WiiM Sound Review – Trusted Reviews

Introduction

WiiM has enjoyed a meteoric rise from a brand you’ve probably not heard of to one that’s become a mover and shaker in the audio world.

It started with its affordable and very good value music streamers, before introducing amplifiers, subwoofer and now its first wireless speaker in the WiiM Sound.

WiiM’s been knocking more illustrious and well-known brands out of their step with streamers and amps, but with the Sound its ambitions are a bit higher, taking aim at Apple, Sonos and Bluesound.

Is the WiiM Sound a worthwhile adversary to some of the best wireless speakers?

Design

• Porthole screen
• Touch controls
• White and black options

There’s certainly a hint of the HomePod 2 with the WiiM Sound. It’s slightly taller and not quite as squat, but both speakers aim for the minimalist vibe all wireless speakers seem to be going for these days.

It’s wrapped in a fabric with black and white options available. On the top surface are disappearing touch controls while the abrasive fabric covering probably stops cats (and other pets) from clawing at the speaker.

There’s a 1.8-inch porthole screen that does more than just tell what time it is. It can be customised with different faces (like on a digital watch) with album art, personal photos, and VU meters just some of the options. And the screen also acts as another touch interface, as you can pause music or jump into the settings with a swipe.

The screen is both bright and colourful, and the brightness is adaptive, changing in relation to how much brightness there is in a room (in a dark room it dims). I like the screen porthole, but if you find it distracting then you can turn it off. Or buy the Sound Lite speaker instead.

The speaker itself feels well built. At 2.5kg it’s hefty, slightly heavier than the HomePod 2. The cable is not captive, so it can be pulled out, and in a recessed area underneath is where you’ll find the aux and Ethernet ports.

I’m slightly surprised there’s no USB-C input. I would have thought that maybe WiiM might be considered a direct input for high-resolution files or attaching a hard drive but alas, there isn’t the option.

App

• Multi-room support
• Plenty of customisation
• Possibility of Alexa smarts

The main means of control is via the WiiM Home app (also known as Linkplay). This is also the means of getting music to the speaker and it is a pretty good way of doing so too.

There’s access to virtually all the main music streaming apps aside from Apple Music. Log in and you’ll be able search music from multiple apps in one place. If you have multiple WiiM speakers you can be logged into a music service on one speaker and not on the other – it’s not universal access, you have to log into to the music app on the speaker itself.

You’ve got access to 12 presets (which is a lot), though I did have an issue with the presets in that on some occasions none would load, and on others pressing a preset would queue a different track (or a track I recently played).

There is more customisation than I expected for a wireless speaker with the ability to customise the speakers’ EQ for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and auxiliary input; options of a 10-band Graphic EQ and a Parametric EQ if you want to go into even deeper detail. You can also adjust the bass either manually or automatically through the Dynamic Bass option.

Audio settings include whether you want to play stereo, mono or through the left and right channels. You can toggle on fade-in and fade-out effects when transitioning between tracks, set the volume limit, enable volume control for each source, and set pre-Gain for source inputs among other features.

While the WiiM Sound isn’t a ‘smart’ speaker in the conventional sense, there’s Amazon Alexa voice control, which you can do via a connected Echo or other Alexa device. Or you can speak into the WiiM Voice Remote 2 Lite (the button is easily missed on the side).

The remote is a simple, stylish-looking affair, and it comes with the WiiM Sound as standard but not with the less expensive Sound Lite. You’ve got playback controls, power on/off volume and source controls, plus access to four (of the 12) presets.

Features

• Hi-res audio support
• Stereo pairing with Sound or Lite
• Room correction software

The WiiM Sound accepts any incoming audio signal up to 24-bit 192kHz, and it’ll entertain FLAC files along with WAV, AIFF, and DSD (which is downconverted to PCM).

I mentioned in the previous section that it’s happy with Bluetooth 5.3 (AAC, SBC, LC3) and auxiliary sources, and it’ll play just fine with Spotify Connect, Google Cast, Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect, Roon Ready, DLNA and Lyrion Music Server (LMS) sources too. It doesn’t support AirPlay 2, though.

If you’ve got multiple wireless speakers at home and a hodgepodge of multi-room systems, the Sound can work within WiiM’s own multi-room system, Google’s and Alexa’s too.

There’s stereo pairing support with either another Sound or a Sound Lite speaker. I’ve found on my iPad Pro, the option to stereo pair didn’t pop up, but it did so so on an iPhone and an Android smartphone. Both the Sound and the Sound Lite have the same driver configuration, and sound exactly alike.

Having multiple WiiM Sound speakers also means you can create a home cinema set-up with the Sound acting as either one of the satellites or pulling duty as the centre, alongside the WiiM Amp and Sub models. There’s no immersive audio support such as Dolby Atmos like there is with the HomePod 2 or Denon Home 200.

One area I didn’t mention in the App section was the room correction software the Sound has. The AI RoomFit can optimise the sound of the speaker for the environment it’s in, similar to Sonos TruePlay. You can choose whether you want to enable it and go through the process, or simply leave it off.

Sound Quality

• Balanced highs and lows
• Clear midrange
• Could use a bit more energy and power

Most of the testing I carried out was with the RoomFit calibration turned on, so the results may differ depending on the room you’re in, but I think that the WiiM Sound is a good-sounding wireless speaker, even if it doesn’t tip into the exceptional category.

You can count on the WiiM Sound to deliver a warm, at times powerful and spacious sound, though I wouldn’t say it’s the most nuanced. A play of Dead Inside Shuffle and compared to the Audio Pro A10 MkII (itself a Linkplay powered speaker), the WiiM offers more energy and joie de vivre, taking a more aggressive delivery.

With test track favourite GoGo Penguin’s Ascent, the WiiM sounds more natural than the Audio Pro, relaying more detail with the instrumentation in the track, a clearer bass performance and highs that are also clearer, more insightful and precise.

To my ears, the speakers strike a solid balance between the highs and lows, though arguably it could be stronger with both.

There’s weight and some richness to the bass, with the low frequencies avoiding sounding muddied or one-note. The bass feels slightly toned down – more balanced than excitable. That’s fine, I feel, and so while the WiiM doesn’t suffer for a lack of bass, the lows do feel as if they could hit with more welly and punch.

The highs could have more bite and be brighter, but they come across natural enough. It’s not the most dynamic either in terms of jumping from quiet to loud and vice vera, coming across as a little languid.

The speaker delivers a similar, consistent sound whether at low, default or higher volumes; though I’d say that when the speaker gets above volume 50, it conveys more energy but the trade off is losing some detail and clarity. The WiiM Sound is a wireless speaker that sounds confident with whichever track I chuck at it, but it’s not necessarily a bold-sounding speaker.

Vocals sound warm; the WiiM’s performance in the midrange is probably the best aspect of its performance, striking a natural tone with good clarity whether it’s dealing with a male or female artist, or conveying the tone of instruments.

As a stereo pair what I’ve mentioned above carries over when a Sound (or Sound Lite) are paired together. There’s nice depth to the sound, actual left and right channels rather than slightly spaced apart, with a little more weight and power to bass, but overall a clear and balanced performance. It’s the same sound as a standalone speaker times two.

Should you buy it?

FAQs