Mini as source for two zone amps?

[mvalburg]

Will the aux output on a Mini act (with splitter) as source for two separate (stereo) zone integrated amps that are physically in the same place?

 

[d6jg]

It will sort of work but does one of the amps have a tape out? If so you might be better off connecting the Mini to one amp and using its tape out to connect to the other.

 

[mvalburg]

Thanks for responding. Could you expand a bit on "sort of work?" What are the limitations? (No tape out on the amps).

 

[harkpabst]

First, you need a suitable splitter, of course. The WiiM Mini has a 3.5 mm TRRS jack, no RCA outputs, so you need something that gets you from 3.5 mm to two stereo pairs of RCA plugs. This is rarely found in a single cable. You'll probably need to connect multiple cables, which is not ideal.

The input impedance seen by the Mini's output with two amplifiers connected in parallel will be lower (roughly halfed, if both amps have similar input impedance values). The result is that the Mini's output has a harder job driving both amps than it has driving only one. The capacitance of the cable will have a bigger influence, so highs can end up to be attenuated. You would want the cables to be as short and direct as possible. This could conflict with the need for multiple cables mentioned above.

 

[dtc]

First, you need a suitable splitter, of course. The WiiM Mini has a 3.5 mm TRRS jack, no RCA outputs, so you need something that gets you from 3.5 mm to two stereo pairs of RCA plugs. This is rarely found in a single cable. You'll probably need to connect multiple cables, which is not ideal.

Agreed, not ideal but also not that hard. 3.5 MM to 2 3.5MM splitters are pretty common. Then just 2 3.5 mm to RCA cables.

 

[harkpabst]

I didn't intend to say it's impossible, just shedding some light on what "sort of works" could mean.

 

[d6jg]

I didn't intend to say it's impossible, just shedding some light on what "sort of works" could mean.

It was, as you surmised - exactly what I meant. Not an ideal scenario at all.
Daisy chaining via a tape-out would (I think) be an all round better solution.

 

[dtc]

It was, as you surmised - exactly what I meant. Not an ideal scenario at all.
Daisy chaining via a tape-out would (I think) be an all round better solution.

But without a tape out, maybe the best available.

I really just wanted to point out the splitting the TRS first was a cleaner connection than splitting to RCA first.

 

[d6jg]

Slightly off topic but there were calls some time ago for all outputs to be live simultaneously - not sure where that ever went?
All the original Squeezebox players that had analog, optical and coax outputs had all of them live at the same time - it was (is) very useful.

 

[Burnside]

Slightly off topic but there were calls some time ago for all outputs to be live simultaneously - not sure where that ever went?
All the original Squeezebox players that had analog, optical and coax outputs had all of them live at the same time - it was (is) very useful.

It might be a hardware/design issue with WiiM devices that they don’t support multiple live outputs

 

[hgo58]

It might be a hardware/design issue with WiiM devices that they don’t support multiple live outputs

Probably it's rather a software issue, with not enough CPU power to handle it.

 

[mvalburg]

Thank you all for your informative responses. I have prior experience splitting output from a Wiim Pro aux output (via RCA to dual stereo RCA splitter) and powering two (dissimilar) power amps (works fine, and one of them has a DSP between splitter and amp for low-pass filter). I just wasn't sure what compromises splitting into integrateds might bring up. I'll post results after the 3.5mm to 2x3.5mm splitter arrives.