It is with humility that I tell you I have become enamored with a budget component. I know, that sounds rather pretentious, like I’m some kind of lord going on about associating with the plebs. But consider this: I’ve spent the last five years writing for SoundStage! Ultra, and other than a few outliers, I’ve only reviewed extremely expensive components during that time.
That kind of experience warps one’s thinking. I still recognize value—I present the Ortofon MC X40 cartridge as proof—but on the other end of the pricing spectrum, I readily admit that some of the extremely expensive products I review do not offer value in the traditional sense.
But as I said, swimming in a pool of horrifyingly expensive products has warped my view of inexpensive components.
There’s a dividing line in my house. The basement is packed with Ultra equipment. I haven’t added everything up, but, including cables, the products down there must retail for well over US$150,000. Only a couple of my own core components are in use, with some others sitting off to the side; the rest are review products or long-term loaners that will be returned to the respective manufacturers one day. The basement is my test lab—a place of work.
The main floor is a dazzling contradiction, a place that turns my musical life right side up. The system here is still pretty damn good—it’s built around my Aurelia XO Cerica XL speakers, which I purchased after reviewing them five years ago. The speaker cables are reasonably priced Analysis Plus Clear Ovals, and the amplifier‑DAC is a Hegel Music Systems H120. Until recently, the source was my long-suffering Squeezebox Touch streamer. This sturdy, well-provisioned system is in daily use by Marcia and me; as such, it provides the soundtrack to our lives.
I listen to this system every day, but usually from off to one side, way outside of the sweet spot, and that’s fine. I love to listen to music here, but it’s not critical listening. It’s just plain old listening.
Two weeks ago, the Squeezebox Touch gasped its last and stopped connecting to my Roon server. I can’t really complain. This $300 streamer had worked flawlessly for 15 years, from the original Squeezebox Server days through the Logitech Media Server period, and into the fully open-source Lyrion Music Server times. And it was still supported as a Roon endpoint. It owed me nothing.
I began to look for an alternative streamer. I recalled skimming through Dennis Burger’s recent review of the WiiM Amp Ultra on SoundStage! Access, and in a short conversation, he reiterated that it was an incredible value. So, the obvious solution was to replace the recently deceased Squeezebox with a WiiM Ultra streamer. But the Amp Ultra is an incredible value, right?
The space where my Hegel H120 resides is a bit tight—it sits between two cabinets, and the Squeezebox hangs off the edge a touch. It’s not an elegant setup.
So my thought process evolved over several days. The WiiM Ultra streamer is physically larger than the Squeezebox Touch, making it difficult to fit in that tight space. The Amp Ultra is an incredible value, right? That thought kept going through my mind, so I decided to pull the trigger and purchase an Amp Ultra to replace both the Squeezebox and the H120, which I’d owned for five years. This single-box solution would look tidier, and even though the Hegel sounds absolutely superb, I’d probably be just as happy with the WiiM. And if not, I’d use my main-floor superpower and make myself happy.
After speaking to Dennis, I expected the Amp Ultra to be a really good product, but holy hell, I didn’t expect it to be so good, especially considering its price (US$529, CA$749, £499, €599).
When I received the Amp Ultra, I tore into the packaging without taking any photos, so I’ll refer you to Dennis’s unboxing preview if you want to see how it’s presented. When I had the Amp Ultra out of the box, I turned it over in my hands. It’s a solid, compact, muscular component that looks and feels far, far more expensive than its price would suggest. I was especially impressed by the clean rear panel, with its recessed banana sockets. Since my speaker cables are terminated by spades, I had to use the slick adapters included in the Amp Ultra’s comprehensive accessories box.
The Squeezebox Touch was already in the garage, ready for e‑cycling, and I had removed the H120 to tidy it up and package it prior to putting it up for sale. So I dusted the shelf, plonked the Amp Ultra down, and plugged it in. All good so far. Next, I downloaded the WiiM Home app, and here’s where it got all weird.
The app immediately found the Amp Ultra. After entering my Wi‑Fi password, the amp connected itself and began updating its firmware. While this was happening, I considered how much this process had changed from the early days of streaming. I’ve built numerous Raspberry Pi streamers, and it usually took me an hour or so of fiddling to get the damn things to connect properly and to recognize whatever DAC I was using at the time. This was so easy.
Roon recognized the Amp Ultra, and within five minutes I was playing music. The Amp Ultra sounded a touch constipated at this point, so I kind of ignored it for a bit while I read Dennis’s full review, which I figured would tell me more than any manual could do. As I dug in, I took note of several details that had escaped me. First off, the Amp Ultra generates 100Wpc into 8 ohms, and—get this—it’s specified to double down to 200Wpc into 4 ohms. And it’s supposedly stable into 2 ohms. That’s a heck of a lot of power in a small box, for very little money.
The DAC section isn’t chopped liver, either—it’s packing an ESS Sabre chip. The remote is fantastic, and it performs way above its price point. It’s aluminum and fairly lightweight, but it feels solid and well-made. The remote communicates with the Amp Ultra via Bluetooth, which means it doesn’t rely on line of sight. It’s rechargeable via a USB‑C connection, and the battery seems to be quite long-lasting. There’s a voice-command button on the side, but I think you need Alexa or some such intrusive protocol to make it work, so that’s not going to happen in my house.
And more! According to Dennis, the Amp Ultra comes equipped with WiiM’s RoomFit room correction. I dug around in the WiiM Home app and fired it up. RoomFit uses the microphone built into a smartphone—in this case, my Samsung S24FE—to analyze test tones emanating from the speakers. I was somewhat skeptical of how well this would work, but gave it a try anyway. The process was blindingly simple and it took less than two minutes. I was especially impressed by how the screen presentation flipped by 180 degrees to force you to orient the microphone toward the speakers.
While I had no problem with the performance of my Aurelias before correction, there was no question that I preferred the corrected sound. A toggle switch in the app makes A/B comparisons easy. With RoomFit engaged, the low end sounded more extended, the midrange was meatier and slightly more detailed, and the highs seemed more restrained and better integrated with the lower ranges. The Aurelias sounded larger, more coherent.
Having read the lengths AJ Wykes went to optimize his room with Dirac Live room correction, I have no doubt that WiiM’s RoomFit, using the shitty little microphone in my phone and a single measurement position, is a crude, Hail Mary attempt at room optimization. But consider this: at its retail price, the Amp Ultra only costs U$30 more than the Dirac Live Room Correction Suite, and that’s software only.
I spent a few days sitting in the sweet spot, and the Amp Ultra sounded great through the Aurelias. I hadn’t really paid attention to the sound of the Hegel H120 for a long time, so I don’t feel confident comparing the two, but this sound? I could easily live with it. I will easily live with it.
Again, that price. If Linkplay Technology—the company that markets the WiiM brand—had made the case just a touch larger and heavier, and maybe polished a couple of panels, it could have easily added a zero to the price. And in this world of crazy audiophile excess, it would probably still sell a bunch of them. Of course, that’s not the WiiM business model, which is to sell thousands of $300 streamers rather than ten or so $30,000 audiophile confections. And further, the company painted itself into a corner by starting out with a sub-$200 streamer, which was never going to generate the kind of high-end buzz that’s required to justify high four-figure prices.
There’s a dividing line in audio. A budget component like the WiiM Amp Ultra is always going to be relegated to the if-that’s-all-you-can-afford kind of condescension that is the definition of snobbery. The Amp Ultra is not big enough, nor is it expensive enough, to be considered high end. All the while, though, the denizens of forums that focus on budget gear are creaming their jeans over these things. If you really think about it, that’s fine. It’s just wonderful to have an option like the WiiM line that delivers incredible value and aspires to high-quality sound, functionality, and design.
The Amp Ultra should put the manufacturers of higher-end products on notice. I meant what I said about this amp easily passing for a much more expensive product. While this thing, like other WiiM products, is still the domain of SoundStage! Access, the Amp Ultra has given me some perspective on what value really means in audio. Audiophiles who gravitate to the high, high end are so busy trying to squeeze out the last crumb of performance from their multi-kilobuck systems that they likely wouldn’t even consider this product. But any high-ender who actually touches the Amp Ultra—who sees it, feels it, hears it—would undoubtedly wonder why they need to spend so much money on their system.
The WiiM Amp Ultra is one of the slickest, most complete components I’ve experienced in my 26 years of writing for the SoundStage! Network. And that’s regardless of price.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
