Stupid question- does a turntable need a preamp to broadcast through a Pro?

[Todashi]

(I've started talking to Wiim's support staff on this question, but thought I'd throw it out here too.)

So I have an old turntable (Stanton STR8-50) that I want to be able to play though a set of Apple Homepods. I bought a Wiim Pro, plugged it in and connected it up but there's an issue. The volume coming out of the homepods is really low.

There are no volume controls on the turntable – it's a solid piece of kit but was originally purchased to be connected to a separate amplifier and speakers and doesn't have a pre-amp in it.

Everywhere in the chain I can find a volume control, I have it turned up. The Homepods work fine - they're super loud - so is there some way to tell the Wiim Pro to boost the signal that I'm missing? The turntable is plugged directly into the back of the Wiim Pro’s red and white RCA ports, and it's set up as an Airplay 2 device in the Home app on my phone. The systems is working, because there IS audio coming out of the homepods - it's just super quiet.

Before I purchased the Wiim Pro I searched online to see if it could function as a pre-amp and the responses from reddit etc seemed to imply that it could but I'm now thinking maybe the signal from the turntable needs to be boosted before it connects to the Wiim Pro? I’ve ordered a 25 euro phono-preamp from Amazon to be delivered tomorrow. It should hopefully boost the audio coming out of the turntable before it gets to the Wiim Pro.

So is this as simple as you have to have a pre-amp to boost the signal of a turntable to make it loud enough to listen to, or is there a software setting I'm missing that would make the Wiim Pro act as a pre-amp and boost the signal?

Thanks all!

 

[jxrxme]

Yes, you need a phono preamp between turntable and WiiM Pro.

 

[Todashi]

Thanks, that's what I'm thinking too.

My confusion stems from the fact that when I bought this turntable, I also bought a Marantz hifi amplifier, plugged it in and it worked great. I didn't think about it anymore, but I now realiset that this amp had a phono function that was obviously designed to match this kind of turntable. So I never needed to worry about this before.

 

[Brantome]

Yeah, you’ll need a preamp to up the level and apply RIAA EQ.

 

[harkpabst]

... and apply RIAA EQ.

@Todashi, this point is at least as important as the amplifying bit. Just boosting the volume/gain would not help. Records are cut with boosted highs and attenuated lows. This equalization must be reverted when playing them, or you will end up with no bass and just treble.

So, you really need a phono pre-amp matching your pickup type (Moving Magnet, if the stock cart is fitted).

 

[d6jg]

This is a cheap and cheerful Phono pre-amp that will do the job - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-...14&mcid=a21b3bf0d7183364984914ccc36cfd13&th=1

 

[Todashi]

Hey all,

Thought I'd come back and update this thread. I purchased a new stylus - the turntable hadn't been used in 15 years (!) - and by coincidence, that exact Behringer phono pre-amp. They arrived yesterday, I plugged them in and bingo, the set up works perfectly.

I now have good quality audio from my turntable coming out of two Apple homepods. The only compromise in the system is that there is about a 4 second delay. When you lift the needle on the turntable, music continues to play for around four seconds. But for my purposes, that's entirely fine - it's not like I'm DJing etc.

One other issue I'd raised with the support people from Wiim is that I'd complained that previously, the app seemed to disconnect from the Airplay 2/homepods connection after five minutes or so. That's now no longer happening, perhaps because before the signal being detected was so low, the Wiim Pro may not have actually detected it. Now that it's boosted by the phono pre-amp, that's no longer the case.

So a result on both counts.

I suppose the only other thing I'd add is that I was quite surprised when I went looking online for a way to connect a turntable to some homepods, that it seems to be very hard to find a good guide. I kept thinking 'I can't be the only person to want to do this - where is everyone else?"

That led me to Wiim and the Wiim Pro device, but I think they should make it a little clearer that you need to purchase a pre-amp for a situation like mine. It's not obvious as there are quite a few places online (on reddit etc) where people imply you don't. The solution I used cost peanuts to add that functionality - €30 in the context of the cost of a turntable, Wiim Pro unit and two homepods isn't very much. It's not going to put anyone off, and would save a degree of hassle if I'd been able to find that information faster.

I appreciate that the Wiim Pro is a very flexible device with lots of use cases, and my use case may actually be pretty niche, but even so it's a legitimate use case and I'm sure I'm not the first person to be perplexed by not being able to get it up and running.

Anyway, it's all good. I can now spend lots of happy hours exploring the 100 or so albums I bought in the 1980s and 90s, which have been sitting in a box every since music went digital.

 

[d6jg]

In WiiMs defence many modern starter level HiFi turntables include a built in pre-amp. Not all but many. Old school turntables never did.