WiiM caused something of a splash here at What Hi-Fi? HQ last year with its five-star Pro Plus music streamer, and the company will be hoping to repeat that success as it expands into the world of custom installations.
If you’re in the enviable position of having a custom-made audio system at home, WiiM now offers two new products that you can choose to have installed as part of your setup: the WiiM CI MOD A80 streaming amplifier (pictured above) and WiiM CI MOD S standalone streamer (pictured below).
Inside the MOD A80 you get a combination of TI TPA3255 Class-D amplification, capable of delivering 60W per channel at 8 ohms, and an ESS ES9018K2M SABRE Reference DAC. Wireless connectivity comes in the form of Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, so getting it talking to the rest of your system should be a breeze, but there are also RCA, optical and HDMI inputs, plus a subwoofer output.
As an audiophile-grade streamer (based on the five-star WiiM Pro Plus), the MOD S uses an AKM AK4493SEQ DAC with high-res audio support up to 24-bit/192kHz. It offers a range of digital and analogue inputs and outputs, including RCA and optical, plus dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1 and ethernet.
Both products offer built-in room correction and 24 different genre-based EQ settings, but if you can’t find one you like there’s a 10-band graphic equaliser so you can tweak it yourself.
Support for all the usual streaming services and their control protocols is present and correct, including Tidal, Spotify and Amazon, but where these two differ slightly from WiiM’s everyday streaming products is that they can also be controlled using more holistic smart home platforms, such as Control 4, RTI, URC, Josh.ai.
The WiiM Pro Plus streamer was a big hit in our test rooms last year, although the WiiM Amp didn’t perform nearly so well, so it’ll be interesting to see if these two new additions follow the same pattern.
Rack mounts for both are available separately and pricing info will be revealed later this year.
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