As promised, Wiim has officially taken the wraps off its new network music streamer, the Wiim Ultra — a slick aluminum device with a color touchscreen, physical volume knob, and a dedicated, front-facing 3.5mm headphone output. We also now know the price: It will be $329 when it hits Amazon sometime between July 1 and September 30.
Wiim also promised that it would reveal another new device, and it turns out to be the Wiim Amp Pro, a beefed-up version of the highly rated Wiim Amp that launched earlier this year. It will sell for $369 when it arrives on Amazon around the same time as the Ultra.
Wiim Ultra
We already knew the broad strokes for the Ultra, Wiim’s new flagship network music streamer, including its design, which mirrors the simple, aluminum-clad lines of the Wiim Amp. We also knew that it would boast a 3.5-inch color touchscreen interface and a bevy of digital and analog inputs and outputs, including HDMI ARC. Now we’ve got some of the deeper specs that Wiim fans were waiting for:
- HDMI ARC, line-in, phono-in, and optical-in, USB-A (for storage-based playback)
- Line-out, optical-out, coaxial-out, subwoofer-out, and a dedicated 3.5mm headphone output
- 32-bit/384kHz ES9038 Q2M Sabre DAC
- Dolby Digital Audio
- Dual-antenna Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3
- 3.5-inch glass-covered touchscreen display
- Built-in room correction technology
- Bit-perfect digital output or high-fidelity analog audio (SNR>120dB, THD+N<0.0002%)
The touchscreen can apparently display App widgets — which we believe can be chosen from the Wiim app itself — large album pictures, playback control, play queue, presets, EQ, audio input and output, and device settings. It will also be used to guide folks through the setup process once they power the Ultra on, and it will notify users when software updates are available.
The screen can also indicate changes in play mode, and you can customize the wallpaper and choose to display the time and date during standby mode.
As with the Wiim Pro, Pro Plus, and Amp, the room correction feature uses a built-in mic to take acoustic measurements of your room, which are used to make corrections for your speaker and (if relevant) your subwoofer.
Unfortunately, Wiim hasn’t detailed the specs on the headphone amplification at work behind that 3.5mm output, but hopefully it won’t have any trouble driving medium-to-high impedance cans.
All of the above specifications are on top of the huge list of features you’ll find on Wiim’s downrange streamers, like Chromecast Audio, Apple AirPlay, two-way Bluetooth, Apple HomeKit, Google Assistant/Home compatibility, Amazon Alexa compatibility with Alexa Cast and multiroom, DLNA, Spotify and Tidal Connect, and Roon Ready certification.
Wiim Amp Pro
At $369, the new Wiim Amp Pro is $70 more than its sibling, the Wiim Amp, but physically, they’re identical. Here’s what that extra money buys you:
- Updated DAC: the Pro shares the same 32-bit/384kHz ES9038 Q2M Sabre DAC as the Ultra
- Dual-antenna Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3
- Improved analog-out signal-to-noise ratio (SNR): 120dB versus 98dB on the Wiim Amp
- Improved analog-out total harmonic distortion (THD+N): – 105 dB (0.0005%) versus -92 dB (0.002%) on the Wiim Amp
In other words, the Amp Pro is geared toward those who might have the kind of high-performance speakers that might benefit from these improved specs. For most folks, however, the Wiim Amp will likely remain the device of choice.
What remains the same on the Pro are amplification power (60 watts per channel at 8 ohms, or 120 watts per channel at 4 ohms) for either two or four speakers, and all of the streaming features listed above for the Ultra.
