Tír Na HiFi

Since I bought Briano's Audioplans just over a year ago, my old Sonus Faber Signums have been sitting doing nothing. I had planned to use them with my digital organ, but that didn't work out due to positioning constraints, so they were effectively gathering dust. I decided that using them for anything at all would be better than nothing, and since we'd recently cleared out the girls' playroom and made the space a bit more civilised, I thought I'd set something up in there so they could at least listen to Spotify. I wanted a cheap option, but something that I'd find interesting enough to play with myself.

Enter the WiiM Amp Pro.

I'd read a bit about it before and was somewhat intrigued, and at €399 it seemed like an alright option. I appreciate that this isn't exactly chump change, but there were some particular selling points:
- 60W into 8 ohm but doubling up at 120W into 4 ohm. This was a good sign.
- Streamer, amp and DAC are all included in the package, I'd just need to attach to the speakers and I'd be good to go.
- I was happy with the WiiM streamer I'd been using in another system for the last few years.
- It was *exactly* the right height to fit under the TV in the playroom.

It arrived a couple of weeks back and I set it up not really expecting very much. You see, last time I went looking for an amp to go with these speakers, it took me a long time to find anything I liked (you can read all about that here: viewtopic.php?t=5096). The SFs are a bit finicky tbh, and while they always sound nice, it can be difficult to really unlock their potential. I was also not used to sitting so close to them, and I was back in the listening room that used to cause me no end of pain, albeit in a different orientation. So the odds were stacked against good sound, or so I thought.

Nope! The amp took the speakers and gripped the bejaysus out of them, really opened them up, and left me with my mouth open too. I genuinely couldn't believe how impressive it all sounded. I did the old cliché of listening to tracks I hadn't put on in years, all kinds of music, all from the comfort of the Qobuz app and Qobuz Connect. Since the demise of the nerd cave, I didn't really have anywhere suitable to listen to large-scale classical, but that was definitely back on the menu here. Electronica also sounded especially good, with really solid bass underpinning excellent clarity. It was all just great, no matter what I threw at it.

If that had been it I would have been happy, but there's more.

The WiiM app itself allows a decent amount of customisation, but buried in the settings is the option to run Room Correction. It's all quite customisable itself: you can set your target curve (Harman for me), you can set what frequency range you want it to work over (the full range of human hearing if you're so inclined, but I kept it below 250 Hz), you can set the max gain and max cut (I chose 6dB for each), and indeed the max Q of the adjustments (I left that at max). The weak point, though, was that it was going to use my phone microphone to take readings, so how good could it possibly be? I was sceptical to say the least, but once again, my expectations were confounded. The resulting analysis showed the initial state, exactly what it was going to do at 10 different frequencies, the target curve, and the expected final realised curve. It's all very impressive. You can then play with the results and adjust as much as you want, but that was a temptation too far. Either way, switching the correction in and out definitely showed the sonic change, and for my ears the "with correction" sound was better. Because it's all done in the digital domain, there is none of that masking effect of extra circuitry when you switch the correction on, so there isn't the sense of sacrifice I'd experienced with room correction options back in the day. Plus, if you decide it's all nonsense, a toggle in the app turns it off again. Easy peasy.

We're a long way from valves and vinyl here, and I know that this won't be for everyone, but for my use case here it's pretty much perfect. I'm not here to tell you it's better or worse than anything else, I'm not suggesting you throw out your Pass Labs and buy this instead, I haven't even tried it in the other system for comparison purposes, and I'm not sure I want to. No, I'm stepping away from audiophilia with this one, and I'm just going to enjoy what it does.

As a valves and vinyl nerd I love hearing stories like this! Getting (great) use out of dusty speakers and reclaimed space is a huge win. Well done, enjoy rediscovering the dusty music.

Great write-up and good performance for a cheap piece of technology. It has been a while since I wrote anything useful but this gear can open up new vistas for very little. I hope you get great satisfaction with it.
Ken Moreland

What a great result.

I think the Wiim makers, and others like them are putting real pressure on many of the established manufacturers. Here's the other that that I was thinking - at 400 quid, its all of a sudden affordable enough to a student who was working a summer job which is good in my books.

Thanks all. It's kinda fascinating to see the advances made in the cheaper end of the market in recent years, especially as more "traditional" listening habits move on. I forgot to say this also has a HDMI arc that's apparently quite well implemented (I haven't tried it yet myself), and I suppose this makes it a one stop audio solution for many.

Deep down the idea of one box attempting to do so much makes me uneasy, but you'll have that. At this price I'm over it!

All that said, try as I might to get the girls to click the little icon on their Spotify app to change the output, they just won't do it. They still listen to music using their phone speaker. Kids these days...

That's interesting.

I had a few WiiM streamers and an amp scattered about the house. As streamers, I loved them. Great app, works with most of the streaming services, works with Roon, ongoing updates, decent EQ capabilities etc.

However, I just couldn't get on with the amp. I had a set of Kef LS50s in my office and used the WiiM amp with them it was OK. I swapped the Kefs for a pair of Wharfedale Evo 2.2s, same 'OK' performance.

I swapped in an ancient sansui stereo receiver with the Wharfedales and they spring to life. Much better soundstage. much better bass extension and definition. And it wasn't that the WiiM was hinderd by EQ or anything like that

I'd highly recommend these devices as streamers but I just couldn't get on with the amp version. Interesting to hear a different perspective. Appreciate the write up.

That's interesting indeed, and to be honest I don't find it hard to believe at all. It's also one of the reasons I don't want to investigate any further: I like what I'm hearing now, and I don't want to know anything else about it! 🤣

TPA3255 class D amps are very impressive, more than previous variants of that chip. I had few chi-fi amps before but Fosi ZA3 with TPA3255, same amp chip that Wiim uses, really impressed me with power and musicality. Rolled op-amps in my Fosi which improved the sound significaly, but control that TPA3255 has is excellent. Add Wiim great software to that, impossible to match at that price level, or even double...

Is the Pro appreciably different to the "normal" WiiM amp under the hood? I never really got to the bottom of that one.