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John
UPDATE 17th March 2022: Not quite — the Wiim Home app still slices tiny gaps of silence between tracks.
Two weeks ago, we took a deep dive on the Wiim Mini, a puck-sized streamer from China that offers Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal as well UPnP from Wiim’s Home smartphone app. That’s whole a lot of streaming functionality for a very reasonable €99/US$99. Grumbles were few but the TOSLINK output didn’t offer bit-perfect playback (all streams were resampled to 48kHz before dispatch), the internal digital volume control couldn’t be bypassed to give a fixed output – it could only be set to 100% – and Tidal/Qobuz/UPnP playback inside the Home app wasn’t gapless.
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It’s been in beta testing for the past couple of weeks but this weekend Wiim is rolling out an over-the-air update to the Mini – version 4.6.408142 – that rights the above wrongs.
1) Streams instigated via the Home app now playback gaplessly: UPnP, Tidal and Qobuz.
2) all streams spun from the Mini’s TOSLINK socket are rendered bit-perfectly e.g. a 16bit/44.1kHz stream will be output at 16bit/44.1kHz and a 24bit/192kHz stream will be dispatched at 24bit/192kHz. That’s especially good news for Qobuz users delving into hi-res audio as Tidal is still capped at CD quality inside the Wiim app and with Tidal Connect. Of course, if you’re not fussed about hi-res, you won’t be fussed by this limitation.
3) the Home app now features a ‘fixed output’ option that (presumably) bypasses the Mini’s DSP-based volume attenuator. That means a line-level output when connecting the Wiim to an integrated amplifier via its 3.5mm analogue output and a bit-perfect stream when connecting it to a DAC over TOSLINK.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call progress. The Wiim Mini is now an even bigger bargain than it was two weeks ago.
One final thought: since my review went live, Wiim has been in touch and is sending me a couple of Minis to use around the house whenever the occasion strikes. I am therefore giving away my original Wiim Mini, bought from Amazon DE, over on Patreon.
Further information: Wiim
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