Wiim Streamer

Got myself a lil housewarming gift, a streamer so we can play our (digital) music from any point or device in the house. I looked around at several options and found a sale on the Wiim Pro Plus streamer. I already had the Wii Mini, (I reviewed here) which was a great replacement for my dead Apple Airplay device, the Airport Express (which I loved).

Geez do you ever dust??

The Wiim Pro lets you stream from your own server, you favorite music streamer or your stereo, including a turntable! Now that is slick! It has a AKM4493SEQ DAC up to 768kHz/32-Bit, and ADC for converting analog inputs into digital outputting to 192kHz/24-Bit. My current DAC can be input via coaxial or SPDF. I’m still putting this thing through the hoops so hopefully I can give a better more detailed review in the future.

Unfortunately it has taken me some time to get myself unpacked. My turntable is in a box in the basement, waiting to be played…..

USB on Peachtree died

Well, I have had a number of snags on the new computer, and the latest is the USB output for the DAC on my Peachtree Audio amplifier has crapped out. I hope this is not from the new machine, though the timing could have been a coincidence. I plugged it into the USB-A port on the Mac Studio and poof-no sound.

Unfortunately the USB card on the Peachtree is not repairable, the card is no longer produced. The nice folks over at Peachtree suggested I connect via optical. Unfortunately Apple does not include an optical output on a $6000 computer!

So I had to order this little doohickey, Douk Audio U2 XMOS XU208 USB to Coaxial/Optical Converter. This switches the USB audio to Optical and now I am back in business! Now I can listen to my trash rock in 24bit/196kHz once again!

HiFi Stereo

Back during the pandemic, many people were left at home without any way of enjoying the things they loved doing outside of their homes, so they turned to enhancing their home lives. Many of us were music lovers and since we were spending so much time listening to music on our stereos (not in our cars, head phones, or bluetooth speakers), we started to desire something better than just a Spotify account and some basic speakers to enjoy that music on.

Personally I have always liked the sound of a nice stereo, but things in life took me away from the current audio gear and its nuances. I have a number of vintage components that I enjoy the sound of, especially tube amplifiers. I did not know in what way things have changed over the years, but I will say that the products available for, say, budget or consumer level electronics has gone way downhill in audio quality, making way for convenience and simplicity.

A number of years ago when I was making my work space in the basement of my home, I decided to buy some solid speakers that sounded great and would fill the small space I allocated to work in. After reading several reviews, I settled on a pair of Klipsch R-14M Speakers. They are small, 4” bookshelf speakers, and I assumed they could be driven by any old amplifier. Boy was I wrong, as these babies had to be driven by an amp that had a minimum of 50 watts per channel.

This pulled me down a rabbit hole that lead me to get a special class-D amplifier with a built in DAC. More on that later…

HiFi musings

I love listening to music, and even more so, if it sounds really good. I consider myself and “audiophile” and have several different systems to enjoy music on. Most people I know are not so picky about how they listen their musis.

So recently I have been learning that I am not alone in the Audiophile world. I know that people all over the world consider themselves “audiophiles” and that the definition of that is completely relative from person to person. What I am talking bout is that when the pandemic happened we were all cooped up in our homes with nothing to do, so we focused on our hobbies, and enhancing the quality of our home life.

Many of us focused on music, and how it is delivered to us, how it sounds and what we can do to enhance that experience. And, many companies focused on putting out products for us to hear more and better sounds. Some of us audiophiles focused on better speakers, or headphones, while others invested in a new DAC, or turntable to enhance that experience.

Vinyl records, once the “old” way to experience sound has shown a resurgence over the last decade or two, but according to NME Vinyl record sales are at the highest in 30 years for 2021. Amazon.com has a vinyl of the month club, bringing back memories of Columbia House offers, where they sent you an album of the month after you got a bunch of them for a penny or a buck (depending on the year of course).

WOW! A bunch of records I DON’T want!

Being someone who listens to music ALL THE TIME, this is very exciting, and I have been chasing the best possible sound, on a budget, that I can experience. It is a very fun and rewarding hobby, that somehow never really finishes. Every time I add a new piece of equipment, there is another variable I am trying to eliminate or enhance.

This is an exciting time for audiophiles, with all these amazing options available, at what was reasonable cost (we’ll see how inflation tackles this). I plan to explore my journey and setup in future posts. Stay tuned!