WiiM Pro

[Diapason]

I ordered a WiiM Pro from Richer Sounds (cos they were the cheapest and I like them) and it arrived today. I mentioned before that I was thinking of getting one to replace my Chromecast Audio, which has put in sterling service over many years and is probably the most used source in the house outside of the radio and TV. To be honest I had few complaints with the Chromecast Audio, except for its inability to play gapless. Under normal circumstances that's not a deal-breaker but for certain classical albums it's a disaster. Trying to listen to Yuja Wang's recording of the Rachmaninov Paganini Variations recently nearly drove me mad, so I snapped and ordered it.

Initial impressions are very positive indeed. Setup was incident free, and the app is extremely intuitive with useful layout and even some good information on bit rate used while playing, etc. To be honest, in terms of user interface I'd probably rate it above BluOs (I won't be bothering to do a sound quality comparison with my BlueSound Node). Even when it came to finding local libraries on the network it discovered them straightaway with no hoops to jump through. Lots of streaming services are there by default, including BBC radio which is useful. Ideally I'd like a little more freedom to remove menu items I don't need, or to rearrange locations, but it's minor stuff.

In terms of sound I don't have much to report. I'm only using it as a digital source to connect to an external DAC, and will probably never sample its line out. Still, all I can say is it's been very pleasurable to use and listen to so far, and I'm very happy with the purchase. And yes, gapless works!

WiiM is probably the cheapest streaming solution on the go at the moment, and it's definitely worth a look if you're in the market.

[hudo]

I am very happy with arrival of affordable and good quality streamers from Asia, because not everybody have a system where some 3k€ Aurender or Innuos can bring value for such a big investment. We need a competition in streamer market, like it happened with DACs. Specially devices like EverSolo A6 with that big nice screen. Just add a linear PSU and you're set for a long time... or at least until they stop releasing software updates and Tidal/Qobuz change something and everything stops working, but investment was not that big so you just buy a latest model.