Help me decide

[BrentP]

Hi all, and thank you in advance for you knowledge.

We’ve been using a poor man’s Sonos for years: Airport Expresses cabled to amps to drive three sets of speakers on two zones (inside and outside). When it works, it’s great. I know all the troubleshooting steps and it’s easy for me to make it work, but not so much for my wife. Final straw was that after a power outage, one of the amps did not power up (doesn’t have a fixed on/off switch). So, I was about to bite the bullet at get two Sonos amps when I stumbled on the WIIM amps while looking for alternatives.

I’d rather keep interfaces simple and not introduce a new one. We use iPhones and a Mac. Can we send to the WIIMs using the native apps for Pandora, Music, and Podcasts on the iPhone using the AirPlay icon? On the Mac we use Airfoil to send all but the Music app to the AirPlay speakers. Will this find the WIIMs as AirPlay speakers?

Will this work without having to use the WIIM app? We have a pretty solid WiFi network.

Thanks!

 

[Burnside]

Yes, the WiiM Amp supports AirPlay. I’d suggest you get your hands on one and try it then if you’re happy, get the second.

 

[BrentP]

Thanks for your reply. One more question, how does the power switch work? Do you have to press it again whenever there is a power outage, or is the lower limit of the volume button the off setting?

 

[Burnside]

The Amp doesn't have a physical power switch, it just goes into standby after a period you can set. As it happens, I have mine on a smart plug that I turn off at bedtime along with all my gear

 

[Burnside]

Given I’m half deaf, I wouldn’t notice

 

[BrentP]

Howdy all, thank you for your replies and the humor. I've bought the Wiim amp and now discovered a potential problem. I was going to drive two pairs of Dayton Audio B652s with it, but I see that these speakers are rated at 6 ohm , so two pairs will not be 4 ohms after all. Will this be a problem? I also have a pair of smaller 8 ohm Nakamichi bookshelf speakers, so I could do a pair of each instead of two pairs of the DAs. This would be closer to 4 ohms. For all you engineers out there, how much of a problem is this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[harkpabst]

It mostly depends on the real impedance curve of these speakers. Unfortunately, you cannot rely the nominal impedance stated by the manufacturer.

Stereophile did review and measure these speakers back in 2013. These measurements seem to be still valid.

(Source: https://www.stereophile.com/content/dayton-audio-b652-loudspeaker-measurements)

Except for the resonance peak the actual impedance in the most power hungry region below 300 Hz is almost exactly 4 ohms. I wouldn't try to connect two of those in parallel to a single channel.

You could try connecting them in series instead, but cable routing could turn out to be inconvenient and you would be losing some power.