A Geek Goes Flying

So, it arrived, and I have it setup. (I don’t have the whole listening station re-setup yet, there are several requirements pending before I can do that. Sigh.) The WiiM Pro and the Modius are both drawing power from the Anker 351 ’s built-in USB A ports. The Modius is of course hooked up to its AC/AC power brick. The WiiM Pro is connected to the home Ethernet via a GS105 , and to the Modius via a short TOSlink cable . The Modius is feeding the Magnius via XLR connectors . So far I’ve only really tried it out with the HIFIMAN HE400SE Stealth Magnets headphones  pictured hanging off the UpLift headphones stand (Walnut sample block ); they’re connected to the Magnius via Hart Audio’s HC-9: Dual 3.5mm headphone cable for Hifiman, Focal, Meze 109 / Liric headphones and more (Modular, Balanced Capable) × 1 Red / [M] 4-pin XLR cable kit . There are parametric or 10-band EQs available, and you can save presets. Here, I have the oratory1990 Harman curve for the HE400se headphones dial...

After stripping everything down to minimalism to comfortably host Thanksgiving this year, I’ve decided to redo my reading/listening station . Getting rid of the IKEA side table, the clusterfuck of cables, etc., and getting down to basics. Moving the Schiit stack to the built-in bookshelves, which aren’t deep enough to comfortably host the Mac Mini, let alone the shelf I built . Also ditching the iPhone 12 setup, since I just never really used it. But I still do want streaming capability. (I tried, I really tried, to use / like the Logitech Media Server setup on the mini, but, alas.) Wiim Pro Enter the streamer After too much research, and considering the Arylic S10+ and LP10, and the Eve Play, and some other devices, I settled on the WiiM Pro , especially once Amazon dropped it from $150 to $125, a pretty good price . If I ever use Spotify, it integrates (though I probably won’t ), and apparently it works with the Pandora and SiriusXM I do  have ... But mostly I anticipate using it...