What is freaky is that a relatively young startup, WiiM, came out of nowhere with a cheap streamer ($99) and over a few months, listening to user feedback, developed their software to the point that it is even better than BlueOS or at least very comparable.
I don’t get it. How did they do that? And if they have such a great, easy to use software that doesn’t flake out very often, the sky seems to be the limit with putting it on ever more capable streamers.
Their $329 Ultra is said to be very good, about like a Bluesound Nano in sound quality, which is better than the original Node significantly.
Either they have their eyes on continuing to go up market with their devices, or be content selling tons of them to those without deep pockets.
Even so, they and more upscale steamer companies would do well to ask about licensing their software.
I could only imagine something really, really good in the $1000 to $2000 range running WiiM’s software. On the other hand, how about a super streamer only with a great onboard clock circuit, a quality LPS, and no DAC, having I2S, USB, Coax, and Optical outputs so we could buy our own DAC?
Bottom line for many is that a difficult to use device won’t get used much and will be a source of frustration instead of listening pleasure. As important as hardware is, software and the user experience is foremost to many.
In my hobby of amateur astronomy, I’m reminded of people who bought honking big telescopes and only get them out maybe four times a year because they are too hard to use, while someone else gets a modest "grab and go" telescope and uses it a few times every week.
Streamer apps critical
I don't understand why high end manufacturers release streamers with terrible apps. One of the strongest advantages of the Nodes is the BluOS app. It's simple and effective, though not full-featured. I understand the Innuos app is great. Not all of us like much less want to pay the cost of ROON and the online apps, like USB audio Player are clunky. I would love to see a paid-for version of BluOS or other manufacturers license a common but customized app, much as early versions of Windows were available from Dell, Gateway, Compaq and so many others.
Showing 4 responses by moonwatcher
@ghdprentice point well taken. I do wonder just for the heck of it, what computer language is used these days for most of these streaming apps. Is it something like Python or do they still use C++ or something entirely different? My days of programming are long over, having started with Fortran in the 1970s. |
@ghdprentice that is scary to contemplate that so many of the apps we and banks, and other outfits use are patched together so randomly. I remember way, way back in the 1970s, they taught us to add comment lines to all our code with the idea that anyone could come along and examine the code and figure it out. I don’t think anyone adds comments to their code now. I got out of it (I’m an engineer, not a programmer) before C++ began its rise. I was taken aback by how instead of compact code that ran efficiently these new "kids" would call on huge libraries of functions to simply multiply a couple numbers. Guess all that super processing power of 486 chips encouraged such practices and even more so today with all the super number crunching chips and those being used in graphics cards. |
One thing to mention, is that unless I can use a "connect" app like Tidal Connect to pass the URL directly to it, I'm not interested in a streamer. It is a pity that those with deep pockets like Apple and Amazon don't create these "connect" apps for streamers to use. I heard Qobuz was, but not sure if any streamer company has it on their hardware yet. We'll see. Not sure if smaller streaming services like Deezer can afford it. Maybe they should submit it for bids. |