Discussion: WiiM Mini $79 til 5 EST, 03/02/23, Amazon

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Thought you lot might want to know.

It's on my radar for a next purchase as an affordable streamer to plug into a standalone dac.

My thoughts are to get this and then a good $300"ish standalone like a Geshelli (with its awful interface...).

I'm sure there are threads here I missed, but anyone in the market for an affordable streamer not intetested?

If so, why?

Limited-time deal: WiiM Mini AirPlay2 Wireless Audio Streamer, Multiroom Stereo, Preamplifier, Works with Alexa and Siri Voice Assistants, Stream Hi-Res Audio from Spotify, Amazon Music and More https://a.co/d/hhCv52L

Gardenstater

I checked to make sure your output SPDIF Optical is compatible with the Gishelli and it is because the Gishelli has 2x Toslink + 2 x Coaxial Inputs.

plastic_avatar

Excellent

Unless there's a better pairing with the WiiM Mini at that price, it's what I'll save for.

Gardenstater

Pretty glowing review of the Gishelli here. It might be a little nerve wracking deciding between the Sabre or the AKM chip but he gives his clear cut impressions of each

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USbDI8OQP7s

gudnoyez

For that price I just ordered one to mess around with, I can hook it up optical using the Dac in my Marantz 15S2, or hook into the Musical Fidelity Dac, perhaps into the Oppo 105D, or to the Schitt Dac just to see how it compares to the Node. Will report back once I'm done playing around with it. To the OP thanks for the link.

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gudnoyez wrote: »

...using the Dac in my Marantz 15S2, or hook into the Musical Fidelity Dac, perhaps into the Oppo 105D, or to the Schitt Dac...

You, sir, have much dac.

I look forward to your review.

Gardenstater wrote: »

Pretty glowing review of the Gishelli here...

Here's a non sequitur for you:

I have mucho jealousy. I've watched him since the beginning.

He started his thing at the same time I started a thing. I dropped my similar thrifty audio project idea to do a nerdcast about running effective rpgs (after participating for the previous year and a half on another rpg podcast).

I gave up on my rpg project in October 2021 (after 34 episodes, because of some unresolved conflicts). A shame, because my production value was great and the topics were good for D&D/rpg nerds.

He made the right choice. I did not.

But I'm cheering him on from the losers' circle. Through my envy

Welcome to TMI Thursday w/ Plastic Avatar!

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gudnoyez wrote: »

Will report back once I'm done playing around with it.

Set-up, for me was a breeze.

Nice packaging, too. Didn't expect the extra cables (especially an optical).

Until I get a real dac, this sounds better than my phone through an Echo Dot or headphone jack. Worth it so far.

The stereo image is really good compared to my phone, as connected above^ (color me surprised), but, of course, it sounds compressed/not true (compared to CD). But this would be just fine w/o a better dac for my old Realistic system for party listening.

Gardenstater

Are you using AirPlay2 or WiFi? I think you can do Amazon Music HD via WiFi.

gudnoyez

According to the E-mail I got from Amazon it apparently arrives tommorow, if so wont have time to mess with it have other plans tommorow but plan on running optical into the Marantz and see how it sounds on the 2 channel for starters.

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Gardenstater wrote: »

Are you using AirPlay2 or WiFi? I think you can do Amazon Music HD via WiFi.

That's the awesome thing about it, and I'm guessing why the soundstage on Chameleon was almost the same as the CD (on my system):

The phone is just the remote! Because I'm using the Amazon Music 'app' for the WiiM.

I'll try it via Airplay tomorrow.

Of course, quality was not the same, but the accurate image was really great.

gudnoyez

Just got home and it was in the mailbox, wont have time to mess with it tonight, but plan on using it on my Schitt stack for headphones. Making it more compact so I wont have to drag a laptop around with it.

I dont plan on using it in the 2 channel that's strictly for SACD, CD, and Vinyl , but will try it briefly using the Dac on the Marantz 15S2 just to
see how it sounds. I think it will be the perfect companion for the Headphones and for the $79 what the heck.

plastic_avatar

WiiM report, how it sounds on its own

Not bad, but worse than the 30-year-old CD player pushing out tunes using its own internal dac.

- Streaming through it, not via Bluetooth from phone/tablet.

- Hooked to my 5Ghz best router. We have crazy fast fiber, too.

- Throughput seems good (I think it's supposed to be better through the optical, bypassing its internal dac):


(So far, as a side note, Power Windows actually sounds like a good mix on CD or streaming. All Rush albums prior? Oof. Still not happy on stereo. Hopefully the upcoming dac addition will help later.)

- App is a little clunkier than actual Amazon Music app on phone. Spotify uses Spotify app to talk to WiiM app. Dunno about other services.

- Slight buffering delay when loading music.

Overall, pleased so far. But I have mo other standalone streaming app experience like this.

Played a song on the WiiM, then the same song on CD w/o telling my oldest what I was doing or why. She looks up and asks 'Hey. Why does it sound better this time?'. CD wins. No doubt, really, but I hoped it would sound better streaming on the WiiM- because newer tech.
Happy with it. Looking forward to seeing how it sounds with a solid separate dac.

Gardenstater

1794kbps,flac on that song played off of Qobuz. Perhaps Amazon HD stores in WAV format which is a larger file.

I haven't tried WiFi (only ethernet) with my system to see if there is a quality difference with the Squeezebox Touch but now I'm curious.