WiiM Amp blows NAD M10v2

[Smartplug]

Hi,

I recently bought both the WiiM Amp and NAD M10v2 for testing both:

View attachment 6419

Long story short: I‘ll go with the WiiM Amp and will sell the NAD.

Although the NAD has Dirac Live I am able to achieve the same soundstage using WiiMs EQ which is also much easier to use. Measuring the room with the NADs microphone did not make much difference so I had to manually edit the EQ for my room anyway.

What really is annoying is that the NAD constantly drops out of the network. A few hours after going to standby the NAD just disappears from my network and I have to unplug power in order to restore access.

I am driving a pair of Elac Vela BS 404.2 with the amplifiers and both perform very well - and there is actually no difference between the NAD (Hypex nCore) and the WiiM with its Texas Instruments power amplifiers as long as no EQ is used. Volume gain is good on both with my speakers (87db).

I only use AirPlay 2 for steaming music from my iPhone so I can’t say much about the BlueOS app from the NAD. However it looks polished and fast, so this might be the only area in which the NAD can compete with the WiiM.

Bottom line is that from my point of view the WiiM just blows a product that is almost 10 times the price of the WiiM Amp. I will sell the NAD and keep the WiiM!

Cheers
Michael

Give some time wiim will dominate the market share. Wiim secret sauce is their software that none could come close. Software first before state of the art hardware.

 

[MCG555]

As supposed this turned out to be my final combination. I am using the WiiM Pro Plus with room correction paired to the Apollon 1ET400A Purifi amp. It sounds wonderful.

THOUGH I must admit that I am not really sure if I would be able to differentiate this combination from just a WiiM Amp in a blind test.

I think its also kind of a psychological thing - knowing that it can hardly get better than this. So my brain thinks: Won‘t get better than this anyway!

So I have completely stopped chasing for new equipment and am just hearing music now. Actually that‘s the most important achievement for me.

Fantastic résumé!
To understand how psychoacoustics is involved is a very insightful discovery!