Unveiling WiiM’s Newest Streaming Technology: A Revolutionary Update for Vintage Sound Systems

Instead of upgrading your entire media system, get an add-on network player. The new WiiM Ultra boasts high-end audio decoding and adds multi-room audio, AirPlay 2, Chromecast, and other wireless media capabilities to any old amplifier.

The WiiM Ultra uses an excellent 32-bit / 384kHz ES9038 Q2M Sabre DAC and provides hi-res music playback at 24-bit/192kHz quality. It features modern Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 wireless connectivity and can connect to other WiiM players (or other DLNA devices) for multi-room audio streaming. Naturally, like all WiiM products , the new Ultra unit supports a bevy of streaming platforms—Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, AirPlay 2, Google Chromecast, Alexa built-in, DLNA, Roon, and Squeezelite.

More notably, the WiiM Ultra has a 3.5-inch touchscreen display. This gives the unit a slightly more attractive appearance (fewer buttons and on-screen album artwork is a winning combination) when compared to previous WiiM devices. However, the small display is far from a necessity, as the whole point in a networking audio player is to cast music from a phone, laptop, voice assistant, or some other secondary device.

WiiM

The backside of the WiiM Ultra has an excellent array of connectivity options, including HDMI ARC (for TVs and AVRs), analog RCA, digital optical, a headphone jack, a subwoofer output, a supplemental coaxial output, a phono jack (great for playing whole-home audio from a record player), and a USB port for local files. You can connect the WiiM Ultra to your router via LAN if the built-in Wi-Fi 6E system isn’t reliable enough, and the unit can run a room correction algorithm based on input from your smartphone’s mic.

Along with the WiiM Ultra, there’s also a new WiiM Amp Pro. It’s functionally identical to the original WiiM Amp , though it adds the ability to connect to a TV over HDMI ARC and features upgraded Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. The Amp Pro also boasts a 120dB noise floor, up from 98dB in the original amp, and uses the same 32-BIT Q2M Sabre DAC as the new WiiM Ultra.

To avoid any confusion, I should clarify that the WiiM Ultra is meant to connect to an existing amplifier (or a speaker with built-in amplification, such as a soundbar). WiiM Amp Pro provides the functionality of a standard WiiM player, but it connects directly to passive speakers (and an optional subwoofer) like a traditional amplifier.

The WiiM Ultra costs $330, while the WiiM Amp Pro is $370. Both will go on sale in the U.S. by September, at the latest. Note that there are cheaper WiiM products that offer streaming functionality similar to these new units.

Source: WiiM

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