Anonymous appearance, potent performance
Music streamer| £219 | whf.cm/WiiMProPlus
‘WiiM’ is the rather awkward brand name adopted by Linkplay for a (quickly expanding) range of home audio streaming products. ‘Pro Plus’ is the only slightly less awkward name of this budget music streamer, and is the most recent, and top of the range, WiiM offering. Like quite a few similar products, it is designed either to bring high-quality audio streaming smarts to music set-ups that pre-date the technology, or to improve those systems that aren’t much good at it.
Rivals? Well, earlier this year we heard and admired the £449 Cambridge Audio MXN10 – at that time the most affordable hi-fi streamer we had come across since the Bluesound Node (2021) and Audiolab 6000N Play. You don’t need to be any kind of mathematics savant to realise that this WiiM Pro Plus is less than half that price – which means it has the makings of a bargain.
The WiiM Pro Plus is a mere 4 x 14 x 14cm and just 400g (about the size and weight of a paperback book or box of chocolates), so it won’t take up very much space on your kit-rack.
While it’s made from plastic that is nothing special to look at or to touch, it has at least been constructed with a degree of care. The same is true of its functional little remote-control handset.
Slick and stable
There’s nothing functional about the WiiM Home control app though (free for iOS and Android): it’s slick and stable, logical and clear, and so is a cut or two above what you might be expecting from such a modestly priced product. You can also control your Pro Plus using the selection of capacitive touch-points on the front panel.
The rear panel, meanwhile, offers a selection of physical inputs and outputs. As well as a USB-C socket for mains power, there’s an ethernet socket, a digital optical input and output, a digital coaxial output and stereo RCA line-level in and out. Amazon Alexa voice control is also available.
As well as dual-band wi-fi and Bluetooth 5.1 (with SBC and AAC codec compatibility), Chromecast is built in, Apple AirPlay 2 is available too, and the Home control app has support for Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Qobuz, Deezer, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn and plenty more slightly less high-profile alternatives too. The app can also access any music stored on a common network thanks to DLNA compatibility.
On the inside, the critical business is hand
