True. Qobuz often offers several masterings.
Ultra "Transport"?
- Thread starter Bill Mac
- Start date
I may try them again. Thanks for the information.
Please never tell programmers they are going to fast or too ambitious.. I work with programmers every day and encouragement and a lot of cheerleading is what they seem to respond to the most.
That's just my two cents. I would definitely take this approach over the Sonos approach which is don't make a new release except once every 15 years and then really screw it up when you do it.
It's maybe not for everyone but my preference is aggressive releases with quick fixes to any bugs in order to get to a stable version as quickly as possible with as many use cases handled by the community.
But again I agree it isn't for everyone's taste.
Jeff
You can do all of that with the WiiM Ultra, just don't use the DAC or screen and you can have that product for far less than 1.000 €, it's about 1/3 of that priceFinally I found a streamer-transport what meets my preferences. Wish WiiM would have built it.
At least it has an "Ultra" in its name
- Roon certified.
- Qobuz.
- USB out.
- no internal DAC.
- no screen.
- not USB powered.
- below 1.000 €.
How you spend your money is only between you and your walletWhy buying a device when I know from the very beginning it has features I never ever will use because all this features are for sure better done with my existing gear? It is enough that my smartphone has features I never will touch. But in fact it isn't possible to get others, in HiFi there is a choice
But: I have absolutely no intention to either discuss my gear, my personal decisions and my approach to the hobby or to justify how I spend my money. Such debates nearly always end in turmoil and bad blood.
It doesn't read arrogant, but what you're asking for doesn't seem to be what WiiM is about making, but who knows, they do seem to listen to their customers 
Wiim is company that want everything in one box. There were request about digital streamer transport only like ifi stream but never materialized. Digital transport are minority and would only sell few of them and not worth to put r&d on them.
As their visibility improves and they become a larger company, maybe such a niche product will appear. Who knows.
Right now, I don't think they are out of the period of acquiring as many customers as possible. In the past, Huawei moved to a luxury brand at some stage. I think it is possible that WiiM will follow a similar path in time.
Right now, I don't think they are out of the period of acquiring as many customers as possible. In the past, Huawei moved to a luxury brand at some stage. I think it is possible that WiiM will follow a similar path in time.
What makes me disconnect my external dac was that I have to turn it on separate remote which not my liking. I don’t like my device being on when not in use. I have the ultra connected on amp with 12v trigger so just one remote. Does the external dac sound better than ultra? Yes but using other remote is cumbersome to me. I know I’m lazy even clicking a remote!I remember times when an idea for a pure transport with ethernet, USB out, no DAC appeared here first. Big head shaking! Over the time this idea came back again and again. It was of course an idea only. Up till now WiiM seems to have no intention to build it. Thats absolutely ok. But be assured the market for such a device exists. Even here are so much users with existing higher priced stuff (like you @Smartplug with your not cheap DACs) looking for what I would call WiiM's Missing Link
I do not blame WiiM not to do so, but from lets call it old relationship I would like it. Thats it.
Hello everyone,
I'd like to revive this topic. Eversolo has released a very interesting streaming transporter with the T8. It features a linear power supply, fiber optic connection, and a sophisticated clock.
I hope Wiim has this in mind; very often, you only need a digital streamer without analog outputs.
I'd also like to see something similar to the T8 from Wiim, as I otherwise love the app.
I'd like to revive this topic. Eversolo has released a very interesting streaming transporter with the T8. It features a linear power supply, fiber optic connection, and a sophisticated clock.
I hope Wiim has this in mind; very often, you only need a digital streamer without analog outputs.
I'd also like to see something similar to the T8 from Wiim, as I otherwise love the app.
EddNog
Major Contributor
I just bought a T8. It is a lovely piece of kit; the software is the first I've used that is comparable to WiiM's in terms of ease of use/intuitiveness (absolutely blows away the marginally usable BluOS).
All that being said, the sound is no more or less transparent than WiiM Ultra. What you get is a nicer feature set (NVMe storage slots for my personal collection, native [lossless Redbook grade] Apple Music support, AirPlay support, can take an external CD transport for playing or ripping CDs, a really nice display and beautiful spectrum analyzer views), really premium physical design/look & feel.
Value is in the eye of the beholder. I think most of these features can be had for less money from other models in Eversolo's line-up. I challenge anyone to perform volume level-matched, blind A/B comparisons between this T8 and a WiiM Ultra or lower-cost Eversolo models when using the same external DAC/downstream chain and successfully pick the T8 with any consistency.
Transparent is transparent. Buy stuff for the user experience and feature set, not the audiophile fluff.
It still does not offer proper DIRAC Live support--nothing from either, Eversolo or WiiM does, or probably ever will. This is something that can be heard.
-Ed
I also like the look and feel of Eversolo products, the cd-ripper function and local storage is a big plus but my case will always remain that any streamer will someday (some faster than others) become obsolete, not supported anymore however you wanna call it and in that case it better not originally cost you an arm and a leg. If you want to absolutely sure that everything will always be up-to-date and you want to play anything that can play sound you connect a computer (NUC, Mac mini, Raspberry etc) to your audio setup.
EddNog
Major Contributor
I don't disagree with you from a performance standpoint with the laptop, but for me, it was highly inconvenient leaving my laptop at the music console all the time physically connected by USB to the DAC. Furthermore the UPnP implementation on the Marantz M1, I found, is not completely stable/reliable, so using Audirvana to play to it over WiFi wasn't a great experience either.
From an experience standpoint, with a good UI like WiiM or Eversolo devices, you get to focus on the music and not on the act of playing it, if you get what I mean. And it just works. Sure, sooner or later, there will likely be an end-of-life scenario from a software standpoint a few years down the road, but for me personally, I can live with that compromise given the benefits. Plus, it may stop receiving updates, but it's not like it's going to just suddenly up and cease functioning all together.
-Ed
Hi Ed,
I'm not suggesting to anyone that they leave their laptop at a music console. I suggested a separate computer and most people have a TV at the same location so I one swoop you also have a great player/streamer for anything and everything video. And offcourse you have an (extra) household computer for whatever anyone want to do with it connected to the TV and the audio setup. Bluetooth keyboard with build-in mousepad or some other choice on the table or couch and your all set. But still, in no way I want to discourage anyone using another device or multiple devices for that.
"Plus, it may stop receiving updates, but it's not like it's going to just suddenly up and cease functioning all together." -- It does happen in some rare cases though and mostly people lose support for their favorite music source sometimes overnight. But still your reasoning is absolutely valid also.
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Raspberry Pi (in a WAF case) and a high quality USB DAC will achieve all that is required on a purely audio or AV basis
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