Hi! I bought a Wiim Amp weeks ago with a nice pair of speakers and I chose Roon to get the most out of it. I love you platform. It’s easy and I have the best quality ever. The only problem is, I get random pops every once in a while, but more importantly when I start a new album. At first, I thought it was my amp and I even contacted Wiim. But now that I think about it, I had these pops on my older system too. I’m not the first who reported this problem. This is almost a deal breaker and I wish there was a solution. Will the Wii Amp ever be Roon Ready and will it fix this problem? Do you have a solution for me?
I don’t think you will get a definitive answer here as to whether the Wiim Amp will ever be Roon Ready until such time (hopefully) that it is Roon Ready.
Having said that, Wiim are obviously aiming to make their more capable devices Roon Ready (since they have done so with the Wiim Pro and Wiim Pro Plus) so we can hope that the process in underway.
As to whether or not moving to RAAT (with a hypothetical Roon Ready Wiim Amp) would elliminate the pops, I can’t say for sure. I use RAAT on all my endpoints and I do not get these pops.
However, pops and such could be caused by network issues. You say that your home network is ‘WiFi’. Does this mean that your Mac Mini Roon Server is also connected to the network with WiFi? If so this is not recommended and you should try to use a wired connection to the Mac Mini used as your Roon Server.
A single pop on stream start may very well be the DAC/AMP connecting their output from standby causing a pop from a voltage potential mismatch between device(s) and ground, potentially caused/amplified by using shielded interconnects where they better should have been avoided (network cable for example).
I’ll try to connect my Mac in cellular data to see if it changes anything. At the moment, I run on wifi but it’s my only option. I also read that it could be the cause but hoped that there was a solution…
This would be an environmental issue as far as I do understand. So if old and new systems live in the same environment they would likely be equally affected.
Weird because everything is brand new in my system. Like I said, I use a Mac mini 2020, a WiiM Amp and some Kef Q150s. I have a turntable, but it is not grounded yet. Could it be the problem? Of course, I’m not a maniac like some are about voltage and all this stuff. If it was an environment issue, wouldn’t I hear the pops all the time and not only on Roon? Thanks for your help though
No it doesn’t. And when I stream Qobuz directly on my amp in hi-res, it works like a charm. When I Airplay Roon on the Wiim, I don’t hear any pop. That’s the reason why I think that Roon readiness would help my case, but I would still like to understand why it does this only when I stream on the Mac. Is it my Focusrite? I like Roon so much, it so convenient.
Why should it? When you replaced Roon with the default music player app on your Mac, then the Focusrite would be used too right? Or else your test setup was flawed. I just pointed out another possible reason for pops on stream starts. So far, it isn’t even clear to me if you get them on stream starts only/exclusively or not. When not, then it is something else causing it anyway.
I mean, maybe there’s a compatibility issue between Roon and the Focusrite. Because it’s the only link between the amp and the computer. To be clear, I get one loud pops when I start a new album and when there’s silence, some minor pops. But only on Roon, and I’ve seen other people with the same problem. It’s weird.
And is there a similarity between their setup and yours? The Mac, Focusrite, streamer (without Roon Ready) or the speaker?
PS: If I Google “Focusrite pop” I find a lot of related articles, which I would have never have expected for a (semi)professional audio device. Just based on this, I would look at other brands to see if they do better if I had to buy an audio interface.
Nobody mentioned a Focusrite in their complaints. But for the moment, I don’t see anything else. I’ll do some tests when I get home. I’ve never had any trouble with my Focusrite before, and I don’t plan on changing it for the moment. It works for a small home studio and does a great job. But if it’s really the problem, it would be good for Roon to at least acknowledge this. And I hope we get Roon readiness soon
If the Focusrite would be the problem, then Focusrite would have to acknowledge this. Roon Labs would only comment on their own product and not acknowledge anything if it’s not their fault.
In the thread below another forum user even used a test file and could confirm that Roon doesn’t “play” pops. While his theory is a possibility for the source of some audible pops in a users system, she doesn’t explain the loud pops on stream start or the less loud pops in the silence between tracks at all. Sadly my theory also doesn’t explain the later. Good luck with your testing, I really hope you can find some answers.
After a bit more thinking about your issue I think the small pops are most likely stemming from your Mac. There is a reason why PCs are regarded as noisy devices and recommendations exist against electrically connecting audio devices directly to a PC. Apple products aren’t generally better (or worse) in that regard than other products. That you don’t hear it using other ways of playback may be explained by the fact that Roon makes your Mac work harder than other player apps. Should the WiiM become Roon Ready you could potentially get rid of the direct electrical connection in favor of a wired or wireless network connection which, if properly done, may help or even resolve your issue. Further reads:
I’m sure you can find more related articles about computer (Mac Mini) related audio issues on the internet on your own if you want to pursue that matter further.
This “pop” problem has been reported a number of times and, in many cases, has been due to the change of bit rate and/or sampling frequency (track to track).
In these cases the solution was to increase the resync delay in device setup…it’s worth a try…
I would experiment there’s nothing to lose, I started at 500mS and then played with the setting until the pop stopped using the minimum delay, fingers crossed
Thanks everyone, I’ve come to a conclusion: the very small pops were caused by the WiiM amp going into sleep mode. I had it set to 30 seconds, so every time there was silence for 30 seconds, I’d hear a little pop. It’s not Roon’s fault then, I just had to set it higher. After careful testing, the loud noise at the start of a new album is only present if the album is in a different format. So this is a common problem for Roon users. Unfortunately, the resync delay isn’t any help and I’m guessing it’s the WiiM’s internal DAC that’s causing the noise (not too loud, I’ll settle for that). The only solution will be to have the Roon readiness for the WiiM Amp and I’m pretty sure that will come one day, but I hope that day comes soon
how much time I should allow for the resynch?