Stream FLAC audio from a MAC to a WiiM Pro

[jpy]

hi,

I expect to purchase a WiiM Pro to use with a pair of Klipsch powered speakers. I have a large library of concert audio recordings in FLAC format residing on a MAC book Pro.

I currently play the FLACs on VLC and use an RCA cable from the headphone jack on the MAC to the RCA input on the speakers.

Question: Is there a relatively easy way to stream the FLACs from the MAc to the WiiM across the local network?

The benefits of streaming across the network would allow me not have to move the laptop from the office to the listening room and I could have a dedicated Optical cable from the WiiM to the speakers instead of plugging/unplugging the headphone/RCA cable.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm new to streaming.

Thanks,
John

 

[Brantome]

While the desktop version of the WiiM app may well be able to do that, the best way of achieving that would be to use a UPNP server like MinimServer on your Mac and use the mobile version of the WiiM Home app, or the mConnect iOS app, to select music from that server and send it wirelessly to your WiiM device.

 

[jpy]

Thank you, this is very helpful and what I thought might be needed.

 

[Terence]

As i have discovered, if you want anything more than 256 bitrate, you can't use Airplay 2. Wiim downsamples.

 

[jpy]

For me the biggest obstacle is support for FLAC. My understanding is that the Airplay 2 protocol doesn't support FLAC.

My files range from 16 bit/44.1kHz to 24 bit/96 kHz, but I'd accept the higher resolutions being down sampled to 16/44.1 if that's a real constraint.

 

[Mr Ee]

If you do use a media server, such as minimserver, then you'd be using upnp to stream the files, not airplay2.

 

[Brantome]

As i have discovered, if you want anything more than 256 bitrate, you can't use Airplay 2. Wiim downsamples.

The WiiM does not downsample - I think you’re confusing this with Apple Music and Airplay 2 which has nothing to do with WiiM

 

[jpy]

As a proof-of-concept, i installed the FireStream UPnP server on my Mac Mini that has the library of FLACs. I then used the VLC player on a second MacBook Pro and I was able view and play all files from the server. When playing a FLAC this way, VLC is correctly showing the FLAC codec and the proper sample rate, but it seems to default to a 32 bit float depth which seems OK to me.

I'll have to look a little closer at server choices; MinimServer, FireStream, others(?) and compare licensing and features, but i now feel confident that a WiiM Pro will work as expected and have access to FLAC media just as VLC does.

Thank you all for the quick and helpful responses!

 

[Terence]

Brantome is right; Wiim doesn't downsample. Airplay does. Sorry, Wiimers.

 

[milgil]

As a proof-of-concept, i installed the FireStream UPnP server on my Mac Mini that has the library of FLACs. I then used the VLC player on a second MacBook Pro and I was able view and play all files from the server. When playing a FLAC this way, VLC is correctly showing the FLAC codec and the proper sample rate, but it seems to default to a 32 bit float depth which seems OK to me.

I'll have to look a little closer at server choices; MinimServer, FireStream, others(?) and compare licensing and features, but i now feel confident that a WiiM Pro will work as expected and have access to FLAC media just as VLC does.

Thank you all for the quick and helpful responses!

Don't overlook Logitech Media Server (LMS) – it's free and very powerful and community-supported. One of its strengths is integrating all your sources into a single library – with the Material Skin installed it will give you a great user interface.

You can download it from https://lms-community.github.io/lms-server-repository/

 

[jpy]

Thank you, I'll give LMS a try!

 

[rossnagel]

hi,

I expect to purchase a WiiM Pro to use with a pair of Klipsch powered speakers. I have a large library of concert audio recordings in FLAC format residing on a MAC book Pro.

I currently play the FLACs on VLC and use an RCA cable from the headphone jack on the MAC to the RCA input on the speakers.

Question: Is there a relatively easy way to stream the FLACs from the MAc to the WiiM across the local network?

The benefits of streaming across the network would allow me not have to move the laptop from the office to the listening room and I could have a dedicated Optical cable from the WiiM to the speakers instead of plugging/unplugging the headphone/RCA cable.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm new to streaming.

Thanks,
John

I too have been wanting to stream FLAC files from either a Mac computer or my iPhone. I can't remember if I saw this on these forums, but I recently download the WiiM desktop app and was able to seamlessly play FLAC files. While I cannot do this on my phone, I was able to do it on my desktop. The desktop app is in Beta so I am not sure how stable it is, but again - it solved my problem and did so rather easily.

 

[jpy]

I too have been wanting to stream FLAC files from either a Mac computer or my iPhone. I can't remember if I saw this on these forums, but I recently download the WiiM desktop app and was able to seamlessly play FLAC files. While I cannot do this on my phone, I was able to do it on my desktop. The desktop app is in Beta so I am not sure how stable it is, but again - it solved my problem and did so rather easily.

Thank you, this looks to be another great option for my needs; easy and no cost ability to stream FLACs from a MAC desktop to WiiM.

I'm currently waiting on delivery of the WiiM and speakers, but I've made a few changes from what I assumed since my original post above. The components that I ordered are the WiiM Amp and a pair of Triangle BR03's. I decided that going with a pair of passive speakers would give me more options and the cost difference is negligible.

 

[jpy]

A quick follow-up: I'm currently using FireStream (no affiliation) on my Macbook Pro to stream the FLACs to WiiM over UPnP. My choice for using FireStream was based on the following:

• FireStream is a native Mac app and the user interface was simple, easy to use and worked without any real effort. The $29.99 (USD) license fee (after a 7 day free trial) was the one downside.
• Minimserver is Java and therefore required a JVM to be installed. Miniserver sent me to a link download a JVM for a MAC, but this turned out to be specific to Intel chips, not M1. Once I installed the correct JVM, miniserver started and worked with a small amount of configuration. The free license appeared to suit my needs, so this was win, but I don't want to have to maintain both Minimserver and it's required JVM as changes are made to either one.
  • [EDIT] per below, I might have simply followed the wrong link by not reading the install instructions correctly.
• I looked at LMS, but using it as a UPnP server doesn't seem to be it's primary use case and I believe that I would have needed to install a plug-in. While this wasn't a show stopper, I did eliminate this as an option to keep things as simple as possible.
• I also installed the WiiM app, which is currently meant for iPad and iPhone and while it did work on my Macbook, it seemed to want to use the Apple Music archive for it's local source. I keep my FLACs are stored on an external drive, so again for simplicity, I eliminated this as an option also.
• I also tried to plug the external drive into the USB port on the AMP, but it didn't recognize it. I did very little investigating, but WiiM seems to to want particular types of thumb drives. I could be wrong this, but I really didn't the drive dedicated to the AMP, I want it attached the laptop.

Again, I did end up buying a WiiM Amp instead of the WiiM Pro/Plus as I felt the Amp gave me more options for passive speakers over actives, while still being a very affordable setup. I also went with the Triangle BR03's instead of Klipsch offerings because the cost and availability here in Spain. Not many vendors carry Klipsch here in Europe and the mark-up was more than I expected.

 

[Mr Ee]

Enjoy!

Did you get the stands to go with the 03s?

 

[jpy]

Enjoy!

Did you get the stands to go with the 03s?

I spent a lot of time tracking down either the Triangle S01 or S02 stands because there's almost no availability here. I'm not sure why they're so hard to find, but I ended up finding a shop about an hour away in Valencia that had the S02's in stock. I called to confirm that they had them, they did and they've set aside a pair which I'll be picking up in person on Monday.

The Triange stands look really sharp in pictures!

 

[simbun]

• Minimserver is Java and therefore required a JVM to be installed. Miniserver sent me to a link download a JVM for a MAC, but this turned out to be specific to Intel chips, not M1.

If there's a problem with the documentation I have no doubt the author would be keen to hear about it.
The documentation from the quick start guide seems clear, but maybe there's other links.

 

[jpy]

If there's a problem with the documentation I have no doubt the author would be keen to hear about it.
The documentation from the quick start guide seems clear, but maybe there's other links.

It certainly could have been my error not reading or following the correct link, but this was fairly easy to fix, but wouldn't have made much difference on the final decsion. I also noted one post above that this was likely my fault.