This article will discuss the new Wiim Ultra and the features and technology that make it a great streaming device for the money.

Company History

In 2014, Linkplay began with a team of high-caliber technology engineers focused on providing voice and smart product solutions for various product types worldwide. While designing software and hardware for other companies, Linkplay noticed a need for more affordable, high-quality streaming products. When they started WiiM, they had a mission to use their years of experience designing hardware and software for smart devices to make great music streaming products affordable enough for anyone to enjoy.

Features & Technology

Having recently reviewed WiiM’s other streaming products in our WiiM Streaming Products Overview, we were excited to hear that WiiM would release a streamer with an even richer list of features and an updated higher-end DAC section.

Built Well, looks Great!

The new WiiM Ultra features a build we have not seen before with WiiM products. It takes the high-quality aluminum chassis concept of the WiiM Amp to the next level with a chassis of 8.1 x 8.1 x 2.9 inches (205 x 205 x 73 mm). This is slightly larger than the WiiM Amp but still considered compact by home audio component standards. The chassis has the same dark gray color as the WiiM Amp, giving the Ultra an upscale look. The front panel is black with a large volume knob, a 3.5mm headphone jack powered by a Texas Instruments TPA6120A2 headphone amplifier chip, and a glass-covered 3.5” touchscreen display. While we can see the family resemblance with WiiM's other products, the Ultra stands out as a more feature-rich and better-looking product that promises to reach a higher level of performance in WiiM’s price category.

The 3.5” touchscreen display is a first for WiiM. It is a full-color display that allows you to display app widgets, large album pictures, playback control, playing queue, presets, EQ, audio input and output, and device settings. It guides users through the out-of-box experience and firmware updates and provides feedback when there’s a change in the play mode. The display also allows users to customize the wallpaper and display the time and date during standby mode. While the WiiM Home app will be the control that most people will use to interface with the Ultra, having a touch screen on the front panel is an added option for folks who like to be more hands-on with their music playback and love having the album art displayed in their setup. WiiM also includes a small and convenient remote that you can use if you don’t want to get out your phone or use the touchscreen.

More Connections, More Possibilities

The Ultra's back panel features a power connector for the included power cable and a 12-volt trigger output to connect to other components with trigger inputs for power on and off. The digital outputs feature USB (the USB input also serves as a connection for USB music storage devices), Coax, and Toslink outputs to connect to almost any DAC on the market. There are also inputs for digital audio sources, including a Toslink input and an HDMI ARC input. The HDMI ARC input is an essential input that allows a one-cable connection to your television for a higher-quality audio experience. The analog input on the Ultra will enable you to connect any analog component with an RCA output.

The WiiM Ultra's subwoofer output is unique because it is not the full-range output that many products in the Ultra’s price class include. This subwoofer output on the WiiM Ultra has adjustments for crossover frequency, level, phase, and delay through the front panel screen or the WiiM Home app. And with the new WiiM Room Correction, which we discuss later on, you can dial the subwoofer into the room for a more balanced bass performance. If you’ve ever calibrated a subwoofer in your room, you know just how powerful this feature is and can take your overall sound performance to another level.

Spin Vinyl Too!

A phono input with a ground connection will allow you to connect a turntable to the Ultra with the internal phono section. This phono section inside the WiiM Ultra includes features not generally found on products in this price class. The internal phono section has an analog moving magnet or moving coil gain circuit before going through the same TI PCM1863 analog-to-digital chip as all of the analog connections. This is the best ADC chip that WiiM has used in its products. Then, in the digital domain, the RIAA equalization is applied to the signal and passed through to the internal DAC. Having the option for moving coil gain on the phono section is surprising at this price and welcomed as another feature we see as a benefit to music lovers with record collections. The Moving Coil setting allows only up to 56dB of gain and cannot change the loading, which will only allow some entry-level moving coil cartridges to work. With this gain limitation, most users should stick with moving magnet cartridges. While the WiiM sports good specs they are not high-end phono stage specifications, they are commendable for a built-in phono section in a streamer. Adding this option truly takes the WiiM Ultra into a true all-in-one hub for your favorite music, no matter the source playing it!

Room Tailored Sound

WiiM has added a new room correction feature to their products for the first time. This feature uses the microphone in your iPhone (the Android app does not support WiiM Room Correction at this time) to take measurements using a 2-minute-long pink noise signal. It makes corrections for both the stereo speakers and the subwoofer. This is not a comprehensive system like Dirac Live and is limited due to an iPhone’s microphone limitations. While this feature is not meant to replace well-placed speakers or room treatments, it should help someone with an unbalanced frequency response due to room interactions and bass issues.

Here at Audio Advice, we are huge fans of room correction, so having this feature on a product in this price class is very exciting. In addition, the WiiM Ultra includes a full-featured equalizer with a 10-band graphic and parametric EQ. This allows users to tailor the sound to their liking or manually correct any room response or speaker response issues. It could also help people with sensitivities at specific frequencies or hearing loss that needs adjustment. However, these options can be turned off for the purists who want things as they are.

Connect To Any Network

Connecting the WiiM Ultra to your network is as easy as connecting your ethernet cable. If you are further away from your router, the Ultra includes upgraded Wi-Fi 6E and 802.11 b/g/n/ax 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz triple bands. This means the Ultra can connect to any network and take advantage of some of the newer, higher-speed wireless network protocols. This allows users to place the WiiM Ultra anywhere in their homes without degrading network performance. The Ultra also features 5.3 Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy for added convenience, with an internal transmitter and receiver that allows both the receiving and transmitting of Bluetooth signals. While the Bluetooth inside the Ultra does not support LDAC or apt X, it will support the SBC, AAC, and LC3 codecs.

Same Great APP!

The WiiM Ultra's built-in streamer handles streaming from Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, AirPlay 2(not certified yet), Google Chromecast Audio (CastLite), Alexa built-in, DLNA, Roon (being certified now), and Squeezelite. The Wiim Home APP allows users to stream from their favorite music services, such as Spotify, iHeartRadio, Tidal, Amazon Music, Qobuz, Napster, and Deezer. These services, connected natively or through the WiiM Home app, allow full gapless playback of up to 24-bit/192kHz sample rate audio with no up or downsampling of the native resolution. This is important as many users feel that keeping the resolution in its native format will yield a more true-to-source sound quality. Please Note: DSD audio is not supported now, but WiiM is working on a feature to convert DSD to PCM format for playback. The WiiM Home app is also used throughout the WiiM family of products, so if you already have a WiiM Mini, Pro, or Amp model, you can use the same app to control all devices and make a full-featured whole home audio system. Plus, when you purchase any of your WiiM products from Audio Advice, we send you our exclusive setup guide with tips/tricks that walks you through the entire setup process and ensures you have the best settings for your room.

Updated DAC

Speaking of digital conversion, the 32-bit/384kHz ESS Sabre 9038Q2M DAC chip is another great upgrade that WiiM gave the Ultra. It is a much newer and better-spec chip than the TI PCM 5121 in the WiiM Pro. The Wiim Pro Plus has an AKM4493SEQ chip, which is an excellent DAC, but the whole package in the WiiM Ultra will ultimately lead to better sound. This is fantastic news for folks not interested in separate high-end DACs and just want a great-quality, one-box solution for streaming/digital processing.

Performance

One thing we love about the WiiM products is their easy setup process. The app walks you through all of the main steps, and you are up and running within minutes. We connected the Ultra to our network in both wired and WiFi modes to test how well these connection methods would perform in our testing. In our listening, both wired and wireless connections worked flawlessly, proving both viable. Our first test was to use the WiiM Ultra as a streamer/preamp and run it through a power amplifier to see how well the preamp section was designed in the Ultra. We ran a Parasound NewClassic 275 V.2 to several speakers at different price classes to see how a small system based on the Ultra would sound.

Listening to the French Heavy-blues band Birdstone’s 2024 album The Great Anticipation, we found the sound was clean and clear with good detail presentation. While the Ultra will not replace a high-end preamplifier in a revealing system, for the price, the Ultra satisfied. The bass was punchy without calling attention to itself in the mix, and the midrange was well-balanced with good detail. The treble had the drive and detail this band is known for without being too aggressive or peaky. The internal DAC inside the WiiM Ultra showed that it is an upgrade from WiiM’s past streaming products.

The main area in which the WiiM falls a little short compared to more expensive streaming products like HiFi Rose’s, Bluesound’s, NAD’s, or even Eversolo’s great streamers is in soundstage width, instrument separation, and placement. The soundstage width was not as wide or naturally scaled as the better streamers. The imaging was good but not locked in, like with more capable products. Things like image separation and layering are where it showed that the Ultra is still a lower-cost product with some limitations.

While you could pair this up with the WiiM amp or a pair of powered speakers like the Peachtree MX24’s, we weren’t extremely impressed with these setups and would only recommend them as a second setup for your bedroom or office. Adding a better power amp or higher-end powered speakers like the Sonus Faber Duetto’s will really reward you if you want to use this as your main system. That is not to say that this wouldn’t be a great starting point for many users, but if your budget allows, we’d recommend calling or chatting with our team of experts to see if it will be the best option for you in the long run.

Next, we tested the WiiM Ultra as a streamer only in a higher-end system to see if its performance would scale as the system components improved. We used the Chord Cutest DAC into a McIntosh MA352 2-channel tube hybrid integrated amplifier powering the McIntosh XR100 tower speaker. Playing Julian Lage’s 2024 album Speak To Me we got to test what the Ultra could do in a true high-end system with an album with excellent studio work. We were impressed with how well the Ultra let us hear the emotion and tone of Julian’s guitar work. What we heard backed up our thoughts that WiiM has entered a new performance category with the WiiM Ultra. The detail retrieval was excellent for a component in its price class, which was only outshined by higher-end, more expensive streamers. We were impressed that the WiiM Ultra has the chops to present music as well as it does with higher-end equipment. No, it will not replace or perform as well as the $500+ class streamers like Bluesound or  HiFI Rose. However, in the Ultra’s price class, this performance left us impressed.

We also experimented with the WiiM Room Correction and were impressed with its capabilities, knowing its limitations. It will not replace Dirac Live or any of the more mature and higher-tech room correction systems out there, but we were able to use it to correct minor room or response issues, and it did an admirable job. Users with complex room situations or speaker placement should try this option, as we found it did make a difference.

Next, we hooked up the excellent Michell TechnoDec to the WiiM Ultra through its inboard phono preamplifier section to test if this feature was a viable phono option. As an added option to a digital streamer, we were still determining what to expect. We played several records through the Ultra and found that the phono section is a viable option for vinyl lovers who want a simple solution. The sound was well-balanced and accurate to the source. Some devoted vinyl lovers might not like that the RIAA equalization is done in the digital domain or that the signal goes through the DAC, but we did not notice any issues with the sound. For the price of the WiiM Ultra, many vinyl lovers will like what WiiM has done with the phono section of the Ultra. It will not replace a dedicated phono stage, but compared to the built-in phono sections of other value-priced gear, the Ultra holds its own. We only wished the moving coil options were more adaptable to a broader range of cartridges.

The WiiM Ultra also has a front panel-mounted headphone jack, which we mentioned before, and is powered by the Texas Instruments TPA6120A2 amplifier chip. This feature adds convenience for late-night listening or when speakers simply won’t do. We tested it with several different headphones and found it to sound good and would power the most efficient headphones. Again, no, this will not replace a dedicated headphone amplifier or compete with dedicated DAC/Amps, but it delivers decent sound for an added streamer feature.

Overall, streaming products must be usable, or it will be a frustrating experience. WiiM products have always impressed us in this area. The WiiM Home app is very well-thought-out, with great options for users to explore their streaming services and find their favorite music. The new 3.5” display is as easy to navigate as the app and has good color and brightness, which gives another option to control the Ultra. Plus, the room correction feature and included equalizer allowed us to improve our sound and make minor adjustments to our liking. Just like with the other WiiM products, the ease of use, features, and compatibility with multiple streaming services make the new WiiM Ultra one of the best options in this price class.

Overall Recommendation

WiiM has done it again, offering a full-featured streamer with a built-in volume control for preamp use. The layout and build quality are top-notch for the price, and the features are more in line with those of the much higher-priced units. While you can get better sound quality by spending more on a streamer, the Ultra is a compelling option for music lovers wanting all these options at a lower price. We can’t think of any other streamer offering a preamp section, a phono section with moving coil support, and a higher-end DAC anywhere near this price level. Our testing proved we could build a very rewarding system using the WiiM Ultra as the main hub. If you are shopping for a steamer in the under $500 price class and want something with good features and performance, we highly recommend the WiiM Ultra. Please contact our knowledgeable staff at Audio Advice via text, phone, or email, and let us help you see if the WiiM Ultra is the right product for you.

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