Review and Measurements of WesionTEK Khadas Tone Board DAC

[trl]

Well...ASIO might be important for many. Too bad the previous ver. is not listed anymore.

 

[GeekyBastard]

I had tested with Burson PLAY the v2.24 from Khadas few weeks ago and it worked flawless, especially the DSD256 that was not working with the original Burson drivers. Just found a new version today and tried to install it, but here's what I got. Even after disabling antivirus, 7-Zip told me there's an additional payload after the end of the file, so...all signed that there's a real virus in there and not a false positive alarm. Of course, disinfecting fails, so removing the fails lets me without the driver, so couldn't test it.
I had contacted manufacturer about this from the Contact form.

I registered an account to specifily tell people about this, I found the trojan in /tools/ folder too, TrojanDropper.Agent.PYF, it seems like this specific trojan even infected IBM Storwize before, see Lenovo's news and alert, so don't run it on your computer! I think khadas might have some computer being infected by this trojan, it would repack itself within the compressed files and the executable files (see Symantic Virus Database), so it might be an overlook by the team.

I'll contact the team on taobao too, I just bought the tone board as well.

 

[GeekyBastard]

I'm getting some Huawei vibes from this one...

How necessary are the drivers for the khadas to function as a dac if I may ask?

I checked the normal driver "Thesycon-Stereo-USB-Audio-Driver-V224.rar" (SHA-256: d49556da910a481083edfd3bb01defacd8c931fd34da2c9a15dc6c9b51c045f7) inside the toneboard folder for you by using Virustotal, 0/56 alert, it's perfectly clean, no shady stuff going on here, so I think that file might be a mistake by the team.

 

[GeekyBastard]

Saw the measurement, bought the board in a heartbeat, blown away by the sound clarity, the airness, as well as the volume of my speakers (!!!), the driver would reset the master volume to 0db every time the board loss power, too bad I didn't notice that... Long story short, I nearly damaged my Presonus R80, scared the schiit out of me...

Would the team kindly make a firmware that set the master volume to lower level after the board loss power? That would be great for our powered speakers users, thanks!

 

[trl]

The new driver is here: https://dl.khadas.com/Tools/, but it's still virused. The old one seems OK: https://dl.khadas.com/Firmware/ToneBoard/Driver/.
However, I hope they'll double check all of their web files soon.

@Geekly.RZ just use jRiver with the "Volume Protection" option marked and don't worry about the max. volume. Optionally, buying a cheap preamp like Schiit Sys or similar, or DIY one with a volume potentiometer (10...50kOhms should do).

 

[GeekyBastard]

The new driver is here: https://dl.khadas.com/Tools/, but it's still virused. The old one seems OK: https://dl.khadas.com/Firmware/ToneBoard/Driver/.
However, I hope they'll double check all of their web files soon.

@Geekly.RZ just use jRiver with the "Volume Protection" option marked and don't worry about the max. volume. Optionally, buying a cheap preamp like Schiit Sys or similar, or DIY one with a volume potentiometer (10...50kOhms should do).

I've already told the seller(Official seller on taobao) about the virus, the message status is "Unread", I guess most of the team had gone home for the upcoming spring festival, we'll wait and see what's their response.

Also, I'll try to unpack the "newer but infected" version driver in a safe environment, like under sandboxies or VMWare, see what I can find.

About the potentiometer, I found several on Taobao, they all use ALPS 09 or 27 series potentiometer, would the passive design or the potentiometer damage the sound quality? And which Ohms should I choose?

 

[GeekyBastard]

The new driver is here: https://dl.khadas.com/Tools/, but it's still virused. The old one seems OK: https://dl.khadas.com/Firmware/ToneBoard/Driver/.
However, I hope they'll double check all of their web files soon.

@Geekly.RZ just use jRiver with the "Volume Protection" option marked and don't worry about the max. volume. Optionally, buying a cheap preamp like Schiit Sys or similar, or DIY one with a volume potentiometer (10...50kOhms should do).

Hey, you know what, I actually successfully seperated the virus from the exe file, and installed the driver (though the NSIS integrity check failed, I had to skip it with /NCRC option), but it's not a driver for Khadas Tone Board, the tone board requires Thesycon driver, not generic XMOS one, and the certification inside the driver are outdated and revoked, so we can rest happily(not) now...

 

[trl]

[...]

About the potentiometer, I found several on Taobao, they all use ALPS 09 or 27 series potentiometer, would the passive design or the potentiometer damage the sound quality? And which Ohms should I choose?

A good pot should not induce "scratching" noises, although a bit of thermal noise might exist, at least theoretically, but this is why you don't need to use more than 50KOhms pot.

As simple as that, even simpler...no switch needed, just a simple pot:

 

[GeekyBastard]

A good pot should not induce "scratching" noises, although a bit of thermal noise might exist, at least theoretically, but this is why you don't need to use more than 50KOhms pot.

As simple as that, even simpler...no switch needed, just a simple pot:

I found a similar one on taobao for about 20 dollars, metal case, input/output switch, optional ALPS 27 series 4-channel potentiometer (add 20 dollars, it came with ALPS 09), all neutrik gold plated connection ports, balanced & unbalanced I/O, seems like a sweet deal!

I also couldn't believe Schiit cheaped out on that potentiometer choice, it's about 2 dollars per 2-channel ALPS 09 (Green), 4 dollars per 2-channel ALPS 27 (Blue), which has a way better lifespan and channel balance, I mean, Seriously?

 

[GeekyBastard]

Update: Khadas told me that the issue has been reported to their engineering team, I guess there's not much we can do after that, hopefully they'll take that file down soon.



@Stein @trl

 

[trl]

@Geekly.RZ get the 20 dollars box now, it's just too cheap not to get it. After all, I see a lot of ground plane in there and the audio source inputs seems to be well surrounded by the ground plane, so...I expect no added noise from the internal components.

 

[Transpareo]

How do you select the 192hz+ frequencies in win 10? I have the latest firmware and 224 driver installed.

 

[GeekyBastard]

@Geekly.RZ get the 20 dollars box now, it's just too cheap not to get it. After all, I see a lot of ground plane in there and the audio source inputs seems to be well surrounded by the ground plane, so...I expect no added noise from the internal components.

Will do! But after spring festival of course, lol.

 

[graz_lag]

对于软件病毒，我收到了Khadas的回答：你是否尝试在从电脑到外部声卡的USB线上安装避孕套?
红色的避孕套应该会带给你最好的结果。

 

[vitalii427]

对于软件病毒，我收到了Khadas的回答：你是否尝试在从电脑到外部声卡的USB线上安装避孕套?
红色的避孕套应该会带给你最好的结果。

Google Translate:

For software viruses, I received the answer from Khadas: Are you trying to install a condom on a USB cable from your computer to an external sound card?
A red condom should give you the best results.

Is it a joke?

 

[GeekyBastard]

对于软件病毒，我收到了Khadas的回答：你是否尝试在从电脑到外部声卡的USB线上安装避孕套?
红色的避孕套应该会带给你最好的结果。

What? You sure that's the response from Khadas official? The word doesn't make any sense...

Source: I speak Chinese and I can't understand it...

 

[bequietjk]

For the SPDIF input crowd, what power supply are you using for USB?

 

[GeekyBastard]

For the SPDIF input crowd, what power supply are you using for USB?

I tried an android phone power adapter and a linear PSU, couldn't hear the difference between them.

Edit: I'm not a SPDIF user though, I just tried it.

 

[GeekyBastard]

Update: The problematic file has already gone!

 

[Biblob]

Update: The problematic file has already gone!

So it is safe to update again?