The ultra-affordable Network Music Player market has lumbered through some distinct phases over the last 5 years or so- with a multitude of compromises and products disappearing in the mists of the ‘Great Chip Shortage’.
The ‘go-to’ option for many people (outside of the dedicated Logitech Squeezebox and Raspberry Pi communities), is to add a Bluetooth Receiver to their hifi, bringing with it more compromise – yes your phone will more than likely support the Music Streaming App of your choice, but:
What version of Bluetooth does your Phone and Receiver have?
Will the music break down into a garbled mess if the phone is more than a few metres away from the receiver?
How much is this going to kill my phone battery?
Not to mention cursing when you forgot to mute Notifications, or that 5th spam phone call of the day interrupts the music.
The Solution
The £149 WiiM Pro is a welcome entry to the market – It’s aimed squarely at the budget audiophile market but with the user-friendliness demanded for everyday use by the whole family.
Firstly, for those who still want to cling on to Bluetooth (or for owners that don’t want visitors logging onto the home wifi), the WiiM Pro has a Bluetooth Receiver (and Transmitter!) built-in but also natively supports Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast Audio for family members who don’t want to have to learn another App. This will be welcome for those used to interacting with Smart speakers like the Apple HomePod, Google Home/Nest or who don’t want leave the comfort of their Tidal or Spotify Apps.
For users who install the WiiM Home App, the ability to access Amazon Music, Deezer, Soundcloud, Napster, Soundmachine and Internet Radio (including the BBC stations despite the changes they’ve made that have made 100s of radios incompatible!).
For the veteran Audiophile user the WiiM Home app can be used to access music from a DLNA-compliant Home NAS drive, and the WiiM Pro can now be used as a Roon Endpoint (thanks to it’s recent certification) for those who want to keep all of their systems under the Roon environment.
The aspirations for the Pro do extend beyond ‘merely’ being a standard music player though- it’s Analogue and Optical Inputs also allow for it to stream these inputs to another WiiM Pro. As an example, you could use this to stream a connected Turntable (with phono stage) or the audio out from a CD Player from one room to another wirelessly.
To judge the WiiM Pro’s Digital Out performance we first put it in a VERY revealing system (via it’s Coax Digital out) comprising Accuphase electronics, Epos speakers and Shunyata cabling. Normally in this set up we run with Melco Streamers (starting at £2k!). Naturally the WiiM Pro could not get close to matching the sheer resolution, openness and speed of the Melco, but neither did it fall into the trap of sound hazy, dynamically flat and with the drab sound-staging of other sub-£200 alternatives.
Placed into a more likely system, such as our £430 Edwards IA1 Integrated Amplifier with Acoustics Engergy AE100² speakers, using it’s onboard DAC and the WiiM Pro delivers a balanced presentation with a good degree of ‘bop’, with a respectable level of detail and pace to match the hysterically raved about legacy Squeezebox Touch and starter Raspberry Pi DIY project acolytes.
This is coming from someone who loves to tinker with Raspberry Pi’s and the old Logitech Media Server solutions. They’re great fun to play with but, particularly with the Raspberry Pi, they are not cheap options to get sounding noticebly superior.
As an example, if you can get a Raspberry Pi (!) they’re around £70 now, and it’s onboard audio sounds abysmal.
You’ll need a power supply (the basic official one is £10-15), and a half decent audio ‘HAT’ board from companies such as HifiBerry or ALLO, which will easily set you back £50-£100 (or more), a case (£10-£40 depending on cooling), a MicroSD card or USB to boot from (£10?), a computer and software to write an OS image, then configure it for the HAT……..if this all sounds like a hassle, that’s because it is! (unless you enjoy doing this sort of thing).
You might end up with a solution that could beat the WiiM Pro for sound, but you WILL be spending more. You only need to look at some hi-fi manufacturers who use the Raspberry Pi as the core of their product – with decent low noise power supply design and a good quality output stage (analogue or digital) your looking at £600+ item. Not exactly the price point that many will be willing to spend as a first dip into the world of music streaming.
As a starter streamer, in a budget hi-fi or AV setup, this little WiiM Pro takes all of the headache out of getting up and running, and performs remarkably for the price. Used as a ‘Network Bridge’ into an external DAC, it has huge potential in more serious mid-tier systems.
You can order a WiiM Pro from our website HERE.
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