SQ Comparison of 3 streamers

Regarding the WT Amp Ultra from Wavetouch Audio. I exchanged multiple emails with Alex regarding both the WT Amp Ultra and his very interesting Antero speakers, and he was very responsive.

In asking about the specific content of his modifications to the Wiim Amp Ultra, I used the specificity Eric Schultz, of EVS/Tweak Audio, shares about his upgrades to Class D and Digital Amps as an example of what I was hoping for. After an initially nebulous response, he did share with me that the extent of his upgrade was removing the Wiim's rear-panel power connector and hot-wiring his $2200 power cable directly to the Wiim's PSU.

he did share with me that the extent of his upgrade was removing the Wiim’s rear-panel power connector and hot-wiring his $2200 power cable directly to the Wiim’s PSU.

And he just charge less than half ($1300) the price (527+2200 = $2727) for the mod.  Unbelievable deal.

Thanks so much for the responses here, folks. I kind of expected many more replies from Zen 3 owners, but it turns out only one owner responded. His comments, however, seem consistent with the outside reviews available. I’m planning to get a used one (4 yrs old, single owner) if the seller accepts my offer.

@lanx0003 keep in mind the sound quality differences between streaming using a native streamer app, Roon, or Qobuz / Tidal Connect. Each streamer in your list may give you multiple different sonic signatures just by changing the streaming method. 

@lanx0003 

I just noticed that HiFI News recently reviewed thevLumin U2x, so there are Paul Miller measurements of this £9k device to compare to the Volumio.  As a reminder, his approach is to compare the jitter from a streamer using several different quality DACs, a cheap Audiquest Dragonfly, an iFi Neo, and a Mytek Brooklyn. Since the DACs have varying levels of jitter reduction engineered into their designs, you can infer how much jitter the streamer adds compared to his baseline, which is a high jitter pc setup (usb).  So here are the comparisons, in the following order, AQ, iFi, Mytek;

PC:  300/550/8  (psec)

volumio:  135/18/10

Lumin:  124/10/8

So the takeaway is that obviously the AQ has the highest level of jitter, but the level is shockingly low, and the iFi, though having lower jitter than the AQ, does the worst job of rejecting jitter from a streamer.  Finally, the Volumio and Lumin have vanishingly low levels of jitter, with such tiny differences between them that any difference you might hear in their sound almost certainly has nothing to do with jitter.

Hope that helps.  Good luck.

oops, sorry, that was a bad last takeaway, because you’re talking about the Mini, obviously not the much more expensive U2x. The mini almost certainly has higher levels of jitter than the U2x, snd while I would guess that it’s not substantially higher than the Volumio, I absolutely do not know that for sure.