Under $10,000, buy the small box

If your system is worth up to $10,000, buy the WiiM Ultra without hesitation. I say that as the man who also paid almost $1,400 for the Eversolo A6 Master Edition. I bought both with my own money and lived with them side by side for over three months.

On my reference system, with the C12000, the monoblocks, the Wilsons and Transparent cables in a treated room, I can tell them apart. The Eversolo has the wider and deeper soundstage, the better layering and the darker background. But the differences were real and subtle, the last 3 to 5% of performance squeezed out of a system built to show it.

Now put that extra $1,070 into a $5,000 or a $10,000 system. For me, it is like installing a Formula 1 engine in a conventional car: impressive on paper, and nowhere to use it. In a less revealing chain, after a long pause and without the visual cues, I am not convinced you would tell them apart at all.

Here's what I would do instead. Keep the small box and spend the money where the audible differences are more material: room treatment, amplification, or even the speakers. For nine audiophiles in ten, this little box is a revelation and the clearest proof of diminishing returns I have owned.

The $329 box did not win the comparison. It won the argument about where the money goes.