WiiM’s disruption of the audio market continues, with the company announcing it has teamed with Swedish speaker company Audio Pro to bring the WiiM OS to two new wireless speakers: the A10 MKII WiiM Edition and C10 MKII WiiM Edition.
The move has left some wondering if the crew at struggling competitor Sonos are feeling a little queasy this morning.
The A10 MKII WiiM Edition comes in Dark Gray and has a 50-watt output, ideal for smaller rooms. The C10 MKII Wiim Edition comes in Black and ups the output to 80 watts. It has a 5.25-inch woofer and two textile dome tweeters.
WiiM says that with its WiiM Home App you can control all WiiM-compatible devices, and manage music, podcasts, audiobooks and internet radio from one central place, making it easy to switch between services such as Spotify, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Qobuz and your own music.
“Our gapless playback feature supports up to 24-bit/192 kHz audio quality, so you can enjoy your music without any interruptions,” Wiim says. “Whether you’re streaming a full album or a curated playlist, the music just keeps flowing.”
The Wiim OS allows you to connect a turntable, TV or stereo system, and the company says it has included built-in support for voice assistant, so you can control your music hands-free.
A patent is pending on the automatic room correction feature, which “adjusts the sound to fit your space”.
There are EQ customisation options, meaning you can tweak to find your perfect sound.
Wiim promises regular firmware updates, new features and expanded compatibility with the latest music services.
In response to these new products, eAcoustics warned “Watch out Sonos”, and said “the partnership [between WiiM and Audio Pro] now offers consumers a very competitively priced whole-home audio wireless solution over Sonos”.
WiiM will no doubt be mulling a move into building its own wireless speakers at some point, but as Digital Trends noted, “creating great-sounding speakers is a much harder engineering challenge than creating software-and-circuitry-based amps and network players”, and that teaming with Audio Pro “speeds the process considerably”.
“It also signals an important distinction between Wiim and Sonos. Unlike Sonos, which designs all of its own products, Wiim is willing to work with third parties to expand its ecosystem of compatible products.”
The A10 MKII Wiim Edition retails for US$229 (A$342) and the C10 MKII Wiim Edition for US$399 (A$596).
