Usb connection to play flac files

[gazza1101]

I'm going to buy the Ultra, I believe the Wiim amp has a USB input, I'm guessing it's usb 1 on the ultra as it appears to be white, is this fast enough to be able to scroll through any audio files( flac)?
If so, anyone with experience with the usb input thst can tell je if I'm better off with a ssd drive or a usb stick?

 

[Brantome]

I'm going to buy the Ultra, I believe the Wiim amp has a USB input, I'm guessing it's usb 1 on the ultra as it appears to be white, is this fast enough to be able to scroll through any audio files( flac)?
If so, anyone with experience with the usb input thst can tell je if I'm better off with a ssd drive or a usb stick?

You will probably find you’ll need an external power supply to support anything other than a usb stick - the port on the Amp/Ultra only supports up to 650mA so I had to supply additional power thru a y-cable to support my 1TB SSD.

I haven’t noticed any delay in scrolling the the folder structure

Compatible USB Drive Specifications for WiiM Amp or WiiM Amp Pro

Transform your living space into an immersive concert hall by connecting a USB disk to your WiiM Amp or WiiM Amp Pro. To achieve the best performance and ensure compatibility, it's essential to know which USB disk types and power specificati...

faq.wiimhome.com

 

[gazza1101]

You will probably find you’ll need an external power supply to support anything other than a usb stick - the port on the Amp/Ultra only supports up to 650mA so I had to supply additional power thru a y-cable to support my 1TB SSD.

I haven’t noticed any delay in scrolling the the folder structure

Compatible USB Drive Specifications for WiiM Amp or WiiM Amp Pro

Transform your living space into an immersive concert hall by connecting a USB disk to your WiiM Amp or WiiM Amp Pro. To achieve the best performance and ensure compatibility, it's essential to know which USB disk types and power specificati...

faq.wiimhome.com

Thanks for the reply, I didn't think of power.
Sounds as if a usb stick will work fine tho

 

[harkpabst]

A 512 GB stick is fine with my Amp and surely will be with the Ultra, if that's sufficient storage capacity for you.

 

[Bill Mac]

You will probably find you’ll need an external power supply to support anything other than a usb stick - the port on the Amp/Ultra only supports up to 650mA so I had to supply additional power thru a y-cable to support my 1TB SSD.

I haven’t noticed any delay in scrolling the the folder structure

Compatible USB Drive Specifications for WiiM Amp or WiiM Amp Pro

Transform your living space into an immersive concert hall by connecting a USB disk to your WiiM Amp or WiiM Amp Pro. To achieve the best performance and ensure compatibility, it's essential to know which USB disk types and power specificati...

faq.wiimhome.com

Could you suggest an external power supply that would work with an external USB hard drive. All the devices used now have the capability to power 2TB and 5TB USB hard drives. Thanks!

If a USB hard drive is used with the Ultra or Amp is their a size limit? I use 2TB and 5TB USB hard drives and hopefully with an external power supply they will work with the Ultra.

 

[Brantome]

I’m used y-cable like this and a standard usb charger to supply the necessary power for my 1TB Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD external drive

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LAV03KE/

You may need to check what power your drives draw to see if that would suffice for your drives

​

 

[Bill Mac]

I’m used y-cable like this and a standard usb charger to supply the necessary power for my 1TB Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD external drive

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LAV03KE/

You may need to check what power your drives draw to see if that would suffice for your drives

​

Thank you!

 

[gazza1101]

I actually went with a usb stick, I had already ripped my cd collection to Flac many years ago using Nero, I had to go through some of the files using Mp3tag to enable them to be displayed correctly and it works perfectly.
The thing is the music on the usb sound a bit "thicker", or possibly warmer, I'm not sure if it's the Nero encoder, or the usb stick?
At the time of ripping I would have used the top Flac settings ( I think there were different qualities), if I was to rip the cds again( I still have them) using different software would this change the sound.
I have compared the sound to Albums on Tidal.

 

[Burnside]

I actually went with a usb stick, I had already ripped my cd collection to Flac many years ago using Nero, I had to go through some of the files using Mp3tag to enable them to be displayed correctly and it works perfectly.
The thing is the music on the usb sound a bit "thicker", or possibly warmer, I'm not sure if it's the Nero encoder, or the usb stick?
At the time of ripping I would have used the top Flac settings ( I think there were different qualities), if I was to rip the cds again( I still have them) using different software would this change the sound.
I have compared the sound to Albums on Tidal.

I can only guess the albums from Tidal were either different masters or perhaps different resolution from your ripped FLACs. I personally wouldn’t expect any difference between the identical sources whether they were streamed from Tidal or played from local FLAC.

 

[simbun]

At the time of ripping I would have used the top Flac settings ( I think there were different qualities), if I was to rip the cds again( I still have them) using different software would this change the sound.

To rule out any issues with your FLACs run a verify pass using CUETools. If they pass verification there's no reason to re-rip, and almost certainly no reason to re-encode other than for the marginal compression benefits from newer versions of FLAC.

 

[rccarguy]

To rule out any issues with your FLACs run a verify pass using CUETools. If they pass verification there's no reason to re-rip, and almost certainly no reason to re-encode other than for the marginal compression benefits from newer versions of FLAC.

I did a mass conversion a while ago, with a large collection you can save quite a fair amount of space, those 500K per track add up. Plus good time to get rid of any HD embedded jpegs that are stupidly large, ie 3000x3000

 

[Bill Mac]

The thing is the music on the usb sound a bit "thicker", or possibly warmer, I'm not sure if it's the Nero encoder, or the usb stick?
At the time of ripping I would have used the top Flac settings ( I think there were different qualities), if I was to rip the cds again( I still have them) using different software would this change the sound.
I have compared the sound to Albums on Tidal.

I hear no difference from CDs or SACDs ripped to USB hard drives to the same discs being played by the player (Marantz SA-KI Ruby) that's also used as a DAC. If you're comparing rips of CDs to the same albums on Tidal that's not a very good way to do a comparison IMO. The album(s) on Tidal can have different mastering than your CDs. Best comparisons would be comparing the CDs that were ripped to the actual CDs.

I bought an Ultra during the Black Friday sale and have used a 5TB and 2TB USB hard drives. I found that the 5TB HD loaded up with over 30k songs took quite a bit of time to scan. When scanned the artwork for a number of album files were a bit screwed up but when playing those albums they played fine. Then I tried the 2TB HD with much less music on it and it scanned quicker but still had the artwork issue was still there. Also had an issue getting the rescan feature to work when new music was added to the HD. Long story short was that I needed to update the WiiM app. Once the WiiM app was updated to the most recent version the artwork issue. Lesson learned here was to make sure the latest version of the app being used is installed.

Would like to add that there was no need for an external power supply for the Western Digital (My Passport/Easystore) 2TB or 5TB USB HDs.

Below is a link to my initial impressions of the Ultra and the issues I was experiencing. In the end everything is working and sounding just fine when using an attached 2TB USB HD.

B

Thread 'Initial thoughts on the Ultra...'

Nov 27, 2024

I've had a few days to spend with the Ultra and have to admit it hasn't gone smoothly. The biggest reason for buying the Ultra was for the ability to play music from a USB hard drive. That process has proven to be very frustrating. Found that using a 5TB HD with over 30K songs was not going to work as it took forever to scan and it had multiple errors on the files. Removed the 5TB HD and connected a 2TB HD and that scanned much quicker and accurately. There were some album artwork anomality's but nothing to worry about.

The biggest issue I'm finding is the overall way the Ultra works...

• Bill Mac
• Replies: 2
• Forum: All things about WiiM Ultra