Speaker guidance for new WiiM Amp owner?

[Iggy]

Hi all,

I’ve had my WiiM Amp for about 4 weeks now, at almost 60 years of age I wanted to get back into listening to music as I did in my teens and needed a completely new set up. My hearing is ‘ok’ for my age but far from perfect, so I wanted a decent set up but wasn’t planning on spending £000’s.

I’ve got lots of vinyls and cd’s from my younger days and was about to go down the regular separate format, turntable, CD player, Amp and Speakers,,.until I stumbled on the Wiim Amp..and it’s limitless potential to pretty much listen to whatever you want within reason.

So I picked up a new WiiM Amp and took out a Tidal 2 month trial for £2.00 which seems a bargain. I also picked up a pair of new ‘open box’ Wharfedale Diamond 12.2’s for £250, which is £50 below the regular ’new’ price.

To be honest I’m thrilled with the whole setup, the sound quality seems light years ahead of set up I bought in the early 80’s, for what was probably the equivalent price given the affect of inflation.

However I find that I’m getting a bit of listening fatigue/tiredness, and finding I can’t sit and listen to the music for long at the volume levels I like….

I use Room EQ on the WiiM Amp, but tend to listen to a lot of electronic music…Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre etc and feel the 12.2’s are a bit on the bright side?

I have been looking to ‘trade up’ to better speakers and was thinking along the lines of Dali Oberon 3, Elac Debut Reference, Heco Aurora 300….these are all about £500 in the UK which is double the price of the 12.2’s I have? I’ve not auditioned any of these speakers, just seen the reviews on YouTube and shortlisted from there.

Any thoughts or guidance on this would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Ian.

 

[slartibartfast]

Hi all,

I’ve had my WiiM Amp for about 4 weeks now, at almost 60 years of age I wanted to get back into listening to music as I did in my teens and needed a completely new set up. My hearing is ‘ok’ for my age but far from perfect, so I wanted a decent set up but wasn’t planning on spending £000’s.

I’ve got lots of vinyls and cd’s from my younger days and was about to go down the regular separate format, turntable, CD player, Amp and Speakers,,.until I stumbled on the Wiim Amp..and it’s limitless potential to pretty much listen to whatever you want within reason.

So I picked up a new WiiM Amp and took out a Tidal 2 month trial for £2.00 which seems a bargain. I also picked up a pair of new ‘open box’ Wharfedale Diamond 12.2’s for £250, which is £50 below the regular ’new’ price.

To be honest I’m thrilled with the whole setup, the sound quality seems light years ahead of set up I bought in the early 80’s, for what was probably the equivalent price given the affect of inflation.

However I find that I’m getting a bit of listening fatigue/tiredness, and finding I can’t sit and listen to the music for long at the volume levels I like….

I use Room EQ on the WiiM Amp, but tend to listen to a lot of electronic music…Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre etc and feel the 12.2’s are a bit on the bright side?

I have been looking to ‘trade up’ to better speakers and was thinking along the lines of Dali Oberon 3, Elac Debut Reference, Heco Aurora 300….these are all about £500 in the UK which is double the price of the 12.2’s I have? I’ve not auditioned any of these speakers, just seen the reviews on YouTube and shortlisted from there.

Any thoughts or guidance on this would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Ian.

How did you set up Room EQ?

 

[Iggy]

Hi,
Forgive my ignorance….but I just went through the Room EQ setup procedure where it plays a sound? Are there stages I may have missed?

 

[slartibartfast]

Hi,
Forgive my ignorance….but I just went through the Room EQ setup procedure where it plays a sound? Are there stages I may have missed?

No that's fine, did you use an iPhone or Android? Android phones probably give better results with an external mic. You can also try different target curves etc. If you click on the cog wheel when you first enter the Room Correction page there are various settings you can play with.

 

[Fernandodelae]

Maybe play with the GEQ or PEQ first before changing the speakers? The Room correction is a very good approach and deserves several intents, not all get the desired results in the first try.

 

[Iggy]

No that's fine, did you use an iPhone or Android? Android phones probably give better results with an external mic. You can also try different target curves etc. If you click on the cog wheel when you first enter the Room Correction page there are various settings you can play with.

Thank you…I used the ipad which have my WiiM App and Tidal on…. would these be better on my iPhone?

I’ve not seen the different target curves, sounds like there is more to the EQ correction than I thought…

 

[Iggy]

Maybe play with the GEQ or PEQ first before changing the speakers? The Room correction is a very good approach and deserves several intents, not all get the desired results in the first try.

Thank you very much.

I’m very new to this, but it looks like I may have more room to investigate with the current set up

I’ve seen what look like ‘pre sets’….should I be using these with different genres of music instead of Room EQ?

 

[slartibartfast]

Thank you…I used the ipad which have my WiiM App and Tidal on…. would these be better on my iPhone?

I’ve not seen the different target curves, sounds like there is more to the EQ correction than I thought…

I think iPads and iPhones probably give similar results. When you click on the cog wheel you will see target curves and frequency correction ranges etc.

 

[Iggy]

Thanks,

I can see B&K, Hartman and Flat…..is that what you mean? I assume they do Room EQ to different parameters?

 

[slartibartfast]

Thanks,

I can see B&K, Hartman and Flat…..is that what you mean? I assume they do Room EQ to different parameters?

Yes

 

[Iggy]

Just having a play with Harman

 

[Iggy]

Probably sounds a bit odd….sorry

 

[slartibartfast]

Probably sounds a bit odd….sorry

Possibly, never tried it myself. Have you tried changing the frequency range?

 

[Fernandodelae]

Thank you very much.

I’m very new to this, but it looks like I may have more room to investigate with the current set up

I’ve seen what look like ‘pre sets’….should I be using these with different genres of music instead of Room EQ?

so those presets are with the Graphic Equalizer, sure you can try those and see if any work out for you. Honestly I didn´t like any of those presets and since the room correction didn't work out very well for me (my living room has lots of open space, glass, other issues) I ended up tweaking my own GEQ to my preference, with different settings for TV, Tidal & wifi and for CD. I think that's probably the easiest way if the RC doesn't work out.

 

[harkpabst]

so those presets are with the Graphic Equalizer, sure you can try those and see if any work out for you. Honestly I didn´t like any of those presets and since the room correction didn't work out very well for me (my living room has lots of open space, glass, other issues) I ended up tweaking my own GEQ to my preference, with different settings for TV, Tidal & wifi and for CD. I think that's probably the easiest way if the RC doesn't work out.

So far I also like my own PEQ settings developed with REW better than any result obtained with WiiM RC. But not everybody has the time, the equipment and the required knowledge to do that, so I'm looking forward to all improvements to come with future WiiM RC iterations. Channel independent RC is a step in the right direction, I think.

In the context of this very thread I'd love to see three different kinds of EQ used in combination (not alternatively).

Most importantly I think that most users digging into PEQ will use that for room EQ, not for adjusting the sound to their liking depending on mood ("I want some bass now") or time ("I want some loudness curve for night time listening without upsetting the neighbours") or programme material ("This is the news, this is the latest action movie"). For the latter, GEQ is probably fine and easier to handle for the majority. Consequentially, I'd love to see GEQ being applied on top of (or combined with) PEQ! I don't want to give up my perfectly fine room EQ just because I need some emphasis on speech right now or apply some bass boost a little later. That means: Give me the option to switch on both, GEQ and PEQ at the same time! It's just an option, I can switch off either one if I feel I don't need it. I just hope that this is easy to understand.

My next request migth be a little more abstract but ideally I would want to be able to apply some EQ just to correct my speakers, independently of the current room and placement. I'd like to see three different layers of EQ: One for the speaker (ideally PEQ), one for the room (ideally an additional PEQ set) and one for taste and circumstances (GEQ is good enough for that, PEQ wouldn't hurt as far as I am concerned).

That's exactly what my Lyngdorf amp allows me to do (except for that they don't deal with GEQ at all).

 

[Mr Ee]

I’ve not auditioned any of these speakers, just seen the reviews on YouTube

Find somewhere to listen to them, or others you've not even considered that a dealer might suggest.

Some years ago I thought I wanted some Klipsh, Kef etc. etc. from reading reviews. Went to a dealer, tried quite a few, none grabbed me.
Dealer suggested some Jamos, I bought them. Still got them actually.

Similar experience with my Paradigm Founders. Weren't even on my shortlist, yet some that were on my list I didn't even finish 2 songs before knowing they were not for me.

So seriously, spend some time finding what you like for the music you like.
Your reference to £ implies England - it's a very small place, got to be quite a few hi fi shops near you

 

[Sumit]

Hi all,

I’ve had my WiiM Amp for about 4 weeks now, at almost 60 years of age I wanted to get back into listening to music as I did in my teens and needed a completely new set up. My hearing is ‘ok’ for my age but far from perfect, so I wanted a decent set up but wasn’t planning on spending £000’s.

I’ve got lots of vinyls and cd’s from my younger days and was about to go down the regular separate format, turntable, CD player, Amp and Speakers,,.until I stumbled on the Wiim Amp..and it’s limitless potential to pretty much listen to whatever you want within reason.

So I picked up a new WiiM Amp and took out a Tidal 2 month trial for £2.00 which seems a bargain. I also picked up a pair of new ‘open box’ Wharfedale Diamond 12.2’s for £250, which is £50 below the regular ’new’ price.

To be honest I’m thrilled with the whole setup, the sound quality seems light years ahead of set up I bought in the early 80’s, for what was probably the equivalent price given the affect of inflation.

However I find that I’m getting a bit of listening fatigue/tiredness, and finding I can’t sit and listen to the music for long at the volume levels I like….

I use Room EQ on the WiiM Amp, but tend to listen to a lot of electronic music…Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michel Jarre etc and feel the 12.2’s are a bit on the bright side?

I have been looking to ‘trade up’ to better speakers and was thinking along the lines of Dali Oberon 3, Elac Debut Reference, Heco Aurora 300….these are all about £500 in the UK which is double the price of the 12.2’s I have? I’ve not auditioned any of these speakers, just seen the reviews on YouTube and shortlisted from there.

Any thoughts or guidance on this would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Ian.

I have setup wiim amp with polk es15. They sound great for the price. Bass is punchy. Highs are good.