WiiM Amp Ultra

C

Cal_Cobra

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Pulled the trigger on the WiiM Amp Ultra this morning. I have the WiiM Ultra and the WiiM Amp Pro, and really enjoy both, but with them basically integrated and upgraded into one unit, I had to test it out.

IMHO there were a few misses on the WiiM Ultra, such as the RCA jacks on the rear panel had hardly any clearance around the RCA jack, so using thicker higher quality cables was off the table (some folks actually bore out the holes so they could fit their favorite cables). Looking at the rear panel on the WiiM Amp Ultra it appears that WiiM listened to their customers complaints about the Ultra's RCA jack clearance issue and the holes look significantly larger (a super easy fix, but nice to see if they did!). The dual TI TPA3255 amps with PFFB is a nice addition as well, For me the WiiM Amp Pro was lacking in the power department.

I like that WiiM used the newer ESS ES9039Q2M DAC, and hopefully the phono pre-amp is improved as it was sketchy on the WiiM Ultra (highly suspectable to picking up external noise).

One question I had was that WiiM advertises it as support four speakers, plus a sub. The rear panel only shows one set of left and right speaker out jacks. Are they suggesting to run two speakers per output jack?

Looks like there's still no Apple AIrPlay support. Ran into that issue when I first bought the WiiM Ultra (even though it was advertised as supporting it, but they latter back peddled on that). For me it's a non-issue as I switched over the Amazon music, which I feel is equal.

Anyone else looking at the WiiM Amp Ultra?
 
It could be more damaging because the solution remains the external prephono, no headphone output...
A rather interesting idea for an "all-in-one 2+1"
(it would have been an opportunity to improve it more than on the Ultra)....
 
BK308 said:
WiiM Amp Ultra doesn’t include a phono preamp. Hope you didn’t buy it for that reason.
Click to expand...
Good catch, luckily I didn't buy it for that reason.

Interestingly they somewhat imply it does in their advertising [perhaps they ditched it after the Ultra issues?]:

1750355885340.png
 
QuarryHunslet said:
I'm perfectly happy with the performance and sound quality of the phono input on my Ultra.
Click to expand...
It was hit and miss, worked fine for some, and others [including myself] had issues with it.

My vinyl players all have integrated phono pre-amps, so it's not really that big of a deal although it would've been nice to see an improved phono pre-amp.
 
Cal_Cobra said:
My vinyl players all have integrated phono pre-amps, so it's not really that big of a deal although it would've been nice to see an improved phono pre-amp.
Click to expand...
You could make one old man very happy by not calling a turntable a "vinyl player", thanks. ;)

But in the end you pretty much answered your own question: They included a turntable in the marketing material because this is what young folks usually buy today. A device that plays „vinyls" :sick: and puts out a line level voltage. :)

Most might not even know what a phono pre-amp is.

And no, I'm not trying to put you into that camp or insult you in any other way. Explicitly not! I'm just kidding around a little.

Congrats to your very fine Amp!
 
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harkpabst said:
You could make one old man very happy by not calling a turntable a "vinyl player", thanks. ;)

But in the end you pretty answered your own question: They included a turntable in the marketing material because this is what young folks usually buy today. A device that plays „vinyls" :sick: and puts out a line level voltage. :)

Most might not even know what a phono pre-amp is.

And no, I'm not trying to put you into that camp or insult you in any other way. Explicitly not! I'm just kidding around a little.

Congrats to your very fine Amp!
Click to expand...
Sorry had a golden moment there for a second, you sir are correct it's a turntable, that spins vinyl :)

I started off with records as a kid, then cassette tapes, then CDs and so on and so on, kind of going full circle here.
 
BK308 said:
I'm sure they assume that a portion of turntable users would just use the built in phono pre amp if it has one built in.
Click to expand...
They probably would (and why not), but there really is no built-in phono pre-amp in the WiiM Amp Ultra.
 
I already wrote about it in another thread. Unfortunately, the new Ultra Amp doesn't have a headphone output. Why? I listen a lot with headphones, as I'm sure many others do. Therefore, this device is unusable for me. It's a shame.Please excuse my poor English. I'm using Google Translate here.
 
Houma said:
I already wrote about it in another thread. Unfortunately, the new Ultra Amp doesn't have a headphone output. Why? I listen a lot with headphones, as I'm sure many others do. Therefore, this device is unusable for me. It's a shame.Please excuse my poor English. I'm using Google Translate here.
Click to expand...
Good point. Wonder why not, the Ultra has one (albeit a 3.5mm)?
 
Cal_Cobra said:
That's marketing for you. Kind of a kitchen sink diagram :)

Heck I still want to know how they expect you to hook up for passive speakers with only two speaker terminals :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Not enough room to provide a set of extra speaker terminals so you can connect 2 wires per terminal to connect 4 speakers. The extra terminals on an amplifier that has them are parallel to each other anyway. It still is a 2 channel amp. (Offcourse there are amps with more than 2 channels)
 
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