WiiM Newsletter 2024 Recap

Hi everyone , Ryan here! 2024 has been an incredible year for WiiM, with announcements, product launches, community spotlights, and more! Least of all, I joined the company and community! Let's dive in!

From our last Thankful Thursday in 2024, I want to again thank you all:
As we close out 2024, we want to express our deepest gratitude to each of you, our incredible community. Your invaluable feedback, insightful suggestions, and unwavering support have helped shape WiiM into the innovative product it is today. Your contributions have fueled our growth, inspired new features, and empowered us to create a better experience for all. Thank you for being part of our journey, for helping us build, design, and improve WiiM. We're honored to have you by our side and look forward to an exciting 2025 together!

Product Releases!​

In 2024, we released the WiiM Ultra and WiiM Amp Pro, along with the WiiM Edition Audio Pro A10 MKII and C10 MKII speakers. Visit our store to explore all the WiiM products and find more details. We’ve got even more in development for 2025!

Awards & Accolades for WiiM​

WiiM products received several awards and mentions in 2024, and we've already started picking some up in 2025! Here are some big ones:

• WiiM Pro Plus and WiiM Ultra named Best Digital Music Streamers: Editors' Choice 2024 - ecoustics.com
• WiiM Pro Plus named Best music streamer under $300 - whathifi.com for the second year in a row!
• WiiM Pro Plus named Top Pick for best music streamer - Wirecutter
• WiiM Pro Plus wins whathifi matchup for entry level streamer.
• WiiM Ultra was awarded “Highly Commended - StereoNET Product of the Year”

New Arrivals & Updates​

In 2024 our team was hard at work making improvements to WiiM products and features based on your feedback! We released big updates to WiiM for sound quality and EQ function-related aspects! Let us know what your favorite feature or update from 2024 was in the comments below!

• Room Correction enhancements! We’ve made several improvements to Room Correction over 2024, with more to come in 2025. Check out our Comprehensive Guide to Room Correction. We added Room Correction based on an Independent 10-band PEQ for both right and left channels separately.
• Streaming Music Using Squeezelite was added to WiiM, unlocking more powerful music library capabilities and some exciting customization options too!
• USB Media Library enhancements including better management and indexing. Check out our comprehensive article on USB libraries here.
• Plex Server Integration connects WiiM with your Plex media server to stream your personal collection of music. Connecting WiiM to Plex is easy, find the steps here, now with enhanced UI, new features, improved search, and greater stability as of the end of the 2024.
• Seamless Streaming: Group devices or change playback targets directly from the 'Now Playing' screen.
• KKBox Integration: Added support for the KKBox streaming service.
• Enhanced 'Play Queue' Management (Ongoing): Support track deletion and movement in the play queue. Learn more on our FAQ.
• Loudness Normalization: Enabled for Qobuz, and TIDAL (USB, NAS, Spotify support coming soon). More details here.
• Persistent Groups: Create persistent groups accessible from both the WiiM Home and Spotify Apps.
• Smart Presets (Shortcuts): Customize remote or app preset buttons to execute routines that control settings such as Input, Output, Volume, EQ, playback URLs, Shuffle , Group configurations, and more—all tailored to your preferences for a seamless audio experience. Become an expert in Smart Presets by reading our article here.

Community Highlights from 2024​

• Celebrating 10,000 Members!: That’s right everyone, we hit 10k members! Let’s see if we can hit 1k daily active members next!
• Thankful Thursday series where we weekly share gratitude from us to you, and from you to each other! Get involved by sending us recommendations of people who you see out there making a difference in the community!
• WiiM Community Feedback Survey We published our first community survey to gather your feedback as part of our commitment to create an exceptional experience for you all. Your input is crucial in helping us refine WiiM devices and our community forum, so if you haven’t yet, please take our 10-minute survey to contribute your ideas, suggestions, and feedback.
• Community Curators Program: We launched a new program last month and are still seeking volunteers to help maintain our forum's organization, accuracy, and overall user experience.
• Forum Feedback and Suggestions board: We want to hear from you! To ensure our community forum meets your needs, we launched a dedicated board for Forum Feedback and Suggestions.

Thanks for being part of our community!​

Welcome again to the 6,402 people who joined our community this year! I’m not listing you all, but we hope you stick around and join us! Happy listening!

This year, 7,542 community members were active, making 65,622 posts and 48,735 reactions (aka emojis), and started 3,337 new threads! Thanks for being involved everyone!

Looking Forward to 2025​

The folks in the lab are hard at work on new products including a perfect companion to the WiiM Ultra and any passive speakers. We've got some products brewing that you've talked about before, and maybe a few surprises too! Stay tuned for updates and maybe a few spoilers!

Thanks for reading and please share your favorite feature or update below!​

 

[Valentino]

Squeezelite integration was my main reason for buying the Ultra. It’s nice to see how you folks keep adding features to the products.

 

[hgo58]

Now we have a list of was added, what about an updated roadmap for 2025?

And maybe also a list of what the @WiiM Team is working on from the backlog. I can see discussions of issues and request in this forum that are more more than 6 months old.

 

[Karlaka]

The folks in the lab are hard at work on new products including a perfect companion to the WiiM Ultra and any passive speakers. We've got some products brewing that you've talked about before, and maybe a few surprises too! Stay tuned for updates and maybe a few spoilers!

WTF??!?!?!? Maybe an Purifi or Hypex based power stage?? Details, please!!!

 

[s3igell]

@RyanWithWiim The "Thankful Thursday" posts seem to have taken off, but the "Tech Tuesday" posts seem to have died on the vine. This is a Shame, as with the pace of Feature Additions and Updates, those "Tech Tuesday" posts served as a good Starting Point / Consolidation Page for numbers of associated Feature Tech / Function / Usage / FAQ Posts.
You had identified that the Fast Pace of WiiM Feature Development made Documentation (especially In-Depth / Technical) a "Challenge". I'd observe that Documentation is one of the few areas where WiiM could do better. These Forums are a decent source of User-Support, but they are all too often sidetracked along the way. Weekly or even Monthly instances of "Tech Tuesday" could serve as a central consolidation of both WiiM-produced and curated Member-produced "Themed Documentation".

 

[hgo58]

@RyanWithWiim The "Thankful Thursday" posts seem to have taken off, but the "Tech Tuesday" posts seem to have died on the vine. This is a Shame, as with the pace of Feature Additions and Updates, those "Tech Tuesday" posts served as a good Starting Point / Consolidation Page for numbers of associated Feature Tech / Function / Usage / FAQ Posts.
You had identified that the Fast Pace of WiiM Feature Development made Documentation (especially In-Depth / Technical) a "Challenge". I'd observe that Documentation is one of the few areas where WiiM could do better. These Forums are a decent source of User-Support, but they are all too often sidetracked along the way. Weekly or even Monthly instances of "Tech Tuesday" could serve as a central consolidation of both WiiM-produced and curated Member-produced "Themed Documentation".

Exactly. And a comprehensive technical documentation with measures would be a selling point in the audiophile world.

 

[s3igell]

Exactly. And a comprehensive technical documentation with measures would be a selling point in the audiophile world.

Look for Posts by @onlyoneme and @VintageFlanker for quality measurements of the various WiiM products.

 

[RyanWithWiiM]

@RyanWithWiim The "Thankful Thursday" posts seem to have taken off, but the "Tech Tuesday" posts seem to have died on the vine. This is a Shame, as with the pace of Feature Additions and Updates, those "Tech Tuesday" posts served as a good Starting Point / Consolidation Page for numbers of associated Feature Tech / Function / Usage / FAQ Posts.
You had identified that the Fast Pace of WiiM Feature Development made Documentation (especially In-Depth / Technical) a "Challenge". I'd observe that Documentation is one of the few areas where WiiM could do better. These Forums are a decent source of User-Support, but they are all too often sidetracked along the way. Weekly or even Monthly instances of "Tech Tuesday" could serve as a central consolidation of both WiiM-produced and curated Member-produced "Themed Documentation".

We've got more Tech Tuesdays to come! Our development team is faster than our documentation team, or more accurately, they're just a lot larger and can do more faster. We're working on improving our content publishing speed and breadth.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

“… a perfect companion to the WiiM Ultra and any passive speakers.”

Now that’s got to be a power amp, surely.

 

[cfo92130]

Any change to have the WiiM Edition Audio Pro A10 MKII and C10 MKII in EU in 2025 ?

 

[BK308]

“… a perfect companion to the WiiM Ultra and any passive speakers.”

Now that’s got to be a power amp, surely.

That’s what I read between the lines.

 

[harkpabst]

I for one am super keen to get to know what they'll come up with.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

I for one am super keen to get to know what they'll come up with.

As I already have an excellent amp, I’ve no real need for a new one.

If it’s cheap enough, matches the Ultra, and measures well, I might be tempted.

 

[canard]

I for one am super keen to get to know what they'll come up with.

we can imagine an amp based on the ultra format case, coordinated, and the pro amp module pushed in voltage to output more watts...
or two mono like fosi... coordonated at the ultra

( my question is more external power supply... or internal...? )

 

[wiimamp user]

Thanks @RyanWithWiim ..the awards well deserved. Im so happy with the amp..

I wonder ..working together with Audiopro???..well see what you did mean with this Companion..very curious.
Maybe i did understand this wrong but ok im looking forward to updates.

 

[pieterv1]

Just commenting for any updates on the WiiM Poweramp (doesn't really roll of your tongue, I know)

 

[Musician]

A power amp with PFFB and dual mono tpa3255 with internal power supply is on my wishlist .

 

[canard]

A power amp with PFFB and dual mono tpa3255 with internal power supply is on my wishlist .

there may be other amplification options to investigate other than this chip with less difficulty-limits (even in pffb)... even if omnipresent by its cost, cost /watt etc.....

 

[Musician]

there may be other amplification options to investigate other than this chip with less difficulty-limits (even in pffb)... even if omnipresent by its cost, cost /watt etc.....

True, but in my comparisons I havent heard a better solution soundvice below 1000 dollars , than using tpa3255 in a good implementation. I think tpa3255 sounds slightly better than hypex ncore and vastly better than any class A/B amp below 1000 dollars. Cleaner, clearer and more punchy in the bass.

Interesting to know is that the tpa3255 chip in stereo BTL configuration seems to sound best fed with 35-40V 10A , and slightly worse using 48V 10A.

A dual mono tpa 3255 in PBTL would have enough power to drive low impedance speakers with two 40V 6A power supplies. The power output would in this case reach about 220 watts / channel with low distortion in 3 ohms, and it would probably sound better than any 48V alternative.

If WiiM tries to get into highend price, say 2000 dollars for a power amp they may use another topology. Maybe class A/B , but I would listen carefully for ANY benefits compared to a good tpa3255. Also , in this area you have the more expensive hypex modules competing.

 

[canard]

True, but in my comparisons I havent heard a better solution soundvice below 1000 dollars , than using tpa3255 in a good implementation. I think tpa3255 sounds slightly better than hypex ncore and vastly better than any class A/B amp below 1000 dollars. Cleaner, clearer and more punchy in the bass.

Interesting to know is that the tpa3255 chip in stereo BTL configuration seems to sound best fed with 35-40V 10A , and slightly worse using 48V 10A.

A dual mono tpa 3255 in PBTL would have enough power to drive low impedance speakers with two 40V 6A power supplies. The power output would in this case reach about 220 watts / channel with low distortion in 3 ohms, and it would probably sound better than any 48V alternative.

If WiiM tries to get into highend price, say 2000 dollars for a power amp they may use another topology. Maybe class A/B , but I would listen carefully for ANY benefits compared to a good tpa3255. Also , in this area you have the more expensive hypex modules competing.

remains, even in pffb, a not linear behavior according to the impedance while increasing in frequency.... hard to understand in real life..and that's not very hdg...... see said a few years ago, would seem absurd...

we can easily come across much more than 8ohm on tweeters etc... very frequent...
and the pffb only alleviates the problem...