WiiM Ultra: who has it and who has already opened it?

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Got lifetime license here also but since I mostly stream can jump ship easily if the service from new owners become an issue. Have HQPlayer also that can now stream Quboz
@jean-paul, realised yours is embedded Roon bundled with another third party product so some risks with future support - may end up in landfill 😉. In my case it is on a PC with regular updates and locked in lifetime arrangement @$400 at that time - still honored by Roon. PC Surface Pro, clocked 10yrs and still going good - Microsoft sent a long service notice recently, guess what they want?
 
Yes, this noise and other concerns with this Ultra, didn’t see all this in the promotional videos/reviews, I guess all masked by the attractive price 😣 I hope it sounds fine on the USB out to my new AKM DAC (4499EX/4491) otherwise will return it..

My initial choice was Bluesound Icon but not available yet here and x3 the price.
 

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It is among the first products or even the absolute first product by Wiim that does have a USB port usable for USB disks/sticks/DACs. The other products used USB solely for a 5V power supply connection and were meant for streaming. Internal I2S would be the weapon of choice for me as the least conversions there are the better it is. Also goes for storage via wires or LAN. Why extra steps when it can have its own direct connected disk? To be able to add reclocking and other extras? The source being less relevant as we must have extra hardware?

I understand the concerns about stuff ending up in landfill very good but then one should not buy and build stuff repeatedly nor develop/build/create/obtain external stuff either. I have seen the battery mountains in Shanghai, China from all that beautiful shiny e-cars we drive to protect the environment. Even your products will have the same destiny. It is refreshing and educative (definitely wear a face mask) to see the recycling of electronics and PCBs. All that superfluous stuff we buy in our lifetime is being handled by people in areas where health is of no concern. When Dolby 12 channel stuff comes out that will be 12 channel DACs and 12 channel amplifiers, 12 cable sets and 12 loudspeakers bringing crushed after years somewhere by someone in a copper/lead/glass fibre dust-laden factory and face masks being too costly to hand out.

Anyway this product is popular as it seem (at last) relatively complete and it has an attractive price but we should not expect miracles for 379 Euro. That is to influencers and YouTubers that need to hype up stuff so we buy it. I repair(ed) Bluesound/NAD devices and these are really the weakest found, no comparison to even chinese branded stuff.

Just define what you really need so that you will be satisfied and can use the product for a today normal lifetime of about 5 years. If that are for instance 2 USB ports then skip Ultra.
 
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It is all nice & clean & easy and just a question if one can afford stuff till you visit or better work in China and see how some processes go. I did. It is also quite refreshing to visit a local recycling company and see how their processes go. Also what is being offered for demolition. I also did that several times streamlining certified and environmentally approved disposal of quantities of hardware and saw unsold new LCD televisions, pallets full of unsold A branded electrolytic caps etc. being crushed and grinded to powder. 1 cent hardware or 100,000 Euro hardware, all become dust. Unsold clothing by expensive brands being processed in a building where brand labels are removed and then stuff turns to low budget clothing and is being exported to a ... branded budget store in South America but at least it is not destroyed without having been used.

What has been seen can not be unseen 🙂
 
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Onlyoneme:s jitter measurements of the WiiM ultra using new firmware and spdif coaxial out :

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And Amirm, this time toslink and ROON :
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Conclusion : Ultra is a perfect transport and can’t be easily bettered .

The inbuilt dac is also perfect measuring according to all objective measurements seen by Onlyoneme or Amirm but at least I do prefer the more colored and flowing sound from my Rega dac R .
 
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Ultra seems a quite usable source but many are today. Still it has its limits in functionality as stated earlier. Probably manufacturers of the current generations of sources are all too aware of friend Amir and his measurements.

So that is not where the differences can be found. Please be careful with the word "perfect". This is audio where "better than perfect" exists. Also conclusion of friend Amir is "not perfect".
 
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