluesound and the WiiM turn out to be much less obvious as soon as a subwoofer is added to the scene. Sub and low-bass utilized to the Professional-Ject loudspeakers add meat to music’s bones to render amplifier high quality past the subwoofer much less essential than when that amplifier is operating solo. That WiiM has accomplished this for half of the Bluesound’s sticker is motive sufficient to fee it extremely.
It’s not all clean crusing on the nice ship WiiM.
Turning off an HDMI-connected Samsung ‘The Body’ TV shuts off sound to the loudspeakers (as we’d count on) however a low-level ‘put-put-put’ sound continues to spill from the KEF KC62 subwoofer. I’ve to modify the WiiM AMP over to a different enter to make it cease.
Then there was that one time that the WiiM stopped sending a sign out to the subwoofer fully. An AMP restart shortly resolved the problem.
And lastly, watch out within the winter across the WiiM’s metallic chassis. I touched the highest plate yesterday solely to trigger the AMP a static shock that introduced Boards of Canada to a stuttery finish. I assumed I’d fried an inner board. Fortunately, a restart returned the AMP to regular operation.
These already properly versed within the methods of Wilson, D’Agostino, McIntosh, Magico, Gryphon and so forth. will look down on the WiiM AMP as a toy. From the lofty perspective of many high-end audio customers, it’s. You’d be fortunate to see the WiiM AMP at a hi-fi present as a result of it isn’t actually for the show-going hi-fi fanatic: he who simply has to stare blankly behind each loudspeaker in play. It’s for individuals who have by no means been to a hi-fi present and sure by no means will. It’s for these, clearly, who discover themselves working on a lot tighter budgets. When purchasing on simply the opposite facet of Sonos, a hi-fi system’s whole value will nonetheless want to return in at below $1000. The WiiM AMP makes that attainable. And with ease.
This AMP can also be for many who put connectivity, useful flexibility and appears on the identical precedence degree as sound high quality. Inform me once more which way more expensive streaming amplifier (or streaming DAC) places 2-way Bluetooth, Google Chromecast, Tidal Join, Spotify Join, Apple AirPlay 2, AirPlay Casting, Roon Readiness, Alexa / Siri voice management and subwoofer bass administration below one roof. I’ll wait.
From one MacMini-sized/-coloured system, we get a set of streaming choices that goes past even BluOS; hard-wired connectivity that features the all-important HDMI ARC; a hi-res-capable DAC and a 60wpc amplifier that collectively hits the bullseye drawn on the wall that in any other case separates aspirational audiophiles from mainstream customers. Come collectively!
I’ve not seen worth for cash fly this excessive in entry-level hi-fi for the reason that Logitech Squeezebox Contact hit the streets in 2010. And that makes the WiiM AMP not solely a DAR-KO award winner however a very robust contender for product of the 12 months.
Additional info: WiiM
