WiiM Ultra, Mine Is Coming, Let's Talk About it! / Plus A Fun-Fi Tube Amp That Cooks! 

Interesting. Will the screen of the Wiim Ultra also show volumelevel information when you turn the volume up or down?

Can the Wiim Ultra work as safe preamp if connected to a poweramp? I'm thinking that digital preamps sometimes have been known for faulty volume control damaging the speakers when the volume goes to max. Or does the Ultra have to be connected to an analouge preamp?

Thanks for the vlog. Wiim has definitely carved their place in this market! I’ve recently upgraded from the Wiim Pro to the Volumio Rivo streamer feeding my existing Gustard R26 dac. A big difference in all aspects. The Wiim was powered by an external LPS that I now use for the Rivo. HOWEVER, I have to say the sound I was getting from the Wiim Pro via LPS and into the dac was insane for the price. There isn’t another audio brand that offers the same value for money as the Wiim streamers. This is a brand for the masses and is only going to keep improving.

Matt, can this device output the video of the streamer to the tv? My roku tv with earc dropped Tidal the other way around. I like to view videos from tidal on my tv. Thanks for the informative video.

Thanks, as always, for covering fun-fi from such a balanced perspective. As the offerings from Wiim, Fosi, Ayima, and others continue to advance do you think we'll get to a point where we see a proper pre-amp for non-desktop use from one or more of these companies? I'm someone who has a dedicated power amp and source (a CD player in my case) that I want to continue using but I'm using an decade+ old A/V receiver as a pre-amp mainly for the volume control and remote. The receiver does its job well but to be able to have a smaller component with some newer parts that doesn't get into that 'audiophile' price premium would be excellent. Something along the lines of what Schitt does with their comparatively lower priced pre-amps is what I have in mind.

Thanks Matt, will be looking forward to the new video on the Ultra. On a side note, I own a Pi2 Design Mercury V2 streamer. I have not used it since getting the WiiM Pro, so yesterday, I went and loaded up a fresh new copy of RoPieee and fired her up using Audirvana Studio and Qobuz. I have the WiiM Pro via digital coax, and the Mercury unit via i2s attached to my PS Audio DAC, and out to the ToneWinner AD-2PRO+ amp > Maggie LRS+/Zu DW6 Supremes, I can run both speakers off of this amp, and easily A/B the streamers on the DAC, so cool. Both the WiiM Pro and the Mercury V2 are powered with LHY Linear Power Supplies and hard wired into my network. I think I gave $800 for the Mercury V2, they have since come out with a V3. Anyhow, splitting hairs in regards to overall sound quality, at least on my system. I cannot tell the difference between the two. I had the Node N130 in here, the Cambridge CXN V2 and that other one, around a grand... Whatever. Bottom line, for the money, $100 for the power supply, $149 for the WiiM, $250 all in and it is beats up more expensive units with ease. These WiiM streamers are going to be hard to beat, and I can only imagine what they have up their sleeve in the coming years.

Hey Matt, Great video, really excited for the WiiM Ultra. Here's a use case that you might want to test out when you get around to making the review. I believe that the Ultra will be used in this config by a lot of people like myself since not many stereo amps have HPF. Could you test out connecting the sub to the WiiM for the low frequencies, and then Optical out to an external DAC or into an integrated amplifier for the higher frequencies. I think there'll be a lot of people out there who'll get the WiiM Ultra for this function, would be great to know how well it works.

How do you think it'll match up to a J2 or an AUNE S9 pro

Do you think that the HDMI will display the screen information? I enjoy that feature with my Apple TV with my iTunes library, but the downside is I have to have the monitor on to navigate the information and with this new WiiM, it seems like you can use the small screen at times without having to turn your monitor on every time youwant to stream. And I was wondering if it would display album art with Amazon Music? I do own the mini and the pro plus, but have not been a fan of the DAC even in the pro plus and definitely not the mini “lol” so I have been using an outboard DAC With it. Without looking up, which one is in it, I take it the new Sabre is different than the pro plus ? is that correct?

I still don't know what the wiim does? Is it so I can stream tidal? Right now I have to send tidal from my phone to the Sony 7000 AVR. Same with amazon music I think I have to airplay that. So it it better quality through a player like wiim? I like spatial audio, atmos music and Sony 360 Reality Audio. I have a roku ultra but it does not do music in spatial, just stereo.

Wiim is seriously kicking some butt! Affordable excellence. Great review Matt!

Nice job. I’m really looking forward to the Ultra. I’m kinda interested most in their room correction.

I find that the screens on these device are just more of gimmicky thing control with a phone or tablet is much better. And a hdmi port why? It's not a A/V receiver so I'm not sure how using the hdmi is better than optical. If you could please compare the output stage & power supply compared to the pro plus that might be the reason to upgrade.

Horses for courses. I just received a Hifi Rose Rs130 for my main system. The screen is beautiful and useful, compared to my previous Aries G2 but my main driver is state of the art SQ with future proofing like optical ethernet, I2S and supercapacitor Psu. But in my AV system I use a Wiim Pro which sounds far superior to HEOS in my Denon. I think this new Wiim will appeal to lots of people with desktop, budget, mid fi and AV systems.

Ultra looks really dope! Wish it had an USB output w 768 pass through for up sampling w Roon. That would kill like all streamers! Also feel like the headphone amp isn’t needed. I’d rather have the USB out & a balanced XLR out

Can't wait for the Ultra to arrive. My only complaint is that it doesn't come with a coaxial input and the addition of a phono stage. I personally would prefer an additional analog input.

It has still not enough power to sit in my living room 😢 why the hell did they not upgrade the power output? Cant believe they didnt solved the only big problem the old one has.

How's the interface? BluOS user-friendly w Android 😊

Can the ultra be used to play music from a desktop computer via a wired connection? It doesn’t appear to have the right kind of usb input for that.

Please keep in mind that to this date all WiiM products that have an RCA input have always had an ADC step before sending it to the DAC and that includes a WiiM AMP that I have. IMHO that step changes the sound a bit - that’s being fed, but useful for people that want to stream that input to another WiiM device such as a turntable. I love my WiiM AMP, but the RCA input is useless for any quality listening, even if you feed it with a better DAC and opamp. It will be interesting how WiiM will implement an RIAA EQ in the phono input, I bet it will just have a digital EQ preset for it as the signal will most likely become digital again ... 😅🤷‍♂️

Thanks Matt

@MattCoykendall1 Hiya, this is interesting. I'm happy about the DAC upgrade. I'll wait until some of the dust settles around this. WiiM is great ... but so many releases turns yesterday's release into today's obsolete tech. At some point I imagine this will settle down and I'll take a look. At first glance, the display is nice, but a bit bigger would help. Thanks for another top-notch review my friend. 🙃

Just add two Fosi monoblocks to the preouts and you have a boom!

I was waiting for this to replace the wiim pro plus until I saw how small the screen was. I bite the bullet and bought a eversolo dmp-a6 master edition. I'm using it as a streamer with an external dac, and the sound quality upgrade is pretty big. The upgraded clock using spdif is worth it because the wiim as a source was a bottle neck in my system.

I disconnect any LEDs under the tubes.

I am just sceptical about the sound quality the Ultra will have compared to more audiophile dedicated streaming options. I don't care for screens on my gear because of limited usability compared to an app and light pollution. Sure WIIM has said we will be able to turn it off, but I will still be paying for it. A waste of my money and the planets resources. It is too bad the Ultra doesn't have balanced out, otherwise it would be an ideal pairing candidate with the ZA3 and V3 Mono's. Fosi is developing a pre-amp that will be balanced though and most people already have a streamer they van hook up to that.

Is no "coax in" a deal killer for anyone else.

Seems like WiiM will be releasing an upgrade to this soon, making this obsolete very quickly. So it’s a no go

I don't get why so many reviewers are geeking out over a budget streamer that they haven't even had their mitts on? Why not wait until you actually have one in hand and do a proper review, you know, like you do with any other product?

So you get paid to "review" this?