New to WiiM, music libraries and servers

[Racerjim66]

Greetings:

We recently built a new house with architectural speakers in four rooms, powered by WiiM amps, all hardwired (no wifi). It was an easy setup, and we are listening to (mainly) Pandora stations, and are very pleased with the performance. I currently also have a WiiM Amp Pro waiting to be installed, which wil also be hardwired to the network, but will also be fed from an older Kenwood A/V receiver (but only using stereo) which will have a turntable, CD player and cassette deck connected.

I also have a collection of ~200CDs, some of which I would like to host on a media server of some type that could feed the WiiM Amp Pro. But I've never gotten around to downloading the content to disk storage. Now in retirement I'd like to have some of my music available to stream from a server.

So, where would I go to learn about how to accomplish this? Hardware recommendations? And which music servers work best with WiiM? Any guidance would be helpful, just need a foothold to get started. Thank you!

Best,

Jim

 

[WiiM Support]

Greetings:

We recently built a new house with architectural speakers in four rooms, powered by WiiM amps, all hardwired (no wifi). It was an easy setup, and we are listening to (mainly) Pandora stations, and are very pleased with the performance. I currently also have a WiiM Amp Pro waiting to be installed, which wil also be hardwired to the network, but will also be fed from an older Kenwood A/V receiver (but only using stereo) which will have a turntable, CD player and cassette deck connected.

I also have a collection of ~200CDs, some of which I would like to host on a media server of some type that could feed the WiiM Amp Pro. But I've never gotten around to downloading the content to disk storage. Now in retirement I'd like to have some of my music available to stream from a server.

So, where would I go to learn about how to accomplish this? Hardware recommendations? And which music servers work best with WiiM? Any guidance would be helpful, just need a foothold to get started. Thank you!

Best,

Jim

Hi Jim,

Welcome aboard—and thanks for joining the community!

There’s actually an even simpler way to enjoy your music without setting up a separate media server. Just plug a USB flash drive containing your music library directly into the USB port on the WiiM Amp or WiiM Amp Pro. It instantly becomes a media server for your entire WiiM system, letting you stream music to any other connected WiiM device.

You can browse, search, and play tracks right from the WiiM Home App. Give it a try and let us know how it goes—we’d love to hear your feedback!

 

[TimTim]

Greetings:

We recently built a new house with architectural speakers in four rooms, powered by WiiM amps, all hardwired (no wifi). It was an easy setup, and we are listening to (mainly) Pandora stations, and are very pleased with the performance. I currently also have a WiiM Amp Pro waiting to be installed, which wil also be hardwired to the network, but will also be fed from an older Kenwood A/V receiver (but only using stereo) which will have a turntable, CD player and cassette deck connected.

I also have a collection of ~200CDs, some of which I would like to host on a media server of some type that could feed the WiiM Amp Pro. But I've never gotten around to downloading the content to disk storage. Now in retirement I'd like to have some of my music available to stream from a server.

So, where would I go to learn about how to accomplish this? Hardware recommendations? And which music servers work best with WiiM? Any guidance would be helpful, just need a foothold to get started. Thank you!

Best,

Jim

This depends on your needs. You could start by plugging a harddrive into your Wiim and figure out if that works for you. It’s quite basic but if your files are well tagged, it might just work for you. It would be a good start before considering moving on.

If you are looking for something with more options, a raspberry pi running picoreplayer or LMS on a NAS might be the better option.

 

[Racerjim66]

Thanks! i do have a tendency to over think things

I guess getting the content off the CDs and onto the flash drive is my problem, but if you have any guidance on that front I would take it. I think WMP is still available on Windows 11 and will do the job.

 

[Racerjim66]

This depends on your needs. You could start by plugging a harddrive into your Wiim and figure out if that works for you. It’s quite basic but if your files are well tagged, it might just work for you. It would be a good start before considering moving on.

If you are looking for something with more options, a raspberry pi running picoreplayer or LMS on a NAS might be the better option.

The files don't exist yet..... But I'm going to start ripping them soon. Is there a best practice for tagging?

 

[Burnside]

You should consider using dbpoweramp and ripping the CDs first to your PC. See this brief comment on how to start using it - this topic has been covered many times in the group when discussing ripping CDs, choosing suitable server software if not using USB attached storage.

https://forum.wiimhome.com/threads/...-for-wiim-ultra-by-wiim-mini.6074/post-102596

 

[dtc]

First, you should look at whether your albums are on one of the streaming services, like Amazon or Qobuz. If so, it might be simpler just to stream them rather than ripping them to files. The user interfaces for streaming services versus playing your ripped files are different, so you might to try the various options and see which you prefer.

If you rip them, you can use a media player program (e.g. LMS, Plex, J River) on a PC which can play to the Wiim and gives you a more customizable user interface. I prefer this method but it really depends on your feeling about the user interface. It does take more to set up and use than just streaming from an online service. LMS is a popular media play for Wiim users and there are instructions for using in the Wiim Help center

I think dBpoweramp has a free trial. You might want to rip a few CDs and then try the various options. You could probably even rip all 200 with the free version if your work at it.

 

[TimTim]

The files don't exist yet..... But I'm going to start ripping them soon. Is there a best practice for tagging?

I haven’t really done it in a while but most likely whatever ripping software you use should be able to do it for you. You wouldn’t want to end with „unknown album, track 1“. I’d say best practice would be to make everything easily identifiable. Since storage is not all that expensive, I‘d convert the cds to a lossless format, flac being the most common. The files are bigger than mp3s but you won’t lose any audio information.

 

[WiiM Support]

Hi Team,

Just wanted to share an exciting update that we think will enhance your music library experience. When the WiiM Home App scans your library, it will soon offer an option to automatically add missing metadata—like album name, artist, or cover art—if it’s not already present. This should make organizing and browsing your music much easier. The feature will support USB drives, local files, and music stored on NAS servers. We hope it brings a smoother and more enjoyable experience to managing your collection!

 

[TimTim]

Hi Team,

Just wanted to share an exciting update that we think will enhance your music library experience. When the WiiM Home App scans your library, it will soon offer an option to automatically add missing metadata—like album name, artist, or cover art—if it’s not already present. This should make organizing and browsing your music much easier. The feature will support USB drives, local files, and music stored on NAS servers. We hope it brings a smoother and more enjoyable experience to managing your collection!

It would be a smoother and more enjoyable experience if it fully worked with existing tags.

Would this feature edit the metadata of the music files or store it in an external database?

 

[HansD-NL]

"Would this feature edit the metadata of the music files or store it in an external database?" --> Great question, that's always a mystery with many products and players.

 

[slartibartfast]

"Would this feature edit the metadata of the music files or store it in an external database?" --> Great question, that's always a mystery with many products en players.

They wouldn't dare write to the files.

 

[TimTim]

They wouldn't dare write to the files.

Fingers crossed.

 

[vdp]

Hi Team,

Just wanted to share an exciting update that we think will enhance your music library experience. When the WiiM Home App scans your library, it will soon offer an option to automatically add missing metadata—like album name, artist, or cover art—if it’s not already present. This should make organizing and browsing your music much easier. The feature will support USB drives, local files, and music stored on NAS servers. We hope it brings a smoother and more enjoyable experience to managing your collection!

Ugh

 

[HansD-NL]

They wouldn't dare write to the files.

Constructive criticism

 

[HansD-NL]

Ugh

Great suggestion

 

[WiiM Support]

It would be a smoother and more enjoyable experience if it fully worked with existing tags.

Would this feature edit the metadata of the music files or store it in an external database?

Hi TimTim, Team

When the WiiM Home App scans your music library, it creates a local database (index) stored alongside your music files. Any enriched metadata we add—such as artist info, album art, or genre—will be saved in this database. This allows for a smoother and smarter experience when browsing, searching, playing, or getting recommendations. Our ultimate goal is to deliver a user experience with your personal library that's on par with modern streaming services. Please stay tuned!

 

[TimTim]

Our ultimate goal is to deliver a user experience with your personal library that's on par with modern streaming services. Please stay tuned!

Now that would really be something. Please look at Roon for inspiration and not Sonos.

 

[reniro]

Hi TimTim, Team

When the WiiM Home App scans your music library, it creates a local database (index) stored alongside your music files. Any enriched metadata we add—such as artist info, album art, or genre—will be saved in this database. This allows for a smoother and smarter experience when browsing, searching, playing, or getting recommendations. Our ultimate goal is to deliver a user experience with your personal library that's on par with modern streaming services. Please stay tuned!

that sounds awesome! looking forward to!
I have the problem that some folders with files inside (on my usb m.2 drive) are not detected or shown in the library. I have to delete the folder on the pc, upload it again and rescan the drive via the wiim app to see it added to the library. i dont know why this happend ... it seems really random

And it really would be awesome to be able to play DSD512 files without stutter but i guess this is a cpu / overall power thing ?!

 

[simbun]

Just wanted to share an exciting update that we think will enhance your music library experience. When the WiiM Home App scans your library, it will soon offer an option to automatically add missing metadata—like album name, artist, or cover art—if it’s not already present.

I don't recall anyone asking for such a feature.

Please prioritise fixing and enhancing the "Legacy" browsing experience before spending any more time on "Advanced" mode. One of your competitive advantages - in this area - over Sonos and BluOS is the ability to use third party UPnP servers, yet it feels like all your development time (for local media) has focussed on "Advanced" mode, which dumbs down third-party servers to MiniDLNA clones.