Snake oil update! 🐍

[BowsAndArrows]

Anybody using ifi spdif purifier with coax only on WiiM pro plus or pro ? How do you connect it ? Directly to the WiiM coax output or directly to the dac’s coax in ?

i'm using it with optical in + optical out. but to answer your question, there is no way to connect the S/PDIF ipurifier input directly to the WiiM coax output, cos they are both female ports??! you'd still need a cable in between.

you can connect the ipurifier's coax OUT directly into a preamp/amp cos that side is a male port.

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Do some of you ACTUALLY listen to music or just your electronics! No offense to anyone but it seems some of you are so OCD you either invent improvements or are just wasting precious time!
To each their own but come on people ....it's a tool nothing more!

haha, no sometimes i just read the sheet music + the frequency response curves for my speakers and imagine what it would sound like in my head. isn't that what you do??

other days when i'm feeling more "digital" i just read the raw I2S data coming out of my streamer while i'm hooked up to my amplifier's analog output via banana plugs!

 

[steadyshot]

i'm using it with optical in + optical out. but to answer your question, there is no way to connect the S/PDIF ipurifier input directly to the WiiM coax output, cos they are both female ports??! you'd still need a cable in between.

you can connect the ipurifier's coax OUT directly into a preamp/amp cos that side is a male port.

Thanks for your answer! So WiiM coax out - coax cable - purifier coax in and finally purifier coax out male to female dac’s input .

I have qed performance coaxial and given that my dac likes coaxial better than optical I am thinking if purifier will bring improvements or a better coax cable…

I have already connected modem/router with qed performance Ethernet to netgear gs108e v3 switch and from switch a Supra cat 8 Ethernet to ifi lan silencer which is directly connected to pro plus lan port . Already have ifi power x feeding WiiM and AudioQuest power strip . And Supra lorad 2.5 spc power cable for amp . I don’t want to change speakers , or buy a dac or amp . Just further tweaking is what I am interested.

What I am thinking is AudioQuest carbon coaxial or qed reference digital 40 coax or purifier.

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Thanks for your answer! So WiiM coax out - coax cable - purifier coax in and finally purifier coax out male to female dac’s input .

I have qed performance coaxial and given that my dac likes coaxial better than optical I am thinking if purifier will bring improvements or a better coax cable…

I have already connected modem/router with qed performance Ethernet to netgear gs108e v3 switch and from switch a Supra cat 8 Ethernet to ifi lan silencer which is directly connected to pro plus lan port . Already have ifi power x feeding WiiM and AudioQuest power strip . And Supra lorad 2.5 spc power cable for amp . I don’t want to change speakers , or buy a dac or amp . Just further tweaking is what I am interested.

What I am thinking is AudioQuest carbon coaxial or qed reference digital 40 coax or purifier.

I'm guessing that the ipurifier will probably have a bigger impact than switching coax cables... but i haven't actually tested this myself.

i might actually test coax out from WiiM into the S/PDIF ipurifier with optical to my active speakers to compare it to the all-toslink route i have currently. share your experiences here whatever you decide to tweak, anyways, it's helpful to the rest of us tweakers!

out of interest - have you A/B tested the QED and Supra ethernet cables vs "standard" ones? did they make a significant impact on SQ? what about the LAN iSilencer? i'm considering getting some sort of galvanic isolator for my ethernet connection into the WiiM

 

[steadyshot]

I'm guessing that the ipurifier will probably have a bigger impact than switching coax cables... but i haven't actually tested this myself.

i might actually test coax out from WiiM into the S/PDIF ipurifier with optical to my active speakers to compare it to the all-toslink route i have currently. share your experiences here whatever you decide to tweak, anyways, it's helpful to the rest of us tweakers!

out of interest - have you A/B tested the QED and Supra ethernet cables vs "standard" ones? did they make a significant impact on SQ? what about the LAN iSilencer? i'm considering getting some sort of galvanic isolator for my ethernet connection into the WiiM

I have only a/b the Ethernet from modem to switch with a ugreen and another cheap and ugreen was better and qed even better . The lan silencer made a big difference in sweetening the high frequency and the switch made a difference in overall clarity . Initially I had Supra connected to a WiFi to Ethernet bridge from tp link with good results but not the same as now . Now is much better .Connecting straight from modem to WiiM is much worse . So yes lan silencer is a no brainer and its most effective position is in WiiM’s lan port

 

[Mike in NY]

What a good idea! Spend all the money that you save by buying cheap Wiim products on snake oil.

But I see no mention of separate VLANs anywhere...

You skipped right past the disclaimer in the OP, didn't you?

 

[BowsAndArrows]

I have only a/b the Ethernet from modem to switch with a ugreen and another cheap and ugreen was better and qed even better . The lan silencer made a big difference in sweetening the high frequency and the switch made a difference in overall clarity . Initially I had Supra connected to a WiFi to Ethernet bridge from tp link with good results but not the same as now . Now is much better .Connecting straight from modem to WiiM is much worse . So yes lan silencer is a no brainer and its most effective position is in WiiM’s lan port

wow interesting. so you noticed further benefits from adding to the LAN silencer even though you already had a pretty low-noise network implementation? hmm.

it's also interesting to hear that you prefer this current network setup to the TP link repeater setup... i'm currently exploring the WLAN repeater (in bridge/client mode) solution myself, and some of us on other forums are experimenting with ferrite choke cores or ferrite throttles on some "standard" shielded ethernet cables. haven't tried any audiophile ones yet, but i might look into it...

 

[Griff]

Thanks for your answer! So WiiM coax out - coax cable - purifier coax in and finally purifier coax out male to female dac’s input .

I have qed performance coaxial and given that my dac likes coaxial better than optical I am thinking if purifier will bring improvements or a better coax cable…

I have already connected modem/router with qed performance Ethernet to netgear gs108e v3 switch and from switch a Supra cat 8 Ethernet to ifi lan silencer which is directly connected to pro plus lan port . Already have ifi power x feeding WiiM and AudioQuest power strip . And Supra lorad 2.5 spc power cable for amp . I don’t want to change speakers , or buy a dac or amp . Just further tweaking is what I am interested.

What I am thinking is AudioQuest carbon coaxial or qed reference digital 40 coax or purifier.

I would be quite interested in the results of a test of the coaxial config on the ifi spdif purifier. I use delock ethernet isolation devices on all the ethernet connections of music streamers I have. They are a bit cheaper, but they not specifically designed for audio use. Happy with the results with them installed

 

[MKUltra]

You skipped right past the disclaimer in the OP, didn't you?

What? VLANs are like cable risers. No snake oil there, just esoteric South-American wood.

 

[Malkie]

haha, no sometimes i just read the sheet music + the frequency response curves for my speakers and imagine what it would sound like in my head. isn't that what you do??

other days when i'm feeling more "digital" i just read the raw I2S data coming out of my streamer while i'm hooked up to my amplifier's analog output via banana plugs!

That's what I thought!

 

[steadyshot]

I will update when I decide…!

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Haha, yeh so true! There are some limitations, though, when you are designing a product for a lower price point, that limit its performance...

For example - cheaping out on a clock crystal or its implementation in the device... I and some others believe that the master clock is especially important in the digital chain if toslink is used to send data to your DAC - since the sending device's clock is the master.

The Pro Plus’ internal DAC jitter performance. Remember the threshold for human hearing distortion (proven many time in controlled double bling testing) is -115dB. In other words, look at the spike in the middle - that’s what you’re supposed to hear. That’s set to 0 at its peak, so all the other information you see is quieter than that by the scale on the left. You’ll see that all jitter distortion is greater than 130dB below the signal. So completely and proveably inaudible.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

The WiiM Mini’s digital output jitter. Remember, if the noise at the bottom is greater than 115dB below the peak in the middle, it’s impossible to hear.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

We really need to get over this idea that high performance has to be expensive.

Yes, in some cases it does. But in others it doesn’t.

The bottom line is that there’s a limit to what humans can and can’t hear. In some cases, avoiding some of the nasties we can hear is both difficult and expensive, sometimes due to the cost of build quality, materials, and labour costs if the creation is labour intensive and requires a high level of skill (and hence pay).

But DACs do not require expensive parts - even the clocks you described are cheap, and their manufacture is largely automated. Design to eliminate issues, once done for the first time, is easily replicable in newer models.

It’s very, very difficult indeed for us humans to accept that we can get perfection on the cheap, because so often we just can’t; we have to pay, and pay well. And if that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we have to do.

But when a cheap solution is found, as we have with DACs, it really is astonishing for people to scramble around looking for reasons that we have to pay more than is required.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Just as I derived pleasure out of cracking early BBC microcomputer games to get the passwords for each level rather than playing the games, some get pleasure out of tweaking hi fi…

It’s the one concession I have to giving in to bias. Described perfectly here by Mitchell.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...n-joint-and-back-advertising-standards-agency

 

[MKUltra]

But but you're untrained and you have no hifi expertise and if you were a REAL audiophile, then you could even hear the difference between a 1€ and a 2€ schuko wall outlet. And you're also supposed to buy some expensive circuit breakers. Because measurements suck and different DACs can even provide more air in the soundstage and jitter is a killer of jazz drummers' brushes.

 

[DRC]

You skipped right past the disclaimer in the OP, didn't you?

You don’t think that I actually read any of the OP?

 

[steadyshot]

You participate in a company’s forum that has declared that it is about to release a better dac with Wiim ultra among other things .

This is a topic about tweaking and what you say does not agree with reality so it is irrelevant and not worthy.

@Brantome can you wipe the off topic ?

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

You participate in a company’s forum that has declared that it is about to release a better dac with Wiim ultra among other things .

This is a topic about tweaking and what you say does not agree with reality so it is irrelevant and not worthy.

@Brantome can you wipe the off topic ?

Firstly, have they said the Ultra will have a better DAC? I’m not saying they haven’t, I just can’t remember it.

If they have, no problem. A DAC can measure better, but not be audibly better. Example - distortion caused by jitter (or indeed anything) is inaudible below -115dB. So one DAC might measure -120dB, the next -125dB, the next -130dB. You won’t be able to hear a difference, but they’re measurably ‘better’. Some people like that pursuit of engineering excellence, and I have no beef with it at all, unless they try to kid themselves or others that they can (and others should be able to) hear a difference which is proveably inaudible.

 

[steadyshot]

please don’t respond and keep it to yourself