Hi @WiiM Team and @WiiM Support ,
I’m trying to create interest for a feature that:
1) isn’t provided elsewhere
2) would be super valuable to many users, even many who don’t even know it yet
3) that WiiM is uniquely capable of providing on existing hardware, and given their engineering talent
4) is actually about providing audio features and performance (rather than, say, all of the attention on the VU meters lately)
Please, please, please offer the ability to downmix LFE from multichannel sources into 2.0 output on the Ultra.
Before anyone goes any further, if you have a very bass-capable system that currently does not receive LFE: 1) Stream the Severance opening title theme on Spotify or Tidal Connect, 2) go onto your TV or streaming player and play the same theme by watching the start of an episode. The Spotify/Tidal version has the LFE mixed into the 2 channels, and it is incredible. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The video streaming version is very meh. Convinced? I certainly am.
Currently, anyone without a full-sized AVR cannot get a downmix of LFE into 2.0. AVRs are very expensive, large, and completely overkill for this task.
The Wiim Ultra no doubt has the processing power and the app control ability to offer the option of taking a 5.1 signal via HDMI, break it down, and add LFE to the L+R.
Before anyone starts saying, “but Dolby white papers say the LFE channel should be ditched in a 2.0 downmix.” Great, thanks, but that’s dumb! There are many full range speakers or sat+sub combos that would benefit by this, and that’s why so many AVRs offer downmixing the LFE into the 2.0. My system is a perfect example, and there are many others like it, and I don’t think people know how much information they’re missing on the LFE. WiiM would be heroes.
Or maybe the counter-argument is, “but you have to understand the LFE is a bass-boosted signal, often 10db higher than the mains, and that creates issues for combining them into one output.” Ok, but that’s completely surmountable. The Ultra has very powerful digital signal processing to manage that and prevent clipping. It could even offer a slider in the app for users to attenuate the LFE signal in relative terms to the mains so that we could fine tune the signal for the next device in the chain.
To be clear, I do not want the LFE broken out and put on the subwoofer output of the Ultra. That would completely defeat the purpose for me. I have a miniDSP SHD 2x4 processor that is vital to my system that would be downstream of the Ultra. In my 2.2 system, the SHD handles independent stereo time-alignment for my two subs, my HPF and LPF crossovers, gain structure for my power amp, delays, Dirac Live correction, etc. It can only take a 2 channel input. The downmixed 2.0 with LFE needs to be available on the digital optical and coax outputs of the Ultra (huge, huge preference for digital output here), or on the two channel RCA outputs if for some reason that is the only workable method.
I already own the Ultra in a different 2.1 music-only system where it is my sole preamp (and where I’m using the Ultra’s sub output), but I would absolutely 100% buy another Ultra for my 2.2 home theater system simply for it to perform a single task: taking a multichannel source and adding LFE to the 2.0 output. That’s how bad I want it, and how limited the options are elsewhere.
So many people don’t know what they’re missing because they aren’t even aware of what’s being stripped out, or even if they are aware it’s happening, they downplay the difference it would make. This is a chance for WiiM to offer something unique and that opens people’s eyes. I think experiences like that are the core of WiiM’s appeal, and why I’m such a fan. Thank you!
I’m trying to create interest for a feature that:
1) isn’t provided elsewhere
2) would be super valuable to many users, even many who don’t even know it yet
3) that WiiM is uniquely capable of providing on existing hardware, and given their engineering talent
4) is actually about providing audio features and performance (rather than, say, all of the attention on the VU meters lately)
Please, please, please offer the ability to downmix LFE from multichannel sources into 2.0 output on the Ultra.
Before anyone goes any further, if you have a very bass-capable system that currently does not receive LFE: 1) Stream the Severance opening title theme on Spotify or Tidal Connect, 2) go onto your TV or streaming player and play the same theme by watching the start of an episode. The Spotify/Tidal version has the LFE mixed into the 2 channels, and it is incredible. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The video streaming version is very meh. Convinced? I certainly am.
Currently, anyone without a full-sized AVR cannot get a downmix of LFE into 2.0. AVRs are very expensive, large, and completely overkill for this task.
The Wiim Ultra no doubt has the processing power and the app control ability to offer the option of taking a 5.1 signal via HDMI, break it down, and add LFE to the L+R.
Before anyone starts saying, “but Dolby white papers say the LFE channel should be ditched in a 2.0 downmix.” Great, thanks, but that’s dumb! There are many full range speakers or sat+sub combos that would benefit by this, and that’s why so many AVRs offer downmixing the LFE into the 2.0. My system is a perfect example, and there are many others like it, and I don’t think people know how much information they’re missing on the LFE. WiiM would be heroes.
Or maybe the counter-argument is, “but you have to understand the LFE is a bass-boosted signal, often 10db higher than the mains, and that creates issues for combining them into one output.” Ok, but that’s completely surmountable. The Ultra has very powerful digital signal processing to manage that and prevent clipping. It could even offer a slider in the app for users to attenuate the LFE signal in relative terms to the mains so that we could fine tune the signal for the next device in the chain.
To be clear, I do not want the LFE broken out and put on the subwoofer output of the Ultra. That would completely defeat the purpose for me. I have a miniDSP SHD 2x4 processor that is vital to my system that would be downstream of the Ultra. In my 2.2 system, the SHD handles independent stereo time-alignment for my two subs, my HPF and LPF crossovers, gain structure for my power amp, delays, Dirac Live correction, etc. It can only take a 2 channel input. The downmixed 2.0 with LFE needs to be available on the digital optical and coax outputs of the Ultra (huge, huge preference for digital output here), or on the two channel RCA outputs if for some reason that is the only workable method.
I already own the Ultra in a different 2.1 music-only system where it is my sole preamp (and where I’m using the Ultra’s sub output), but I would absolutely 100% buy another Ultra for my 2.2 home theater system simply for it to perform a single task: taking a multichannel source and adding LFE to the 2.0 output. That’s how bad I want it, and how limited the options are elsewhere.
So many people don’t know what they’re missing because they aren’t even aware of what’s being stripped out, or even if they are aware it’s happening, they downplay the difference it would make. This is a chance for WiiM to offer something unique and that opens people’s eyes. I think experiences like that are the core of WiiM’s appeal, and why I’m such a fan. Thank you!
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