A lot of the ChiFi appears to offer excellent vfm, however, it’ll probably have to be treated like PC’s and laptops - if a fault develops after the warranty expires you just chuck it away as it’s cheaper to buy a new, and probably better specified, one.
How this works for the more recent ‘audiophile grade’ products I’m not so sure…..
ATB, J
I listened to a Node into a Qutest last year and the pairing was superb , a WiiM and Qutest would (I suspect ) be well worth the audition
A Qutest is exactly what I use. And I agree on the sound, particularly with N50.
Roger
I ran the big Eversolo A10 and a HiFi-Rose 151 on demo for a while and liked the A10 so I bought it and got rid of a lot of boxes including replacing the preamp with a small DIY Neochrome buffer with low impedance. Had a look inside and it is all quality audio components (Wima:s etc). I would guess they replace on a board-level. They apparently have high precision robots in the mass production, found nothing to complain about - Eversolo is Certified Development Partner with the JPLAY controller, integration was no problem and improved Qobuz/Tidal. And no problem integrating the Melco with my local library.
I have nothing but praise for how my old Node worked with an nDac and 555ps. In the year or two I used one it was absolutely flawless and never once glitched out on me. I think we are coming to the point where technology, for relatively cheap audio equipment, is catching up with the ultra expensive stuff!
If you do a Google search you will be able to find details of how to get the 320 quality BBC links on your Wiim…Essentially the BBC links are out there and you can just copy and paste them into ‘Open Network Stream’ on your Wiim.
You can then save them as one of the 12 presents and edit the station name for convenience. Takes less than a minute.
Perhaps other forum members to take this path will be able to offer further insights into firmware updates and overall reliability in due course.
There’s no doubt build quality is excellent so failures will be outliers in any case. The only potential downside would be resale values based on the initial (very reasonable) purchase price.
ATB, J
Last October I got the Eversolo DMP-A8.
For <30% of 222 it’s excellent.
Firmware updates have been excellent - one in particular enabled basic room correction.
Only downside is if it develops a fault but I knew what as I was getting into day 1 and so far worth it but time will tell. I had more issues with Naim equipment!
The quality these streaming analogue pre-amps have without having to have many black boxes is very appealing (well to me at least).
I have Ultra, tried it on my old 272, through the 272 DAC it was fine. And at the time, more reliable than Naim radio pre FW update. Better through my Qutest into my 50 though…
Indeed, and you’ve still got the money for two more as against the 222 
. It’s a really difficult argument to get around, even with the A 10.
ATB, J
Thanks. I’ve actually done that for a while on my Auralic streamer, but a problem I’ve found in that case is that the URLs change from time to time. When that happens one needs to search for and enter the new ones. And the URLs are stored on the control point, not the streamer (may be different with WiiM), so this needs to be done on several devices.
My WiiM/N50 is in my office, so I simply run a cable from the iMac to the Qutest, but that won’t work for everyone.
Roger
Yes, in fact just had to do that today on WiiM (though Auralic Aries OK) as the Beeb changed it round again!
Didn’t take long to find new links though, had done R2 through 6 in a few minutes…
I run my WiiM into a s/h Naim Dac, sounds awesome, no intention of upgrading
Thanks, that’s my plan too.
Dac v1 or n-dac?
Given that there is no detail on the UK website, I reached out to the Eversolo UK distributor regarding post sales support and received “ buying from us gives you direct support from our Eversolo technical support team - we are fully authorised and approved support agents for Eversolo in the UK”.
Still a bit vague, and no definition of warranty duration, so asked for further clarification.
Update: Warranty offered for 2 years from purchase date.
Reported experience from other territories appears to suggest board/complete replacement until the warranty expires and then that’s it. Again, the consumer PC/electronics experience and, one might argue, appropriate to the price. And, as I indicated earlier, given the obvious excellent build quality, failures will probably be outliers.
YMMV….
ATB, J
I tried connecting the digital output from a WiiM Pro in a Naim DAC. Given the price of the WiiM it wasn’t too bad however the Naim DAC sounded a bit flat compared to what I know it can sound like when fed with a top quality digital source.
Connecting the digital output from an ND5XS2 or even NDX2 streamer into the Naim DAC really shows what it is capable of.
While this thread is open, I’ll chuck in my one irritation about WiiM’s Home app, which is that it doesn’t seem to offer a grid view when browsing. This is particularly an issue when streaming from my NAS, as only a long list of albums is presented for selection. The apps for my Naim, Linn and Auralic streamers all offer the option of switching between list and grid views and I find such a view much more user friendly, particularly on a tablet. OK, it’s a minor issue and I know there are some workarounds, but it’s a pity a simple choice is not available.
Roger
Dac v1. I’m really impressed with the uplift. Easy fit into my rack too. Hot it for less than the cost of a Mojo
Hi. Yes, I’m sure that’s true. It’s a cost / space / quality equation for me.
Would need another shelf on the fraim
Thanks very much.