New Ultra

Mr Ee said:
Settle...

Don't make me have to non-moderate this! (Some of the ones who've been here a while will get that reference)

Bummer if you use Apple music

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/wiim-ultra-not-getting-apple-airplay/
forum.wiimhome.com forum.wiimhome.com
Click to expand...
Ok I hadn’t seen that. So smartplug is justified. I remove what I said. It would have been nicer if he had linked to that.
 
Which made me think of this ;)
Might have to give it a spin when I get home, but I'm sure it won't be as good as I remember...

The_KLF_-_Justified_and_Ancient.jpg
 
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Ok here’s my subjective review. I agree what the guy who own 15k worth of gear. The sound is thick with strong bass and mid but somewhat soft in treble. Bass is tight and controlled. Lesser quality bass would be loose and not controlled. The detail is there but not hyper detail. For those people who like hyper detail, they can use external dac of their choice. You can listen for long time without fatigue or ringing. The thing I don’t like is the volume adjustment as it goes 3 incremental which hard to fine tune. Great value and will be further enhance its capability as wiim add more features. This is based on my own gear and result vary from equipment use. Your miles may vary.
 
Until the moderator return, I believe we should all stay polite here while avoiding unnecessary strife among users. 🙂

The root of this problem is Linkplay's delay in announcing and correcting information about the AirPlay outage. And it was compounded by repeated ambiguous explanations. However, there have already been some apologies for this and a return policy for existing users has been offered.

Needless to say, the users here have no responsibility. So there is no need to fight in vain.🙂

Needless to say, this is just my personal opinion.🙂

And needless to say, the WiiM Team has yet to specifically mention Ultra V2. That is still just speculation by the members here. 🙂
 
bherren said:
As a matter of fact they did. They specifically said it would require a new SKU
Click to expand...
Yes, but re-read that statement carefully.

They said "would". They didn't say "will".

It's possible that a next generation Ultra may come one day, which does include AirPlay 2 support. But WiiM did not promise. They just mentioned what would be needed. There might be a 2nd gen. Ultra or not. It might bring AirPlay 2 or not. We don't know.

If there is one thing everyone should have learned from this episode then this: don't assume.
 
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pieterv1 said:
I hope you are aware of the recent news that the current WiiM Ultra units will never be able to support Airplay right?
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I didn’t see that. Bummer. I gave up with Apple Music’s user interface. But, I occasionally listen to SiriusXM stations on the internet. I have a Raspi4 with Airplay and I can route to one of the Ultra’s inputs or I can use Apple TV and the HDMI input from a TV.

Or more likely, I can skip Sirius XM.
 
dlaslo said:
I didn’t see that. Bummer. I gave up with Apple Music’s user interface. But, I occasionally listen to SiriusXM stations on the internet. I have a Raspi4 with Airplay and I can route to one of the Ultra’s inputs or I can use Apple TV and the HDMI input from a TV.

Or more likely, I can skip Sirius XM.
Click to expand...
I'm not even an iOS user but occasionally I enjoy casting my MacBook's system audio to my speakers - when cleaning up my digital dj collection from the couch for example. I was bummed to see the lack of airplay to be permanent, but then remembered my smart TV actually supports it as well so it's not too big of a deal. It's a 2019 LG and funny enough it only got Airplay support through a software update 2 years ago... No MFi chip needed... So something must've changed about Apple's software/hardware requirements.

Still, I'd like to know if/when they'd add it to newer Ultra units - is it a matter of a few months - when the certification process is done (then I'll gladly wait and in the meantime use a Pro) or is it going to be a feature reserved for an "Ultra v2"...
 
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pieterv1 said:
Still, I'd like to know if/when they'd add it to newer Ultra units - is it a matter of a few months - when the certification process is done (then I'll gladly wait and in the meantime use a Pro) or is it going to be a feature reserved for an "Ultra v2"...
Click to expand...
Since it has to be a physically different item it certainly had to be a Mk II version. But as I said above, WiiM did not make any claims yet if AirPlay 2 will be coming to any future iteration of the Ultra or if they'll pass on.

Edit:
The Ultra has so much to offer, especially for those not just looking for an inexpensive audiophile streamer, but for a fully fledged digital pre-amp, it will certainly get its market share.

Dozens and dozens of not-even-that-cheap network players don't even support Google Chromecast, yet people buy them.
 
harkpabst said:
Since it has to be a physically different item it certainly had to be a Mk II version. But as I said above, WiiM did not make any claims yet if AirPlay 2 will be coming to any future iteration of the Ultra or if they'll pass on.

Edit:
The Ultra has so much to offer, especially for those not just looking for an inexpensive audiophile streamer, but for a fully fledged digital pre-amp, it will certainly get its market share.

Dozens and dozens of not-even-that-cheap network players don't even support Google Chromecast, yet people buy them.
Click to expand...
Yes I might be getting my hopes up too much..

There's the recent Italian teardown video though where there's clearly some unpopulated IC locations on the main PCB, in the digital section near the LinkPlay module.

Maybe if the certification process is finally completed, that's where the MFi chip could go.

"Could" "would" are keywords here, I know 🥲
 
pieterv1 said:
Yes I might be getting my hopes up too much..

There's the recent Italian teardown video though where there's clearly some unpopulated IC locations on the main PCB, in the digital section near the LinkPlay module.

Maybe if the certification process is finally completed, that's where the MFi chip could go.

"Could" "would" are keywords here, I know 🥲
Click to expand...
It's really all speculation (and personally I only spotted one location ;)), so we better stick with known facts.

One fact: The Ultra is an attractive package either way.
 
I'll get a Ultra for the main room once UMIK1 is added, connect to USB port, load up mic profile . That way most accurate reading.

Ultra PEQ allows me to have two speaker profiles, since I use two sets of main speakers- if just select profiles quickly.
 
I just found out that Roon has added Airplay2. That would make it the first Non-Apple AP2 source.

So is it a matter of money, license fees, or is Apple just trying to keep it to themselves?
 
Jls said:
I just found out that Roon has added Airplay2. That would make it the first Non-Apple AP2 source.

So is it a matter of money, license fees, or is Apple just trying to keep it to themselves?
Click to expand...
Yes, and Roon can stream lossless (16/44.1) via Airplay 2 (previously it did so via Airplay 1). Coincidentally, a few months before this Roon was acquired by Harman which is owned by Samsung…
 
pieterv1 said:
I'm not even an iOS user but occasionally I enjoy casting my MacBook's system audio to my speakers - when cleaning up my digital dj collection from the couch for example. I was bummed to see the lack of airplay to be permanent, but then remembered my smart TV actually supports it as well so it's not too big of a deal. It's a 2019 LG and funny enough it only got Airplay support through a software update 2 years ago... No MFi chip needed... So something must've changed about Apple's software/hardware requirements.

Still, I'd like to know if/when they'd add it to newer Ultra units - is it a matter of a few months - when the certification process is done (then I'll gladly wait and in the meantime use a Pro) or is it going to be a feature reserved for an "Ultra v2"...
Click to expand...
Yep. I have Airplay 1 and Airplay 2 on my Raspberry Pi with Ropieee. No MFI chip there either.
 
I think the underlying issue is money. Apple wants everyone to be able to receive Airplay, because it sells iPhones.

Broadcasting Airplay is trickier. That competes with iOS and MacOS devices. So money needs to change hands.

ID chips are tricky. See Windows 11. Apple does the same thing. Apple won’t upgrade MacOS on older Macs, and banks won’t trust older Macs. The ID chips need to be surface mounted, or more ideally, imbedded in the CPU.
 
dlaslo said:
Yep. I have Airplay 1 and Airplay 2 on my Raspberry Pi with Ropieee. No MFI chip there either.
Click to expand...

What you have is Shairport Sync, which is a software-based AirPlay emulator.
It does work quite well on RPi distros such as RoPieee, Moode, Volumio, piCorePlayer... etc. but it's not actually the AirPlay that a commercial product would need to license.
 
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