WiiM Amp Multiroom Streaming Amplifier Review & Unboxing
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WiiM Audio has surged onto the audio scene these past few months and have made some massive waves doing so. The market is seemingly saturated with Streamers, Amps, and… smart night lights, so what makes WiiM so special? Incredible cost efficiency and rich feature loadouts. Now I’ll admit, I was fairly skeptical of WiiM when I first read about their amplifier and streamer here. I thought these were going to be low performance pieces of gear, but I was SO wrong, and have been converted to a WiiM believer. If you are a skeptic like I was, stick around and learn about the incredible value that WiiM brings to the table.
WiiM's Streaming Devices: Mini, Pro, and Pro Plus
I’ll be focusing primarily on the WiiM Amp in this review, but I do want to call attention to the rest of their line up. WiiM makes 3 streaming devices; the WiiM Mini, the WiiM Pro, and the WiiM Pro Plus.
The differences in these units mainly boil down to the quality of their DAC’s, the inclusion of more inputs and outputs, and the voice remote that comes with the Pro Plus.
WiiM Pro Plus Multiroom Streamer and Preamp with Premium AKM DAC
Unboxing Experience
The unboxing experience felt like I was opening a new apple device, like an iPhone or Mac Mini. Cable boxes were labeled clearly, and contained an HDMI cable, a pair of RCA cables, an optical cable, bluetooth connected voice remote, a power cable, and some manuals and documentation. I do love the eco-friendly pouches the cables came in.
Setting Up the WiiM Amp
Setting up the WiiM Amp was incredibly efficient. When setting yours up, make sure to download the WiiM Home App first, available on both iOS and Android. The setup guide tells you exactly what to do, and within minutes, you’ll be able to start listening to music. The WiiM Amp comes in 2 colors, the Grey version here, and the silver version. The chassis is an aluminum shell with a brushed surface, and a black plastic bottom with vents for air flow. The WiiM logo is polished and sits right on top, that almost reminds me of an apple logo on a mac mini. On the front of the unit we have a volume knob, with a digital LED volume display, and a second LED light to indicate the device status. Moving around to the back, we have an almost perfect array of inputs and outputs. We have our left and right channel binding posts, a set of RCA analog line level inputs, a Subwoofer Output, a digital optical input, RJ-45 ethernet jack, a usb connection, HDMI ARC, and AC power in. Let’s run through a few uses for each of those inputs and outputs shall we?
Comparing Inputs and Outputs
WiiM Amp in the Competitive Landscape
Now of course, WiiM is entering into a saturated market of “Smart Amps”, which is my own classification of small-ish form factor class D two channel amplifiers with streaming built in. The Sonos Amp, Blue sound power node, and Heos Amp, all come to mind. And with the WiiM Amp only having 60 watts per channel, what role does this fill? Well I can think of a few.
1: WiiM Is Platform Agnostic
WiiM is platform agnostic. It plays nice with everyone. I’ve talked before in previous reviews about how I like to use Tidal as my main source of music. WiiM supports Tidal Connect, which is a built in integration for streaming music from Tidal directly to the amplifier. Now why does that matter? Well because as great of an app that WiiM has, I just like to live in one UI for managing my music and playback. Not only does it support my preferred playback method, but it also supports the other heavy hitters like Airplay 2, chromecast, Spotify connect, and Roon.
2: Unbeatable Cost & Utility
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. This thing is incredibly cost effective. It is an INSANE value given all that it has jam packed inside it. While it may not be the most powerful amp, 60 watts is more than enough power for a pair of efficient bookshelf speakers, a pair of in ceiling speakers, or an outdoor pair of rock speakers. It has incredible utility and use cases, and it’s only $300. I don’t think there is another amp on the market that I’m aware of, that does everything the WiiM Amp can do at this low of a cost. It really is mind blowing to me.
3: Ecosystem & Future Potential
WiiM has an ecosystem. WiiM doesn’t only make this amplifier. They have 3 different streamers and a bedside wake up light… with a speaker built in. While it’s a small line up for now, I think it is the basis for a bright future. Multi room audio casting is supported in the WiiM home app, and they can be paired and controlled via your smart voice assistant of choice, like Alexa or Siri. The WiiM Pro Plus is a great way to add smart capabilities to an old stereo you may have lying around from the late 90’s, and if you have multiple WiiM pieces hooked up to multiple speakers throughout a house, you can throw on the same music across multiple rooms for a party or family gathering.
Now while I think that WiiM is an incredible value in its own right, I don’t think it flat out replaces it’s competitors mentioned above. At least… not yet. Sonos still reigns supreme in my eyes with their sound bar and wireless surround sound packages, HEOS comes baked into some very well respected home theater AVR’s by denon and marantz, and blue sound is both of those things, with sound bars and being found built into many amplifiers and AVR’s by NAD.
Conclusion
At the moment, WiiM is one of the best values in the wide world of stereos. The WiiM Amp has almost an unlimited number of use cases, and for everything else there's the WiiM pro and pro plus. From a simple stereo in your first apartment, to bringing smart features into your primary system you’ve never had before. Or if you’re just looking for a great deal, WiiM may be the next upgrade to add to your system.
