WiiM ultra review and a peek under the lid

[Musician]

 

[Musician]

You can have english translation of this video.
The teardown is interesting .
Like in the pro +, its two boards.

The main board is an advanced four layer circuit board and seems to use 4 IC at the analog output , either opa1611A or maybe ne5532 ?.
The output seems to be with dc servo ? ( without coupling capacitors in series )

According to the reviewers, the ultra:s dac sounds better than the pro+ ( also tested in another review )

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Nice to see they used a Burr-Brown ADC, and the PS looks solid.

 

[Musician]

Nice to see they used a Burr-Brown ADC, and the PS looks solid

The main output uses ESS

 

[Musician]

 

[Zphvrq]

Thanks you guys for the amazing review and I can tell you that listening to people talk about electronics and audio in Italian sounds a lot better than listening to us jabber on in English, so thanks for for keeping things interesting.

Also thanks for the tear down and showing the insides. For some reason I never would have done that. Always impressive to see the meat of a device like this.

Grazie molto
Jeff

And I agree the WiiM Ultra really sounds amazing.

 

[Jls]

Do I see a couple of unused spots for small chips?

 

[harkpabst]

... and I can tell you that listening to people talk about electronics and audio in Italian sounds a lot better than listening to us jabber on in English ...

Yow definitely have a point there.

 

[Hiphiman]

Do I see a couple of unused spots for small chips?

Proposed sites for MFi circuits.

 

[Jls]

Proposed sites for MFi circuits.

My thought. I should have said unpopulated.

 

[AlPo]

My thought. I should have said unpopulated.

Or soldered on the reverse side of the PCB?

 

[Jls]

Or soldered on the reverse side of the PCB?

There’s a reverse view in the video. I can think of two reasons for unpopulated slots: one is to allow for premium versions of the board. The other is that some anticipated feature didn’t materialize.

 

[Smartplug]

Dac chip is just part of the equation. What’s on the analog stage? Does it use opa 1612?

 

[AlPo]

Take a guess…

 

[harkpabst]

Take a guess…

I don't see no spot there for whatever kind of chip.

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Take a guess…

There's a box, but the component labels are for resistors and capacitors. Where are you seeing an IC pad?

 

[AlPo]

No no, forget the missing chips, I zoomed in to better see what I believe are the analog stage opamps

 

[slartibartfast]

No no, forget the missing chips, I zoomed in to better see what I believe are the analog stage opamps

So what are they? I can't read them.

 

[Smartplug]

Yes too blurry. Are they opa?

 

[AlPo]

My best guess they are OPA1611