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

[HansD-NL]

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.

Yes I understand your frustration but you started by saying: "I am questioning this being the flagship streamer now, when upgrading means a pretty big downgrade in user experience.".
And that is not fair, it's your situation, because of your Chord DAC.

 

[Mr Ee]

So, my rme does have an OFF option for auto standby so that it will stay on with no signal / user action.
Does the Chord have such a setting somewhere?

 

[Erik Groomer]

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

Thank you. A workaround. That’s helpful.

 

[Emmdub]

Thank you. A workaround. That’s helpful.

Another workaround…sell the Chord and use the Ultra’s DAC. You might find it more than adequate.

 

[Erik Groomer]

Another workaround…sell the Chord and use the Ultra’s DAC. You might find it more than adequate.

Since sound quality is my personal quest, I can tell you without any doubt that the Chord DAC is superior to the internal Ultra DAC. If I were to sell one, it would be the Ultra. But thankfully, there is a workaround that is a patch to my issue. And now I can enjoy the best of both. The ultra is an amazingly versatile streamer that pairs well with my amazing DAC.

 

[Emmdub]

Since sound quality is my personal quest, I can tell you without any doubt that the Chord DAC is superior to the internal Ultra DAC. If I were to sell one, it would be the Ultra. But thankfully, there is a workaround that is a patch to my issue. And now I can enjoy the best of both. The ultra is an amazingly versatile streamer that pairs well with my amazing DAC.

That’s your subjective opinion…what measurements show the superiority? Check out ASR’s website for test results on them, they both measure so well that differences would be inaudible.

 

[jdh]

Are you changing the INPUT selection on the Ultra when the Chord shuts down? I noticed on my Mini that if I select Aux in, switching from Wifi, the "Light in the pipe" turns off for a fraction of a second regardless of how long the standby timer is set to.

 

[Hiphiman]

Can I ask if your Chord DAC is a Mojo 2? It is designed to switch off after a few minutes of optical signal inactivity and therefore does so on a regular basis with me, even when I am using my Mini or Pro Plus. From my experience, you are lucky this does not happen with two out of your three WiiMs! It is a real pain having to get up to restart the DAC if I have paused the music for any length of time, but I too prefer the Chord to both the PP and my amplifier DACs (whatever ASR says) so I grin and bear it.

If anyone finds a workaround to keep the Mini and PP optical signal active then I would be delighted to know.

 

[Erik Groomer]

Are you changing the INPUT selection on the Ultra when the Chord shuts down? I noticed on my Mini that if I select Aux in, switching from Wifi, the "Light in the pipe" turns off for a fraction of a second regardless of how long the standby timer is set to.

No change. I guess I really was lucky in the mini and pro. It was never a problem.

 

[Erik Groomer]

Can I ask if your Chord DAC is a Mojo 2? It is designed to switch off after a few minutes of optical signal inactivity and therefore does so on a regular basis with me, even when I am using my Mini or Pro Plus. From my experience, you are lucky this does not happen with two out of your three WiiMs! It is a real pain having to get up to restart the DAC if I have paused the music for any length of time, but I too prefer the Chord to both the PP and my amplifier DACs (whatever ASR says) so I grin and bear it.

If anyone finds a workaround to keep the Mini and PP optical signal active then I would be delighted to know.

Yes, I've got a Mojo. It really is strange that it wasn't a problem at all with the mini or pro. However, the workaround to just use USB is solving the shutdown issue in the Ultra. I generally find that optical input sounds better than USB on the Mojo, but now I'm trying out locking output to 32 bit on it. I probably won't even try to A/B to discern a difference.
I'm just mildly disappointed at this point that optical didn't work out for my system. USB will be enough, most likely. I do hope though, that they can release an update which allows optical output to stay on.
Enjoy the MOJO. Their filtering really is different and better.