The brains of a modern hifi system for less.

I've been slowly but surely getting deeper into the world of hifi, which led me down the garden path of purchasing a WiiM Ultra. This is a Mac-Mini sized box that can act as the brain of your hifi system, pulling in digital sources that can then be outputted to a set of active speakers (or passive ones if you've got an amp) to make a thoroughly modern system. The Ultra is currently £279 from Stocs UK's eBay store with code MAINEVENT20, marking out a handy 20% discount on its £349 list price - that's the same price I paid for it on Black Friday!

It's best to think of the Ultra as the brains of your hifi system, as it can pull in music from range of streaming sources for one thing. There's support for Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, Amazon Music, Deezer, Qobuz, plus a range of internet radio. You can also connect via Bluetooth 5.3, Alexa Cast, Roon Ready and Chromecast too, although no form of Apple AirPlay 2. The WiiM Home app that you connect the Ultra to also opens up a range of other sources, including Plex natively (which makes this streamer one of the only choices to have this feature), which is where I've spent most of my time streaming FLAC files from my QNAP NAS.

The design of the Ultra is very much in the vein of Apple products, with it available in either a silver or space gray-type colour, plus its rounded corners give off major Mac Mini vibes. For the price, it's a well-constructed piece of kit with a metal frame, plus there's a lovely 3.5-inch touchscreen on the front you can use for controlling the Ultra's powers and a volume knob with capacitive play/pause button. Ports on the back are plentiful, with RCA line-in and out, plus optical in and out (handy for connecting sources such as a CD player to keep physical media alive), an integrated phono stage for a turntable, HDMI ARC for connecting this to a TV, a sub out for a subwoofer, a headphone jack on the front for connecting wired cans, and even more besides. You'll be hard pressed for stronger connectivity at the price.

The sound the Ultra produces is clean and decently detailed and I've found it to be consistent across the likes of a FiiO DM15 CD player and with digital sources. Of course, a hi-res stream from Tidal or Qobuz yields a higher fidelity experience than using free Spotify, but the Ultra isn't too fussy about what it drives. It's been handy to have as a test bed for connecting otherwise 'dumb' speakers (that is, ones that don't have their own streaming smarts) such as the Ruark MR1 Mk3s or the new Cambridge Audio L/R S and make a neat little sideboard hi-fi system, plus you can branch out and add this to an older system that doesn't have any streaming smarts to bring it as up to date as possible.

If you've been after a capable desktop streamer for your next hifi upgrade, this lovely WiiM Ultra being 20 percent off is quite the steal on eBay.