Bitrate/frequency view in app

[ArthurStereo]

I would like it to be possible to see in the app at what sampling rate and frequency the signal is being sent from the Wiim.

 

[Brantome]

The now playing screen already shows the bit depth and sampling rate - what’s missing?

 

[ArthurStereo]

It shows the music service what it sends, not Wiim. I don't know if there is conversion in Wiim. When using Apple Music on Android and Chromecast in Wiim, no information. Airplay also limits quality, although Apple Music shows 24/192. I would like to be sure if the signal has been changed or limited.

 

[FreakyKiwi]

I've confirmed that, with LMS/Squeezelite at least, the the WiiM app shows the type/rate/depth of the source file regardless of any transcoding settings and what is actually sent to the WiiM

 

[Brantome]

It shows the music service what it sends, not Wiim. I don't know if there is conversion in Wiim. When using Apple Music on Android and Chromecast in Wiim, no information.

That’s a limitation of Chromecast - WiiM devices can’t accurately determine the info over Chromecst so rather than display erroneous info, they chose not to show any. WiiM devices output up to the resolution set in their digital outputs but otherwise don’t change the input resolution.

Airplay also limits quality, although Apple Music shows 24/192. I would like to be sure if the signal has been changed or limited.

It’s well known that Apple Music over Airplay is reduced to lossy AAC except in very particular circumstances, and even in those it’s limited to the 24/48 that Airplay supports.

Apple Music Lossless Mess Part 2: AirPlay

Earlier this month I dug into Apple Music's Lossless and Hi-Res offerings, running several bit perfect rests on the audio output of my Macs and iOS devices. The results were less than stellar (link). This week I dug into Apple Music lossless over AirPlay. One would think that the results would be...

audiophilestyle.com

The device you connect to might have the information you want.

 

[ArthurStereo]

Thank you for an interesting article. I see that this is not a simple matter. I do not have any signaling in my DAC and I do not know what really goes into it and what happened to the signal before. If I set it to a fixed signal, it will be 24/192 but it is not known whether there was a conversion before and what it was. That is why I ask Wiim to show us this. This would be a great function.

 

[Brantome]

The fixed output resolution is primarily used to resolve issues with external DACs which click or pop between sample rate changes. If your DAC doesn’t exhibit this behaviour, then leave that switch off. If off, the WiiM device will output at the resolution of the input signal up to the maximum resolution set on your WiiM’s digital output, so if that’s set as 24/192 and your DAC can support that, all signals will pass thru with the same bit depth and sample rate.

 

[williamthrilliam]

Chiming in here, why can't the WiiM display the bit depth and sampling rate in app for google cast or spotify connect? It works for tidal connect. Are you saying that the service (tidal connect in this example) is advertising the bit depth and sampling rate as metadata in the stream?

 

[Burnside]

Chiming in here, why can't the WiiM display the bit depth and sampling rate in app for google cast or spotify connect? It works for tidal connect. Are you saying that the service (tidal connect in this example) is advertising the bit depth and sampling rate as metadata in the stream?

For Chromecast, see comment #5 above, and for Spotify, see several comments in the forum where it’s already been said that the Spotify eSDK UI guidelines recommend not showing it. Also, on top of that I believe the Spotify Connect interface doesn’t provide it.

Also see https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/wiim-ultra-not-showing-bitrate-info-anymore.8275/post-150931 where it’s opined that the display of bitrate for a lossless stream really says nothing about audio quality even if services like Tidal do appear to provide it.

 

[williamthrilliam]

I understand the debate on whether the advertised bitrate relates to the audio quality at all. For me (and I'm sure for others), it's about ensuring that the service is sending the advertised bitrate (that I paid for) to the WiiM device.

 

[Burnside]

I understand the debate on whether the advertised bitrate relates to the audio quality at all. For me (and I'm sure for others), it's about ensuring that the service is sending the advertised bitrate (that I paid for) to the WiiM device.

They don’t advertise bitrate (unless they’re lossy Spotify) but bit depth and sample rate as bitrate can change depending on the track content and data (not audio) compression. In terms of Spotify Lossless, I would concede that signifying whether it was a 16 bit rather than 24 bit track might be helpful given the Spotify app itself has that info.