My WiiM Ultra first impressions

[Steve Woodhouse]

Okay, I’ve had the Ultra for a little under three weeks, and I wanted to give a few first impressions.

PART I

Right from the start, the packing, presentation, form factor are all top notch. A bit strange that there are no batteries with the remote, which almost everyone will use, whilst there’s an HDMI cable, which a significant number won’t use. Especially as your typical Blu-ray Disc player will come with batteries for the remote but no HDMI cable, despite it being impossible to use without the latter.

Just a little quirk, I suppose, but I want to be open, honest, and even-handed.

Connectivity is great. All the connectors feel very solid. I don’t use the volume pot at all, but I’ve tried it as some have said it’s felt cheap/funny, but I didn’t get that. Anyone having issues, I’d have a look at what Erin said in his review, see if that helps.

Functionality, is user-friendly, it’s as easy as the WiiM Mini.

Sound quality: initially I’d just say it appears to sound as it should, but more later.

What’s immediately marvellous is the subwoofer integration. As smooth as a Brazilian’s…erm…Brazilian.

So, all set up and ready to go, but then a bit of a brick wall. Unable to complete room correction and set sub levels due to domestic considerations, and an unusual lack of updates from WiiM as to what was happening with the sub being integrated into room correction.

But it’s here now, so off we go.

 

[Burnside]

…an unusual lack of updates from WiiM as to what was happening with the sub being integrated into room correction.

What lack of updates? I can see a toggle for subwoofer under the room correction settings in both the latest Android and iPad apps, even when I have usb selected as the Ultra’s output. Whether it works or not might be a different matter.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

PART II

Room correction is very simple. One issue, though. The onscreen graphic has the user holding their phone at roughly ear level, with the mic pointing towards the speakers. But the mic is at the bottom of your phone, so the image is upside down to the user. Not a deal-breaker, but it just feels a bit daft.

So, room correction (RC) done, and from the first results my sub is just too quiet. This is actually a great way of setting your sub level, if very slightly clunky. But to do RC properly, I think you have to do it a few times anyway, so no real issue.

Next step, run again. But I’ve run RC with the frequency range at different points, so I can customise adjustments. I’ve put a suggestion in the correct forum with a feature request to simplify this.

New listening tests, and…

…BINGO!

I have a very simple test to see how good the sound is. I have a pair of Sennheiser HD600s which are excellent. They’re very close to being tonally flat, and very easy to EQ to flat.

So I created a group for my Ultra and Mini to play the same thing simultaneously. The Mini is EQd for the HD600s, and feeds an EX5 DAC/headphone amp. So I know that what I’m getting through my headphones is tonally correct.

So now I can quickly swap between a pair of headphones which sound tonally perfect, and my speakers, driven by the Ultra, using RC.

And it’s spooky. I’ve compared headphones to speakers before, just to see how different they were, and it’s always been comparing apples with a chicken vindaloo. Just a totally different experience.

But this? This was like listening on headphones, taking them off, and thinking the headphone can’t have been working, or blocking any external sound, because it just sounds the same. Tonally, that is; soundstage, etc., maybe a different story.

But this is scarily good.

That’s it for now. But I want to tweak RC/PEQ just a little more. I also want to do some serious, real-world listening, where I’ve got the set up exactly as I want, and I listen to whole albums and playlists, rather than flicking between settings, and not even taking in a full track.

I hope to do this between now and Tuesday, so more then.

Happy to discuss what I’ve posted already before get to that, though.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

What lack of updates? I can see a toggle for subwoofer under the room correction settings in both the latest Android and iPad apps, even when I have usb selected as the Ultra’s output. Whether it works or not might be a different matter.

I don’t mean updating the system.

I mean the fact that they’d done this wasn’t in any of the firmware update notes, at least that I could see.

 

[Smartplug]

I have noticed after rc, sub became quiet and no more thumbs I normally hear when rc not in use.

 

[Musician]

Sound as it should , but more later … looking forward what you think

 

[slartibartfast]

I have noticed after rc, sub became quiet and no more thumbs I normally hear when rc not in use.

Thumbs?

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Sound as it should , but more later … looking forward what you think

Yeah, this is initial listening. I’m not expecting any astonishing deviations, but I think if you’re going to post something online, it’s good to be completely accurate about it.

 

[Jls]

Thumbs?

Thumps?

 

[slartibartfast]

Thumps?

Aha, could be

 

[Smartplug]

Aha, could be

lol yes my bad

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

PART III

More playing around.

I really only want to room EQ below 1kHz, but also want some ‘spare’ PEQ bands for above this (more on the reasons for that in a minute).

So I ran RC from 35Hz to 20kHz (my sub only really goes down to 35kHz), then ran it again from 35Hz to 1kHz. I found the ‘Actual’ results to be near identical.

I also found that RC only used 2 PEQ bands above 1kHz, and they’re the two I need.

By using RC up to 1kHz I’m effectively wasting 2 bands of PEQ, as the ‘Actual’ curves up to this point are, as I say, near identical.

Okay, what about above 1kHz?

My speakers have a ‘BBC Dip’ of 2dB-3dB between 1kHz and 3kHz (quite deliberate, according to the speakers’ designer Karl-Heinz Fink), and RC was trying to EQ that dip out. By the way, apart from this dip, the room was pretty good above 1kHz anyway.

I like to play around with 3 options: I’m talking about speaker EQ only here, not RC. I like to listen to the speakers flat - no EQ. I like to listen with the ‘dip’ fully EQ’d out. And I like to EQ out half the dip.

The latter is easy; to EQ out the dip you need one PEQ band at 1.7kHz of +3dB, and second at 2.5kHz of +2dB, both with a Q of 4.0. So to ‘half EQ’ you just make the first band +1.5dB instead of 3, and the second +1dB instead of 2.

So here’s what I’ve done. I’ve saved the RC set to go from 35ZHz to 20kHz, but then turned the 9th and 10th PEQ bands off (both are above 1kHz). I’ve saved this as “RC to 1kHz”. So that’s for listening to the speakers with RC up to 1kHz, but nothing above. The BBC Dip intended by the speakers’ designer is still there.

I’ve then saved that, but with bands 9 and 10 back on, and the PEQ mentioned above added to EQ out the dip, and saved that as “RC BBC Dip”. I’ve then done the same, but with only half the dB boost in bands 9 and 10 and saved that as “RC Half Dip”.



Once I got going, it was probably quicker than typing this into my phone!

Cheers WiiM. Excellent feature.

 

[Doublej]

I agree with you about the batteries. Very odd choice to not include them in the kit.

What speakers are you using?

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

I agree with you about the batteries. Very odd choice to not include them in the kit.

What speakers are you using?

Wharfedale Diamond 12.1s:

Post in thread 'What's your setup/configuration look like?'
https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/whats-your-setup-configuration-look-like.13/post-73986

 

[Mr Ee]

I think it's been mentioned before that shipping items with batteries requires adherence to additional rules and regulations, so is far simpler to not provide them.
Probably.

 

[slartibartfast]

I think it's been mentioned before that shipping items with batteries requires adherence to additional rules and regulations, so is far simpler to not provide them.
Probably.

Isn't that mainly lithium batteries? My Meater temperature probe came with batteries and they lasted less than a month, the replacements are still going more than a year later

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

I think it's been mentioned before that shipping items with batteries requires adherence to additional rules and regulations, so is far simpler to not provide them.
Probably.

I couldn’t say for sure. But I can say that I’ve bought products from multiple manufacturers, whether British, American, EU, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese, and there have always been batteries. Some have been on very cheap items (sub-£50), so cost doesn’t appear to be an issue, and it’s clearly not illegal to include them.

Whatever issues there are, if any, absolutely every other manufacturer has managed to avoid them.

I’m not being negative against WiiM here, this is one of the best home electronics items I’ve ever bought, but I have to be honest and balanced.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Isn't that mainly lithium batteries? My Meater temperature probe came with batteries and they lasted less than a month, the replacements are still going more than a year later

I have a long life light bulb in my en suite which I haven’t changed since we moved into house when it was brand new.

That was 18 years ago this week.

 

[LennyBruce]

Right from the start, the packing, presentation, form factor are all top notch. A bit strange that there are no batteries with the remote, which almost everyone will use, whilst there’s an HDMI cable, which a significant number won’t use. Especially as your typical Blu-ray Disc player will come with batteries for the remote but no HDMI cable, despite it being impossible to use without the latter.

I really don't understand using the remote?

Mine is still in the box.

The app is absolutely superb, either on my phone or a 9" tablet.

Am I missing something?

 

[Mr Ee]

I really don't understand using the remote?

Mine is still in the box.

The app is absolutely superb, either on my phone or a 9" tablet.

Am I missing something?

Very limited use for me - track skip, mute.
Sometimes preset 1 just to play my 'liked' stuff.