Wireless speakers from brands like Sonos, Apple and others make it incredibly easy to stream music over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other protocols. But if you have an existing hi-fi system that uses wired speakers, it can be an expensive upgrade to make wireless music magic happen, with many dedicated streaming components costing $1,000 and up.
Vinyl LPs and compact discs remain viable media formats, but the best music streaming services can match them in quality, with Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, and Qobuz offering high-resolution audio along with lossless CD-quality offerings. Any music lover would understandably want to add that capability to their system, and with the new WiiM Pro music streamer they can now do so at a very affordable price of $149 (about £122 / AU$225).
How low is that price? To put things in perspective, it’s significantly less than what you pay for additional options like the Bluesound Node ($600) or the sister company’s cheaper sibling, the NAD CS1 Endpoint Network Streamer ($349).
With support for up to 24-bit/192kHz audio, the WiiM Pro is ready for virtually any high-res track available on streaming services. You can use it to stream over both Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet network connections, and it can also handle AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Alexa Casting, Spotify Connect, and Tidal Connect. In addition to an analog stereo output for connection to your receiver or the input of an integrated amplifier, there are both optical and coaxial digital outputs, as well as analog stereo and optical and coaxial digital inputs.
That last feature is worth mentioning as it means you can connect other sources such as a CD player or turntable to the WiiM Pro to stream to other systems or speakers in a multi-room setup. The WiiM Pro app helps you group multiple WiiM Pros for whole-house playback, and you can also use it to wirelessly group Nest, Echo, and Apple HomePod speakers for streaming. It works with Alexa, Hey Google and Siri, so you have a choice of assistant for voice commands and control.
Music services that can be configured in the WiiM Pro app include Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, Amazon Music Unlimited, Pandora, Deezer, TuneIn radio and more.
Analysis: The WiiM Pro brings high-resolution audio streaming to the masses
At $149, the WiiM Pro is the cheapest option I know of for adding wireless high-res audio streaming to an existing stereo system. I’ve been looking for a streamer like this, both for myself and to recommend to friends who finally want to stop plugging their laptop into their stereo to stream – something that was a regular thing when music services first launched , but now is an archaic practice.
The block to doing that upgrade sooner was cost for many. At $349, the NAD CS1 is an affordable option, but it lacks the HDMI eARC port, analog stereo input and, most importantly, app-based multi-room control that the more expensive Bluesound Node offers. That last feature is found throughout the Sonos speaker family, and it makes grouping different speakers for music playback around the house, as well as playing different music sources in different zones, a breeze.
The interesting thing about the new WiiM Pro is that it offers app-based multi-room playback in a $149 streamer, and it also supports the three major voice assistants for controlling things like playback, music selection, and volume level. (The company says it will soon launch a remote accessory that will offer a more traditional hardware control option.)
Is there anything the WiiM Pro doesn’t give you for its $149 price? There’s no built-in Apple Music support in the control app, and that means Apple Music subscribers will have to use AirPlay 2 instead to wirelessly cast songs from that service to the WiiM Pro. The downside is that you can’t listen to music in high-res format (AirPlay 2 doesn’t support high-res audio) and there’s also no support for Apple Music Spatial Audio – a feature that Sonos has announced for it’s new Era 300 loudspeakeras well as the current one Bow And Ray (Gen 2) sound bars.
Even with that limitation, the WiiM Pro looks like an excellent deal, and a great way for listeners to dive into the world of high-res audio streaming on the cheap. It’s something we hope to get our hands on in the near future, so keep an eye out for a review.