Linkplay has acquired the very strange brand name ‘WiiM’ for a (rapidly developing) range of home audio streaming solutions. The only somewhat weird term for this exceedingly low-cost music streamer is ‘Pro Plus,’ and it is the most recent and top-of-the-line WiiM offering. It’s designed, like many comparable products, to either provide high-quality audio streaming smarts to pre-existing music setups or to improve those that aren’t very effective at it.
It’s a touch cheaper than the most affordable music streamer we’ve seen so far, but price cuts only work if performance isn’t sacrificed to the same extent. However, as long as the Pro Plus outperforms its asking price – even slightly – it should be simple to overlook how awkward the name ‘WiiM’ is to type.
The WiiM Pro Plus is currently available for purchase, and it costs no more than £219 in the United Kingdom. It costs an even more appealing $219 in the United States, while it costs around AU$339 in Australia.
The context might be helpful here. We heard and admired the Cambridge Audio MXN10 earlier this year; it’s a tiny, appealing music streamer that we called ‘fantastically reasonable,’ and it costs £449 / $499 / AU$899. It was the most affordable streamer we’d seen since the Bluesound Node (2021) and Audiolab 6000N Play at the time. You don’t have to be a math genius to figure out that this WiiM Pro Plus is less than half the price of ‘affordable,’ which means it has the makings of a steal.
The WiiM Pro Plus has been ‘built’ rather than ‘designed,’ as the asking price suggests. It’s only 42 x 140 x 140mm and 400g (about the size and weight of a paperback book or box of chocolates), so there’s not much of it – but it won’t take up much space on your kit rack.
While it is composed of plastic that isn’t particularly appealing to the eye or to the touch, it has been built with care. There are no sharp edges or exposed seams in this design. That’s also true of the small remote control handset that comes with it – ‘functional’ is the keyword here. The free WiiM Home control app for iOS and Android, on the other hand, is slick and stable, logical and clear, and thus a cut or two above what you might expect from such a modestly priced product (and even better than the apps accompanying rival products with more. Amazon Alexa voice control is also available, with a microphone button on the remote control.
You may also control your Pro Plus via the front panel’s capacitive touch-points for play/pause, volume up/down, set-up, Bluetooth pairing, and assigning a preset (there are a dozen).
Meanwhile, the rear panel provides a variety of physical inputs and outputs. In addition to a USB-C power port, there is an Ethernet port, a digital optical input and output, a digital coaxial output, and a stereo RCA line level in and out. It’s a lineup that should be more than suitable for the majority of users most of the time. Keep in mind that the two pairs of RCAs are rather close together and slightly recessed into the casework, making it difficult to fit those pricey, big-barreled analog interconnects you’ve been saving up for. WiiM addresses this by including a more typical pair of RCAs in the Pro Plus package.
Of course, wireless functionality is essential for a music streamer, and the WiiM Pro Plus offers lots of it. Along with dual-band wi-fi and Bluetooth 5.1 (with SBC and AAC codec compatibility), Chromecast is built in, Apple AirPlay 2 is available, and the Home control app supports Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Qobuz, Deezer, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn, and a slew of other, less well-known alternatives. Because of DLNA compatibility, the program can also access any music saved on a shared network.
The crucial business is handled on the inside by an exceptionally competent AKM 4493SEQ digital-to-analog converter. In fact, the inclusion of this chipset is the major difference between the Pro Plus and its even more inexpensive Pro Brother (£149). It can handle digital audio files of all common (and many unpopular) formats at resolutions of up to 32-bit/768kHz and DSD512, and it functions at a native 24-bit/192kHz.
The Burr-Brown PCM1861 analog-to-digital conversion circuitry is also included in the Pro Plus. So, if you connect an analog source to your Pro Plus, it may be wirelessly broadcast to other WiiM products (such as the aforementioned Pro) in different zones of your home. It’s a quick and easy way to set up a multi-home wireless music system without paying Sonos.
It should come as no surprise that the WiiM Pro Plus performs best when given a large, information-rich high-resolution audio file to work with. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the Pro Plus experience is how forgiving it is of lesser sources. Regardless of how compressed or otherwise poor the audio information you feed it, the Pro Plus is a clear, detailed, and even rather dynamically competent listen.
A full-fat, 24-bit/96kHz file of Weyes Blood’s Grapevine retrieved from network-attached storage allows the WiiM to nearly totally demonstrate what it’s made of. It creates a large, well-defined soundstage on which musicians may work safely while maintaining excellent detail levels at all times. Despite the large size of the stage, there is no sensation of estrangement or remoteness – each part of the recording is neatly and confidently related to the others.
This is especially noticeable in the midrange when the vocal is filled with personality and attitude. The WiiM is sensitive to even tiny or temporary dynamic shifts in the delivery, resulting in a vocal line that is immediate, authentic, and full of conviction.
A transition to a more mundane 16-bit/44.1kHz file of The Upsetters’ Drugs And Poison allows the good news to continue. The Pro Plus isn’t the most muscular listen you’ve ever heard – in this regard, it’s much more ‘whippet’ than ‘bulldog’ – but the low frequencies it generates are straight-edged at the moment of attack, just as detailed and texturally varied as the rest of the frequency range, and are controlled well enough to give the loping rhythm full expression. The recording progresses in a natural manner, and the detail levels are sufficient to ensure that you are not missing any material.
The broad tone is a tad cold, although this is more of a characteristic than a flaw. The frequency spectrum is merged neatly, with no gaps or over-emphasis – the WiiM’s presentation is outstanding, and its integration abilities are constantly obvious.
And, when used as a preamplifier or as a bridge to other WiiM devices in your home, the Pro Plus stays as far away from your music as possible. With a vinyl copy of Panda Bear & Sonic Boom’s Reset being played into the streamer’s analog inputs via a phono stage and then out to a power amplifier – leaving the WiiM in charge of volume and nothing else – the recording retains its character and focus.
It can also be readily transmitted to another zone in this manner; while the analog-to-digital conversion, wireless transmission, and digital-to-analog procedure it must go through has an undeniable effect on detail levels and low-frequency precision, it’s not the end of the world. If you want to listen to vinyl across your home but just have one record player, the WiiM Pro Plus makes it simple.
At the price, the WiiM Pro Plus is difficult to beat as a first, low-cost introduction to the numerous and varied joys of music streaming. It sounds confident and competent, has a surprisingly well-executed control interface, and is ready to serve as the foundation of a multi-room system. If you want to do better than this, you’ll have to spend a lot more money.
