Upgraded from WiiM mini to Pro and now Ultra. Optical out now turns off. This is an upgrade?

[Erik Groomer]

Why is my DAC shutting down using the Ultra via Optical Out? I have to manually turn on the DAC every time I want to listen to music.

Started with Wiim Mini: Very happy with features. Always used Optical Out to my external Chord DAC. My DAC Never shut down.
Upgraded to WiiM Pro: Very happy. Always used Optical out to Chord DAC. The DAC never shut down.
Upgrade to WiiM Ultra because my kids bought me a turntable. Very happy....until I realized that my DAC was shutting down after every listening session. I changed The Ultra to never enter standby. And still the DAC shuts down. I am questioning this being the flagship streamer now, when upgrading means a pretty big downgrade in user experience.

What am I missing?

 

[Burnside]

Try power cycling the Ultra and maybe try a new cable making sure it’s firmly seated at both ends.

If that doesn’t resolve it, raise a ticket to WiiM via the more/feedback section in the app so they can inspect your logs for any issues and hopefully resolve or explain why this is happening. Haven’t heard anyone report a similar issue afaicr

 

[Erik Groomer]

Try power cycling the Ultra and maybe try a new cable making sure it’s firmly seated at both ends.

If that doesn’t resolve it, raise a ticket to WiiM via the more/feedback section in the app so they can inspect your logs for any issues and hopefully resolve or explain why this is happening. Haven’t heard anyone report a similar issue afaicr

Thanks, but I've done those things and no joy. I've replaced the TOSlink cable, but it's obvious that the output from the Ultra is turned off.
For a few minutes I thought that turning off the 12V trigger would be the solution. Because triggering "off" once turned off my DAC. But disabling the trigger doesn't seem to be the solution either. My DAC turns off without light in the pipe.
I did open a ticket, so we'll see what comes back.
All I want to do is keep the optical output ON at all times.

 

[Wiimer]

Thanks, but I've done those things and no joy. I've replaced the TOSlink cable, but it's obvious that the output from the Ultra is turned off.
For a few minutes I thought that turning off the 12V trigger would be the solution. Because triggering "off" once turned off my DAC. But disabling the trigger doesn't seem to be the solution either. My DAC turns off without light in the pipe.
I did open a ticket, so we'll see what comes back.
All I want to do is keep the optical output ON at all times.

Does disconnecting the trigger cable not resolve the issue?
The Mini shouldn't have had that connected.

 

[Erik Groomer]

No trigger cable is connected. In retrospect it's possible that it was coincidental that the DAC shut down at that time. I was doing a lot of fiddling. But it did make me thing that the 12 Trigger could have multiple functions in the same way that setting input resolution on Line In also affects Phono In resolution. So, I was thinking that the trigger off could actually turn off the optical output as well as send the off signal via the trigger function.

 

[Mr Ee]

Does your Chord dac have a trigger input?
Do you have a trigger cable you can use?
iIrc, the mini came with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable. (I may be totally misremembering, it's been a while since I got my minis!)
Change the ultra setting to allow it to sleep, and then when you start playing something on it the trigger should fire and the chord wake up.

 

[Mr Ee]

Upgraded to WiiM Pro: Very happy. Always used Optical out to Chord DAC. The DAC never shut down.

I have a pro that's optical out to my rme dac.
I would had said with 99.99% confidence that my rme dac turned itself off a while after stopping the music with the pro set to never sleep, and no trigger connection between them.
I'll have to try it again now...

 

[HansD-NL]

......until I realized that my DAC was shutting down after every listening session. I changed The Ultra to never enter standby. And still the DAC shuts down. I am questioning this being the flagship streamer now, when upgrading means a pretty big downgrade in user experience.

What am I missing?

You are missing that the Cord DAC is the culprit here. It should come back on when a signal is present, It does switch off, why is it not able to switch on again after that...

 

[Mr Ee]

You are missing that the Cord DAC is the culprit here. It should come back on when a signal is present, I mean it does switch off....

My rme dac doesn't come back on just because the pro is sending an optical signal.
It turns off after no signal is detected for a while, but needs to be manually turned on again (without trigger).
So while I somewhat agree that the chord is the 'culprit' here, what's actually confusing me is how the chord stayed on with the mini / pro.

However, this is precisely what a trigger is intended to do, so... use that!!

 

[Erik Groomer]

You guys are missing the point. I do appreciate you trying to help. But I don't use the trigger now and never used a trigger previously. I thought that it was the culprit in my current setup, but I was mistaken. Neither the mini nor the pro turned off their optical outputs. The Chord DAC shuts OFF(powers down, not standby) because the Ultra optical output shuts off.

The point is that I didn't have this problem with the mini or the pro. Only now with the Ultra. Why? Because the Ultra turns off its Optical Output even when standby is disabled.

What am I missing?

 

[Erik Groomer]

You are missing that the Cord DAC is the culprit here. It should come back on when a signal is present, It does switch off, why is it not able to switch on again after that...

NEVER happened with either the mini or the pro. So I don't agree that the problem is the DAC.

 

[HansD-NL]

My rme dac doesn't come back on just because the pro is sending an optical signal.
It turns off after no signal is detected for a while, but needs to be manually turned on again (without trigger).

Not implemented like it should . Devices that have auto-off should also auto-on and most do just that.

So while I somewhat agree that the chord is the 'culprit' here, what's actually confusing me is how the chord stayed on with the mini / pro.

I used the word culprit because the OP said: "I am questioning this being the flagship streamer now, when upgrading means a pretty big downgrade in user experience." Barking up the wrong tree in my opinion.
The Mini and Pro keep their digital outputs alive as long as NOT in standby and the Ultra does not.

However, this is precisely what a trigger is intended to do, so... use that!!

I guess the trigger in the DAC is only an ouput, to trigger an amplifier connected to it.

 

[HansD-NL]

You guys are missing the point. I do appreciate you trying to help. But I don't use the trigger now and never used a trigger previously. I thought that it was the culprit in my current setup, but I was mistaken. Neither the mini nor the pro turned off their optical outputs. The Chord DAC shuts OFF(powers down, not standby) because the Ultra optical output shuts off

That is a question you should ask Chord. It is a gross oversight to design an auto-off (complete shutdown) and not able to turn-on again.

The point is that I didn't have this problem with the mini or the pro. Only now with the Ultra. Why? Because the Ultra turns off its Optical Output even when standby is disabled.

What am I missing?

Same answer.

 

[HansD-NL]

NEVER happened with either the mini or the pro. So I don't agree that the problem is the DAC.

The DAC is not able to come back-on in any situation, whatever device is connected and ready to play some music.

 

[Erik Groomer]

The Mini and Pro keep their digital outputs alive as long as NOT in standby and the Ultra does not.

This is exactly why Im having a problem.

 

[HansD-NL]

This is exactly why Im having a problem.

Yes, we already established that. The Chord DAC has a design/engineering flaw. Again: Any device that has auto-off should have auto-on, that's standard design practice.

 

[Erik Groomer]

That is a question you should ask Chord. It is a gross oversight to design an auto-off (complete shutdown) and not able to turn-on again.

Same answer.

Can you understand my frustration? mini and pro worked fine in my setup. Ultra does not. Sure it's a better component. But that line of code to turn off optical output in the Ultra despite standby being disabled is a problem for me.

 

[Erik Groomer]

Yes, we already established that. The Chord DAC has a design/engineering flaw. Again: Any device that has auto-off should have auto-on, that's standard design practice.

You're missing the point. You yourself have pointed out that the Ultra is different from the mini and pro in a way that affects usability.

 

[anonyless]

workaround: connect your DAC to the Ultra USB output - the USB never goes into standby

 

[HansD-NL]

You're missing the point. You yourself have pointed out that the Ultra is different from the mini and pro in a way that affects usability.

I believe you are still missing the point. The way Chord implemented the auto-shutdown is completely non-standard.