WiiM's new Hi-Res wireless speaker with cool circular touchscreen looks like a serious competitor to Sonos – with two big catches

• WiiM announces 3 new streaming audio products
• WiiM Sound is Hi-Res Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speaker
• WiiM Sub Pro subwoofer and Amp Ultra amp also unveiled

WiiM has just announced that it's making its first speakers. The company has previously released a range of well-received music streaming devices and amps, and had partnered with Audio Pro on WiiM-enabled versions of that company's speakers, but these are its first self-made speakers.

It's introducing a wireless speaker called the WiiM Sound, and a subwoofer called the WiiM Sub Pro – plus a new, powerful streaming amp called the WiiM Amp Ultra.

The WiiM Sound very much looks like a competitor to the Sonos Era 100, and features a similar speaker setup, packing in two tweeters and a four-inch woofer – and promising 100W total of speaker power.

This isn't much of a surprise – ever since Sonos' disastrous app launch last year, WiiM has been taking advantage of the situation and pitching itself as the heir apparent for people who want multi-room streaming and don't trust Sonos any more.

But that was hard to do when WiiM only made amps and add-ons – the simplicity of having a speaker that handles everything is key to Sonos' popularity. This could be the final step.

The WiiM Sound is a very similar size to the Sonos Era 100 at 5.7x5.7x7.5 inches (146x146x193mm), and has touch controls on top for play/pause and skipping tracks, again very much like a Sonos Era 100 or most of the best wireless speakers.

But it's got one nice design feature that Sonos doesn't have: a cool circular touchscreen on the front, which can display artwork, show what's coming up in the queue, display retro VU meters, and can control playback.

There's built-in room correction for the sound, and Hi-Res Audio streaming support up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

The WiiM app provides multi-room support, and you use it to stream audio to the Sound from over 20 different music services, including the likes of Qobuz, Amazon, Tidal and Spotify. You can also stream to it from other apps using Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect or DLNA.

You might notice a name and feature missing from what I've said so far: Apple Music and AirPlay 2. This is basically the only major wireless speaker that doesn't have AirPlay 2 built in, and Apple Music isn't supported in the WiiM Home app.

This will be a real knock to lots of people who make use of the Apple ecosystem, and puts WiiM at a major disadvantage over Sonos for them. However, there is Bluetooth support here to stream to it from just about anything.

You've got the ability to pair two WiiM Sound speakers in a stereo configuration, or it can even work as part of a 5.1-channel speaker system wirelessly, if you use a WiiM amp's HDMI connection. I'll be interested to dig more into this in the future.

You might see WiiM refer to this as a smart speaker, but I wouldn't class it that way – it can be controlled by Alexa or Google Assistant, but it doesn't have these services built-in with mics. You'd need to use another device to trigger them, such as an Echo Dot.

The other obvious missing feature here is a line-in port – there's no mention of this in WiiM's info. One nice feature of Sonos' current speakers is that you can plug one of the best turntables right into them, and get instant multi-room support for your vinyl. But you'll need one of WiiM's other streaming add-ons for that.

However, there's another catch to getting excited about this outside of the lack of Apple support: the price, or lack thereof. We don't know what it will be until closer to its release, which is said to be in "Q3 2025" – so somewhere between July and September. I suspect that this will be more expensive than the Sonos Era 100 given the addition of the touchscreen, but we'll find out later.

Subbing in

The WiiM Sub Pro is a subwoofer with 250W of Class-D amplification, and can work wirelessly with WiiM products, or wired to anything with a sub output via RCA.

There's an eight-inch driver, and it's a fairly compact sub at 15.7x11.8x12.7 inches, but still won't be that easy to hide away.

Because it's designed to pair with basically any speakers you want, whether WiiM or not, there are detailed adjustments for crossover tuning within the WiiM app, as well as EQ options and room correction.

Once again, there's no price, but again it's lined up for a Q3 release.

Amping up

WiiM also announced a powerful yet compact new streaming amp, called the WiiM Amp Ultra. It's capable of 200W of power per channel at 4 ohms, or 100W per channel at 8 ohms. It has connections for four speakers as a result, making it nice and flexible.

When it comes to inputs, you've got all of WiiM's streaming powers, including all major music streaming services and casting options – again, with the exception of Apple's services. Hi-Res streaming is supported at up to 24-bit/192kHz, however the ESS ES9039Q2M SABRE DAC inside is capable of decoding up to 32-bit/384kHz.

There are USB and Ethernet ports for these higher-quality files, and there's an RCA input, plus an HDMI ARC port to use it for home theater sound.

There also a touchscreen on the front for nice artwork and direct playback control, plus a volume dial, as you'd expect from any self-respecting powerful amp.

And once again, there's no price yet, and the release is promised in Q3.

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