How to connect the WiiM Pro Plus to the Arcam A5+ and Wharfedale Diamond 12.3

What you need

Already have

Stereo RCA cablein the WiiM box

Need to buy

Speaker cablesone pair, equal lengths

The RCA cable that should be supplied with the WiiM handles the run from the streamer to the amplifier. Use it to get started.

Work out where the speakers are going before you measure for cable. The 12.3 wants at least 200mm behind it and 700mm from the side walls, angled slightly inwards, with the tweeters near ear level when you are sitting down. Aim to sit two to four metres away, roughly as far from the speakers as they are from each other. Pushing them closer to the wall lifts the bass, though it can turn boomy with it. Settle the positions first and the cable length follows.

For the speakers, work out the route the cable will actually take, which is normally around the edge of the room rather than straight across it! Measure the longer of the two sides, allow a bit of slack so you can move the speakers once you have heard them, and buy an equal-length pair at that measurement. The speaker terminals take banana plugs, bare wire or spades.

Connecting it

1. Start with the speakers, with the amplifier unplugged.
2. Run the cable from the amplifier's right channel terminals, marked R+ and R-, to the matching posts on the right speaker. Repeat on the left using L+ and L-.
3. Connect the supplied RCA lead from the WiiM's LINE OUT to AN 1 on the Arcam.
4. Plug the amplifier in, switch it on at the back, and select AN 1 on the front dial. Holding the dial in lets you rename the input.
5. Open the WiiM Home app and set the output to the analogue line out. The Pro Plus plays through one output at a time, and if it is set to a different one you will get silence from a system that is wired perfectly.

If you want to use the Arcam's DAC

Both boxes can convert the digital signal to analogue, so you can hand the job to the amplifier instead. Optical runs from the WiiM's SPDIF out into DIG 3, and that lead is in the box too. Coaxial runs from COAX OUT into DIG 1 or DIG 2 and needs a 75 ohm digital lead, which is the one cable here that nobody supplies. Either way, set the matching output in the WiiM app, or you will get no sound.

Why the two cables are different

What leaves the WiiM is a line level signal, small enough for an amplifier input to read, but far too small to move a speaker driver. The A5+ raises it to speaker level, with enough current behind it to drive the 12.3s, which have no power of their own and take everything through the cable from the amplifier. That is why one connection uses a slim interconnect and the other uses speaker cable.