WiiM Amp review in What Hi-Fi?

[WiiMer SJ]

WiiM Amp review

Another budget wii-nner from WiiM?

www.whathifi.com

 

[Nikita]

IDK. Personally I’d rather trust measurements than some “team of experts” ears.

 

[BowsAndArrows]

IDK. Personally I’d rather trust measurements than some “team of experts” ears.

Well how things sound to the ear is the final goal of audio equipment is it not?

If you are happy with the priceerformance ratio of the amp (as I am with my pro), that's cool!

I think it's a good idea to use both objective measurements and subjective opinions to come up with our own impressions. No? Not everything that matters can be measured imo

 

[PatriX]

Measurement is absolutely useless. The measurement has no relation to my ear. I often like the sound of the equipment, which when measured would be complete garbage. The only indicator of quality is my own ear. Nothing else. No test, no opinion, nothing.

The most bad thing about the tests is that the testers connect the amplifier to cheap speakers. The sound make the speaker. 1% wire, 1% DAC/AMP, 98% speaker. I mean, everyone wants the most transparent components, right?
What kind of "test" are we even talking about... Wasted time...

Wiim Amp is super.

 

[Jamesw72]

Agreed, the Amp drives my Sonus Faber Lumina III just nicely

 

[hashkey]

This is damning with faint praise from What Hifi which seldom gives anything short of four stars, but I'm not sure a five star review would be welcomed by many of their advertisers.

 

[MKUltra]

It has a lot of cons, you know. Only one analogue input, so you can't connect your old tape recorder and a 1987 Amiga 500 (for all the funky Equinox, Tristar and Spaceballs demos) at the same time. That's inexcusable! What, music is digital now that we're a quarter through the 21st century and CD is realistically dead? No it's not, you need to connect your CD player through RCA as well! You need at least three analog inputs.

Also, our math totally makes sense.

What Hi-Fi? Verdict: 3/5

SCORES

Sound 3
Features 5
Build 5

 

[onlyoneme]

Measurement is absolutely useless. The measurement has no relation to my ear.

Your ears are useless. They have no relation to my listening impressions.

 

[harkpabst]

It has a lot of cons, you know. Only one analogue input, so you can't connect your old tape recorder and a 1987 Amiga 500 (for all the funky Equinox, Tristar and Spaceballs demos) at the same time. That's inexcusable! What, music is digital now that we're a quarter through the 21st century and CD is realistically dead? No it's not, you need to connect your CD player through RCA as well! You need at least three analog inputs.

Also, our math totally makes sense.

Thanks for summing it up so I don't have to waste time on reading their garbage.

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Measurement is absolutely useless. The measurement has no relation to my ear. I often like the sound of the equipment, which when measured would be complete garbage. The only indicator of quality is my own ear. Nothing else. No test, no opinion, nothing.

The most bad thing about the tests is that the testers connect the amplifier to cheap speakers. The sound make the speaker. 1% wire, 1% DAC/AMP, 98% speaker. I mean, everyone wants the most transparent components, right?
What kind of "test" are we even talking about... Wasted time...

Wiim Amp is super.

interesting you're willing/able to put numbers on your estimation of what counts towards great SQ... i agree that the biggest contributor to overal SQ is the speakers, but i may disagree with the 98% number

i'm curious - where would you rank room acoustics in that heirarchy? (e.g. room treatments - like absorbers, bass traps, diffusers etc) cos for me this seems to be an area where the "measurement-freaks" and the "experience freaks" seem to find the most common ground (it's the only area where i see people experimenting almost equally on both sides of the equation, and more importantly maybe - where people seem to realise the limitations of their own points of view)

 

[BowsAndArrows]

It has a lot of cons, you know. Only one analogue input, so you can't connect your old tape recorder and a 1987 Amiga 500 (for all the funky Equinox, Tristar and Spaceballs demos) at the same time. That's inexcusable! What, music is digital now that we're a quarter through the 21st century and CD is realistically dead? No it's not, you need to connect your CD player through RCA as well! You need at least three analog inputs.

Also, our math totally makes sense.

i think we have to be cognisant of the fact that the writers are trying to convey a slight decrease in the value proposition in the WiiM amp vs their earlier products. there's no doubt that the whole package is a compelling proposition for many, and it's great that it's bringing people into the hobby etc. these guys are also used to listening to ultra high-end gear, so it might be harder to impress them with raw performance

but you can't deny that with every "upgrade" (i say this in inverted commas, cos for example, the WiiM amp omitted optical out, whereas previous upgrades were purely additive) the value proposition has been diluted a bit. said another way: the mini is insane value still when compared to almost anything on the market still, way after it was launched, and with no real price drops... the WiiM amp however, already has worthy competitors in the form of Loxjie A40 which are arguably a better value proposition.

 

[PatriX]

interesting you're willing/able to put numbers on your estimation of what counts towards great SQ... i agree that the biggest contributor to overal SQ is the speakers, but i may disagree with the 98% number

i'm curious - where would you rank room acoustics in that heirarchy? (e.g. room treatments - like absorbers, bass traps, diffusers etc) cos for me this seems to be an area where the "measurement-freaks" and the "experience freaks" seem to find the most common ground (it's the only area where i see people experimenting almost equally on both sides of the equation, and more importantly maybe - where people seem to realise the limitations of their own points of view)

Of course - the solution is easy - THE BRODULE! http://brodule.blogspot.com/

(I apologize for my subtle sarcasm, but we're not dealing with an $800,000 audiophile MBL, but a cool gadget for 300 baks)

 

[Nikita]

Well how things sound to the ear is the final goal of audio equipment is it not?

If you are happy with the priceerformance ratio of the amp (as I am with my pro), that's cool!

I think it's a good idea to use both objective measurements and subjective opinions to come up with our own impressions. No? Not everything that matters can be measured imo

Exactly. The only thing that matters is how it sounds to your ears. The “experts” in the article provided only their subjective opinion w. no measurements.

Also the conflict of interest is obvious. The “experts” just cannot give five stars to $300 amp when they sell $3000 amp. The $3000 amp *must* sound better. Let’s not forget those magazines are just one giant ad.

 

[Fernandodelae]

Agree with most of you, even though the writer "try to be objective" they can't help being biased by the so much more complex and really expensive gear they usually deal with. Sometimes we forget that the Wiim amp hs unparalleled value considering its price, connectivity and features. Of course its not going to sound like $5k amp/receiver but for most of us which are starting again in this hobby thank s to the Wiim amp, its more than great.

I sincerely believe it deserved a higher score in SQ..

 

[harkpabst]

Also the conflict of interest is obvious. The “experts” just cannot give five stars to $300 amp when they sell $3000 amp. The $3000 amp *must* sound better. Let’s not forget those magazines are just one giant ad.

Actually they could. The What Hifi rating system is largely build around obscure price classes. They have nomprobkem at all giving a 5 star rating all-around for a £250 pair of Wharfedale Diamond 12.1, even if the only "con" is "tough competition". Obviously just about any £250 speaker is in the 5 star region, otherwise the competition wouldn't be tough.

They simply don't care about objective quality at all, that's just not how they're making money. Just with like most YouTubers forget about the concept of "knowing what they prefer and how they are rating". It simply doesn't work.

 

[cooky560]

TBH the wiim amp does great at doing what I use it for, as a system for the home office / bedroom, as it's very easy to send music to it from my phone, without having to set up my system first.

 

[ccs-digital]

the WiiM amp however, already has worthy competitors in the form of Loxjie A40 which are arguably a better value proposition.

Cheapaudioman, despite his clickbaity video title, concluded that the WiiM Amp sounds better than the Loxjie A40.

The Loxjie is only about £40 - £50 less than a WiiM Amp but has no streamer...how is that a better value proposition?

 

[wunderkind]

I find a majority of the audio review sites are just a jumble of word salad.

Maybe there is an app where you can simply ask it to come up with something and it would spit out a bunch of adjectives. And you can tweak them to your liking?

 

[cooky560]

Honestly that review totally misunderstands the value proposition given the 2 recommendations they make instead of the WiiM cost 1100 and 600. And my WiiM cost me 299…

 

[BowsAndArrows]

Cheapaudioman, despite his clickbaity video title, concluded that the WiiM Amp sounds better than the Loxjie A40.

The Loxjie is only about £40 - £50 less than a WiiM Amp but has no streamer...how is that a better value proposition?

Well, in my area you could get a WiiM mini + an A40 for the cost of the amp. Which would overall be a more versatile setup. A40 has usb in and optical out which the WiiM amp is missing...
No idea what either product sounds... But my point still stands. (Value has progressively decreased with each new product)