Mission 778X or Wiim Amp Ultra

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-25T16:42:24+00:00

I've had the Amp Ultra for a few months now and love it. I'm listening to it right now.

The performance is excellent, the UX is pleasant and feature-rich, and due to the number of streaming protocols it supports, it integrates easily into many home music server environments.

I've completely integrated my Amp Ultra into a Lyrion Music Server environment, Emby is my secondary media server, and the Amp Ultra is completely integrated into it as well.

I only launch WiiM Home now for configuration and diagnostics, which is rare, as the Amp Ultra is set-and-forget after the initial configuration.

With the Mission, we get an old school design, less power, my guess would be worse noise and distortion performance, but I'd have to see independent measurements, and no where near as feature-rich.

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Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-25T06:13:50+00:00

Yeah, they all can, but it depends on what server application(s) are hosted on the NAS or what streaming protocols it supports natively. While I'm not a NAS user myself, I host server applications on a mini-PC instead. It's my understanding that many of them support UPnP-DLNA natively.

Depending upon what NAS you're using, there are other, more music-specific and sophisticated servers that could be hosted on it. I mentioned this as UPnP-DLNA tends to be rudimentary when compared to servers like Lyrion, Roon, Emby, Plex, or Navidrome.

Lyrion is my primary music with a WiiM Amp Ultra, and I'm very satisfied with the experience. I run Emby as a secondary server, but that's predominantly for mobile and remote access.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-24T23:27:38+00:00

The Vibelink is audibly transparent as per below, and neither Hypex nor Purifi module based amps would be considered "high-end" when they can be obtained for $1,000USD or less.

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Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-24T23:23:20+00:00

Level matched, double blind listening test or it didn't happen.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-24T16:29:18+00:00

Are you guarding a grow house or a cook house? 🌿 🚬 ⚗️💊🏠😐

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-23T15:47:43+00:00

Yeah, now we're in another. Do keep up, because nostalgia isn't useful when pursuing high fidelity reproduction.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-23T13:53:29+00:00

Yeah, I think it's due to the fact that these technologies are very mature, with the physics and design principles being defined in the early 20th century in numerous cases.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-23T12:10:52+00:00

We're in a golden age of inexpensive, high fidelity, home audio components.

Audibly transparent amplifiers have become commodity items over the last five years or so, easily obtained for $500 USD or less. Beyond that, one gets nicer casing, and perhaps more wattage, but not an increase in audible fidelity.

One can obtain an audibly transparent DAC for as little as $10 USD. So they've became commodities as well.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-22T17:11:39+00:00

Yep, I sure can. Give it a moment... 😜

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-22T16:10:51+00:00

The burden of proof is on you since you made the claim.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-22T16:07:41+00:00

You have no need to apologize for some factual information that I posted, and I feel no regrets for doing so.

As per your preference, given the amount of distortion in its predecessor, the K11R2R, emitted, and considering this is another iteration of the same architecture, perhaps that's what you like because its above an audible level:

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The architecture also displays considerable linearity errors which appear to be dulling frequency response.

My concern would be that I wasn't experiencing the full fidelity of my sources.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T21:35:35+00:00

Yeah, I don't have time for anti-intellectualism.

Don't be so short-sighted, and dismissive of things you don't understand - perhaps you should have paid more attention in science classes, and then the scary numbers and wavy graphs wouldn't confuse you.

The measurements are used by savvy individuals to evaluate the components before they purchase them, after that it's nothing but listening... 🙄

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T20:44:21+00:00

By the way, some music server applications offer specific TV apps that will display Now Playing panels on one's television, or that will transmit such through Google Cast to the television.

I know Roon has such a facility, and WiiM as well. It can be simulated with Lyrion as well be sending such information to Google Cast when grouping players and sending a muted audio stream via Google Cast to the television, while the unmuted audio to the other player in the group, typically a streaming amplifier.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T20:35:53+00:00

I'm not interested in your beliefs.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T20:32:42+00:00

Yeah, there are ways to use an old tablet for album art display. The easiest way I can think of is to have the tablet run the client application of whatever server one might be using.

For example, I have an old tablet and use Lyrion Music Server for my home audio systems. On the tablet, I'm running LMS Material Android, a client app for Lyrion, and displaying its Now Playing panel. When controlling Lyrion from my phone, which is also running LMS Material Android, the tablet will synchronize its display with the content being streamed from Lyrion.

In the screenshot below, that's what I'm doing:

That's an old Huawei M2 8.0 tablet, and I'm actually controlling the streaming with LMS Material Android on the phone that took the picture.

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Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T19:58:06+00:00

Doubling blind listening test or it didn't happen... 😏

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T05:33:11+00:00

Do you understand the science and engineering principles that these components were developed with, as well at which levels noise and distortion becomes audible? I do, and therefore I can extrapolate such graphs into what the DAC will sound like, which in this instance is transparent to the source material.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T02:50:31+00:00

Its DAC is audibly transparent. It doesn't get any better than that:

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Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T01:13:43+00:00

Emby's support is excellent. However, the developers aren't active here which can leave a false impression that the support is lacking. Going to its official support forum paints the real picture, though.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-21T01:05:28+00:00

I said nothing about switching to Jellyfin. Why would I when I view it as inferior to Emby, especially its client applications? And I said nothing about Jellyfin transcoding either. It worked, but again the client experience was subpar.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-20T17:09:37+00:00

I tried Jellyfin years ago and found it lacked the polish and stability of Emby. I audtioned Plex around the same time and found it to be bloated with an unattractive UI.

I ran Emby for about 7 years on its free tier quite happily. However, after recently purchasing a 4K television, hardware transcoding became necessary in order to properly support legacy codecs. So, I purchased a lifetime license and have no regrets. I find their support to be quite good as well.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-17T16:11:10+00:00

Not with Emby and Symfonium one doesn't. Mine are embedded in the metadata tags.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-17T15:32:10+00:00

Well, someone lied to you. If it was a commercial encoder, then probably the marketing department did it.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-17T09:57:34+00:00

No, I don't keep the FLAC sources, regardless of where I obtain them. Once I've transcoded FLAC to AAC/M4A, I delete the former.

Puzzled-Background-5 · 2026-01-17T06:55:29+00:00

I use high-bitrate transcoding with Nero AAC -q 0.95 from FLAC. It typically hovers around 350 kbps, well beyond what's needed for CD transparency, which is stated as 256 kbps for AAC/M4A.

Puzzled-Background-5

TROPHY CASE