Recased Wiim Pro

[Vangelo51]

Hi cool hobby work. Curious to know if you hook it up to an amp or running external dac.

I think my 40 yo ears will not tell a difference in a blind test.

No...I didnt allow for the RCA connectors. They are tucked away inside the case. I bought the Pro with the intention of using an external DAC. Not even tried the analogue outs or ins...........

 

[dangermouse]

There is a school of thought that RF & EMS waves are detrimental to sound quality.

There's a school of thought that the Earth is flat.

 

[Mike in NY]

There's a school of thought that the Earth is flat.

Another school of thought is those who paint broad brush stokes are usually parrots who know jack-shit.

 

[Deleted member 491]

Have you tried wearing a tin foil hat?

 

[D1N0]

They have replaced all tin foil with aluminum, so they got them there. It's not tin at all.

 

[Atko]

I have to say that I cannot believe that changing the power supply on your router can have any effect on your audio at all. The only reason to change it could possibly be if it was in close (too close) proximity to some analogue equipment and the charger itself was producing RF interference. A simpler and cheaper solution would be to keep it well away from your HiFi.

There are audiophile network switches also on the market but I’ve yet to see any serious audiophile website say anything about them except in a derogatory way.

Can someone actually explain how an LPS can make any difference to a digital streamer assuming that it’s original power supply is properly manufactured and works as it should? I don’t get it. A 1 is a 1 and a 0 is a 0. You can’t have straighter or broken 1s or fatter or incomplete 0s.

Edit
That all said. The case looks great

Unfortunately It’s not that binary (pun intended). This is a good explanation of how ones and zeroes are identified. Errors can be made, and it can be very difficult to establish a cause, or even detect an improvement. That said, any improvement in the chain is an improvement even if it’s precautionary.

 

[castalla]

A lot of audio perception is psychological, and if you THINK it will make a difference, it often does.....and I am OCD

Audio perception is named Audition. This is the physiological process. What you actually hear is called Hearing. The end result is a very complex interaction between all contributing processes in the brain, body, physical environment and the auditory stimulus itself. eg. standing upside down will impact what you hear, but you probably wouldn't want to do it!

It's all very fertile ground for the production of snake oil, available in both economy and luxury versions.

 

[dangermouse]

Audio perception is named Audition. This is the physiological process. What you actually hear is called Hearing. The end result is a very complex interaction between all contributing processes in the brain, body, physical environment and the auditory stimulus itself. eg. standing upside down will impact what you hear, but you probably wouldn't want to do it!

It's all very fertile ground for the production of snake oil, available in both economy and luxury versions.

Booze works for me. Much more effective than any of these snake oil/audio nervosa tinkerings.

 

[s3igell]

There is a school of thought that RF & EMS waves are detrimental to sound quality.

You apparently also subscribe to the idea that toroidal-based LPS needs Vibration Isolation. Yes, vibrations can cause electromagnetic induction in existing magnetic fields, per theory. One assumes that is the reason for the 4x "springy footings" under your Supercharger LPS.

What is the purpose of setting your re-cased WiiM directly atop, separated by thin pieces of adhesive foam?? All the large Hi-Fi Manufacturers make great deal of the rigidity engineered into their products, specifically to eliminate any vibrations transferred from the large toroidal power supply to the various electronic components. But, isn't that exactly what you've setup in this mounting choice??

(sorry, just had to poke the bear...)

 

[Brantome]

You apparently also subscribe to the idea that toroidal-based LPS needs Vibration Isolation. Yes, vibrations can cause electromagnetic induction in existing magnetic fields, per theory. One assumes that is the reason for the 4x "springy footings" under your Supercharger LPS.

What is the purpose of setting your re-cased WiiM directly atop, separated by thin pieces of adhesive foam?? All the large Hi-Fi Manufacturers make great deal of the rigidity engineered into their products, specifically to eliminate any vibrations transferred from the large toroidal power supply to the various electronic components. But, isn't that exactly what you've setup in this mounting choice??

(sorry, just had to poke the bear...)

The bear looks as if they've been hibernating for a few months, so probably best left sleeping

 

[Nikita]

Like I said at the beginning, 'there is a school of thought......'

I can definitely hear the difference a cheap wall-wart power supply has on a piece of equipment......subtle in some cases, dramatic in others. My understanding is it injects also noise into the mains. But if you are of the school of thought its all 1's & 0's, & cables, power supplies, grounding boxes etc, dont make a difference....thats fine too, and you can save a ton of expense!

Have to admit I could not hear a difference when my buddy brought up his grounding box, but he swears by it. Then again, I live in a rural area, and he lives in London behind a factory where there is more mains pollution.

A lot of audio perception is psychological, and if you THINK it will make a difference, it often does.....and I am OCD

I’m surprised that not many people are taking about noise pollution. Like actual noise. Living in the city my background noise is around -85dB (mid range, lows are even worse). Even in rural areas some stupid lawn movers can be heard miles away. I’m very curious how the true audiophiles in the cities deal with that.

 

[d6jg]

I’m surprised that not many people are taking about noise pollution. Like actual noise. Living in the city my background noise is around -85dB (mid range, lows are even worse). Even in rural areas some stupid lawn movers can be heard miles away. I’m very curious how the true audiophiles in the cities deal with that.

Headphones

 

[jeffme]

I disassembled the unit and discovered 3 boards.

Are there instructions anywhere on how to disassemble? I've removed the rubber pad & 4 screws, but am a little stumped as to how to unsnap the case... any tips?

EDIT: Finally forced a kitchen knife in between the upper case and bottom plate. The PCBs are screwed into the upper case and the only thing attached to the bottom plate appears to be a piece of metal, to give the unit more heft.

 

[motleypixel]

There is a school of thought that RF & EMS waves are detrimental to sound quality...

Great work on the case. I came here after looking for a tear down video on youtube which exists but doesn’t specify which UFL connector is for Bluetooth. I’m still at a point of discovery, not sure if there are separate UFL connectors for BT transmit, BT receive and WiFi?

Reason is because I’m only having issues with the BT transmission from the Ultra to BT headphones. Wifi works fine (close to my router), BT receive works fine but I have no need to use it. BT transmit is giving me some issues with a few headsets BT 5.0. I have a business pair of 5.3 that seem to work better but the range is not great.

I installed a radio meter on my phone and compared the Ultra with my previously used DAC/BT Transceiver and the previous was quite a bit stronger (FiiO BTA30 Pro). And no, before anyone asks why not use that…the answer is no

So in your post here, can you point out the PCB connector use for BT transmit? Is it a std UFL connector where I could put something like this in it’s place? https://sixfab.com/product/waterpro...sa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1

I’m attaching a screenshot with a red circle, is this the landing?

Thank you.

 

[QuarryHunslet]

So in your post here, can you point out the PCB connector use for BT transmit? Is it a std UFL connector where I could put something like this in its place? https://sixfab.com/product/waterpro...sa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1

@Vangelo51 hasn’t been seen on the forum for 16 months, so you probably won’t get a response from him, but you might get a response from other forum members.

 

[Blackburd]

Have you ever heard of RTL-SDR? I know that the SDR guys get a lot of interference on their scanning equipment from nearby power supplies. I wonder if you could leverage that to search for noise? Just a thought.

 

[adias]

There is a school of thought that RF & EMS waves are detrimental to sound quality.

My HiFi set up has been fairly stable for a number of years, and over the last few months I have been tweaking the system paying attention to isolation and cabling.
I have made my own cables consisting of shielded mains, interconnects and even power cables. I have positioned equipment so cable runs are as short as possible
and made sure mains and signal cables are well separated. I have also eliminated wall-wart type power supplies running LPS instead, including for the router.

This has all paid off reducing background noise and harshness, increasing soundstage width & depth, instrument separation & focus....all the good things a system should strive for.

So, having been really pleased with how The Wiim Pro fits in my system, the only thing that lets it down is the plastic case. This was an itch I had to scratch!
I disassembled the unit and discovered 3 boards. I was not interested in the front switches, nor the internal DAC. Really, I was only interested in the main board, but this would not work without the DAC board, so I needed a metal box to house the 2 boards, and found a 110 x 100 x 40mm case on Amazon that looked like it would work. Also bought an external aerial.

A bit of measuring, planning, drilling and filing achieved the results I wanted, which also includes a lift in SQ!
View attachment 1699

Well done! This is what some of us have been asking WiiM to do, including a filtered USB output.