WiiM Sound review

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, in which case Apple must be the most flattered tech brand in the world. Not only have the popular AirPods resulted in countless copycats, but its HomePod speaker has also inspired the first speaker product from one of the audio world’s rising upstarts.

The WiiM Sound is the brand’s first wireless smart speaker, and is hoping to build upon its strong streaming foundation to make a splash in this arena.

Price

The WiiM Sound has gone straight for Apple’s jugular with its round smart wireless speaker. We normally see WiiM undercut its competition when it comes to price (which makes it a more attractive proposition), but the WiiM Sound costs £299 / $299 / AU$499 – the very same price as the HomePod 2 (£299 / $299 / AU$479).

This puts it pricier than some other wireless speaker rivals, such as the Sonos Era 100, which currently retails for £199 / $219 / AU$319.

Features

If the Apple HomePod 2 is designed purely for iOS users and only sports AirPlay 2, the WiiM Sound is the exact opposite. It is platform agnostic, and can be controlled using the user-friendly and well-organised WiiM Home app.

You can play music through the Sound in a number of ways, from Bluetooth and Google Cast to various music streaming services.

The speaker supports all the popular options, as well as the Connect versions of Spotify, Tidal and Qobuz. Internet radio – including BBC radio stations – is also supported, and you can save your favourite stations, playlists and albums across these services as presets and access them in a pinch from the WiiM Home app and on the speaker’s front-facing touchscreen display.

It even has DLNA compatibility, which allows it to stream hi-res tracks (up to 24-bit/192kHz) stored on connected NAS devices, such as our Naim Uniti Core server. No matter which streaming method or service we tried during testing, it all worked without a hitch. AirPlay is the only omission here, as has been the case with all recent WiiM products.

Along with wi-fi, the speaker offers an Ethernet port for a more stable connection to your home network. This is situated on the underside of the speaker, along with the power port and the only physical audio connection, which is a single 3.5mm aux input. Into this, we were able to connect our Astell & Kern SR35 music player and even the Cyrus CDi CD player (using an RCA to 3.5mm cable) during our testing.

We found that the Sound’s sonic character remained consistent throughout every input and streaming method we used, with hi-res FLAC tracks naturally sounding a little more refined than low-res radio stations.

If you invest in two Sounds, you can pair them up for stereo sound and assign left and right channels to flank your TV or laptop, as well as group them with other WiiM products you may have around the house. We were given two WiiM Sound speaker samples for our review, and stereo pairing was easily done – the two units worked together harmoniously.

There’s even scope to add on a WiiM Sub, or use the Sounds as centre or surround speakers with a WiiM Ultra streamer or Amp Pro/Amp Ultra streaming amplifier as part of a home cinema surround system.

You can link up and group multiple WiiM devices in the WiiM Home app, which has a host of features including AI RoomFit calibration, which uses your smartphone’s mic to optimise the speaker’s sound to your space. This is an easy process that takes only a minute or two, and is worth doing, especially if you think the Sound isn’t placed in an optimum position. You can even hear the difference made by toggling the calibrated sound on and off.

In our treated test room, we found this calibration reduced the speaker’s bass output a touch and made the midrange sound one-dimensional, so we preferred keeping it turned off. Alternatively, you can try any of the multiple EQ presets available to you, or fine-tune the sound using the 10-band equaliser.

With no microphone built inside, the WiiM Sound isn’t primarily designed for voice control like its Apple and Sonos rivals, but the included remote control has a button to activate voice control so you can use the Sound with Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.

Build & design

Unlike the Apple HomePod that sports a 360-degree acoustic architecture inside, the WiiM Sound features two silk dome tweeters and a 4-inch/10cm paper-cone woofer for a forward-facing sound with a claimed 100W of total output.

There’s no confusion about which way to point the speaker, either, thanks to the small 1.8-inch window display that you’ll want to be able to glance at all times.

The WiiM Sound is a solidly made, substantial-feeling speaker, with a squared-off round design that’s a little wider and taller than its HomePod 2 rival. It’s available in a black or white finish, and is clad in a closely-woven texture. The top panel has touch-capacitative controls for playback and volume, and the icons pleasingly light up when your hand goes near the panel. Overall, it looks and feels smart.

It’s not difficult to make direct comparisons with the similarly designed HomePod 2, but what makes the WiiM Sound stand out is that interactive circular touchscreen display through which you can access many of the speaker’s features.

It’s a small porthole, but it gives you quick access to presets, playback options, source selection, EQ settings and more. Any text is too small to see from a distance, but close-up – as you would have to be to use the touchscreen display – it’s clear and sharp.

There are loads of customisable options for this window display, including various designs for the clock faces, dynamic wallpapers and album artwork – all of which are displayed with deep, punchy colours.

If you don’t fancy this display screen, WiiM makes a model without it called the WiiM Sound Lite, which is yours for £229 / $229 / AU$399.

No matter how you use the WiiM Sound speaker – the on-unit controls, the touchscreen, the app or the slim remote control – we found it to be an easy-to-use unit that responds to every command instantly.

Sound

We kick off our listening with test track classic Breezeblocks by Alt-J, and are met with a pleasingly smooth presentation. The song floats along in a manner that’s very easy to listen to, with voices in particular having a spotlight shone on them. The vocals are upfront and clear in the mix, and the fluid way in which they are delivered is one of the Sound’s high points.

The WiiM’s smooth tone works in its favour when we push the volume up, although it does struggle to completely fill our 3 x 4 x 7m (hwd) test room.

The speaker’s sound is clean, although we find that the soundstage can be a little congested and wish that detail levels were higher. Switch gear to Fontaines D.C.’s high-octane Starburster, and the resulting sound can get rather messy, as the WiiM Sound can’t quite organise the various instruments and layers in an orderly way, leading the presentation to be rather muddled and undynamic. We find that there is a lack of precision to the stop and start of notes, which affects a song’s sense of momentum and rhythm.

Play Massive Attack’s Paradise Circus, and we find that the bite and shine to the keyboard, hi-hat and snare drum are a little subdued, even as Hope Sandoval’s voice comes through breathy, delicate and well integrated. As we play song after song, we realise that the speaker’s treble is smoothed out a fair bit. While this lends itself well to the Sound’s easy-listening character, it does mean that songs that require that crisp sense of attack and drive to really hold our attention are left a little shortchanged.

The bass output from this speaker isn’t quite as powerful as we’d hope, either, with the funky, taut bassline in Act Like You Know by Fat Larry’s Band sounding a little tubby, lightweight and lacking definition.

The Sound’s low frequencies tend to bop along in a nimble manner – lending the plucked strings in In The Cold Cold Night by The White Stripes and the piano in Debussy’s Clair de Lune a sense of merry fluidity – but we find ourselves wanting a greater sense of grip and solidity to the overall sound.

We switch over to playing the same songs on the Apple HomePod 2, and the resulting sound is better defined, more detailed and more rhythmically precise. The HomePod 2’s sound is more powerful, helped by its ability to really dig deep into the lower frequencies. Basslines are properly deep, tautly pulled and bound along with agility and precision, while instruments have more texture and nuance to them. The soundstage is more spacious and is projected into our test room with greater authority and better dynamic contrast, too.

In comparison, the WiiM Sound isn't as commanding or as subtle as the more engaging and exciting HomePod 2. The WiiM’s loosely defined edges and narrowed dynamic scope are put into focus even further when compared with the same-priced Apple rival, but even on its own, we feel that the Sound speaker isn’t living up to its potential.

Verdict

As with all other WiiM products we’ve tested, the Sound speaker impresses with its breadth of streaming features, easy-to-use interface and smart design. We imagine many will be charmed by these elements in daily use, and rightly so.

Sound quality remains its Achilles heel, however, and while the WiiM Sound is pleasant enough for casual listening, we think it needs to go back to the drawing board for a serious re-tuning if it wants to truly take on the class-leaders.

Review published: 9th March 2026

SCORES

• Sound 3
• Features 5
• Build 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Apple HomePod 2

Also consider the Sonos Era 100

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