Review and Measurements of WesionTEK Khadas Tone Board DAC

[Huey2001]

For the little bronze feet you need use the screws from the KTB kit.
The only screw that are with the case are the 8 screw for front and back plate.

Yes indeed. Were not all the board spacers to be used the ones provided with the KTB?

 

[JaapDeventer]

Manual is on their site if we pick "Download" as below

View attachment 39822

Manual suggest only use 2 screws to mount PCB:
View attachment 39823

The important part:
The metal rings have to be unscrewed first!

And put back on last. Made the mistake of not removing the rings myself too

 

[Huey2001]

Ok, as I wrote up from memory I now had to see myself what it looked like again...
so actually underneath the nu, then the long spacer with short thread and on top if you like the short space with long thread. Not other way round because then the tiny black screws from outside in through bottom will not fit.
(oeps, upside down)

 

[porotikos]

hi guys. anyone knows if there will be any black friday deals on the tone board? in europe is there any other option than audiophonics to buy it? cheers

 

[DomieMic65]

Ok, as I wrote up from memory I now had to see myself what it looked like again...
so actually underneath the nu, then the long spacer with short thread and on top if you like the short space with long thread. Not other way round because then the tiny black screws from outside in through bottom will not fit.
(oeps, upside down)View attachment 39850

why did you put the long spacers above the board?

 

[somebodyelse]

hi guys. anyone knows if there will be any black friday deals on the tone board? in europe is there any other option than audiophonics to buy it? cheers

DigiKey - pick your country from the dropdown list in the top right of the page. I don't think they do black friday deals.

 

[DomieMic65]

DigiKey - pick your country from the dropdown list in the top right of the page. I don't think they do black friday deals.

taxes and shipping to Europe will raise the cost significantly
for Europe i think only Audiophonics is the option

 

[Huey2001]

why did you put the long spacers above the board?

Well, first of all just to get rid of them/give them some place I would find them when needed... Second I figured they might support the top extra, but as they do not reach that far, that is not the case...

 

[somebodyelse]

taxes and shipping to Europe will raise the cost significantly
for Europe i think only Audiophonics is the option

Did you even look at the link? They have local sites in most European countries so no additional taxes apply. The UK site has free delivery for orders of that value.

 

[DomieMic65]

Did you even look at the link? They have local sites in most European countries so no additional taxes apply. The UK site has free delivery for orders of that value.

My bad sorry...
I saw it but I didn't check the options.
What a pity I didn't know earlier.

 

[scruffy1]

apologies for the cross post, but for others looking for a case, my frugal option here works very well :

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...the-khadas-tone-board.5054/page-7#post-231073

 

[porotikos]

Did you even look at the link? They have local sites in most European countries so no additional taxes apply. The UK site has free delivery for orders of that value.

the local sites have nothing to do with where they ship from. they are shipping from usa. i asked them by email, some time ago my friend

 

[porotikos]

i couldnt wait for the new revision of khadas. there was a prime discount on amazon.com of 20 dollars. and i managed to get the tone board for a total amount of 95 euros. shipped including customs. not bad.

2 questions.
should i immediatelly replace the usb cable?is it crap? any isb type c cable will do? as long as it says "data" on it? i wouldnt want to spend much. as long as the job is done. would this cable be ok for example?
https://www.banggood.com/Bakeey-Pro...793.html?rmmds=search&ID=224&cur_warehouse=CN

and finally about the hump. as fas as i understand it isnt really audible (right?). But it has to do with the levels of the music? i always have volume in my pc at 95% full. my amp is at one third and my mixer volume is half way up usually (depending on the files being played). to avoid being in the distortion area, what should one do?
i will be connecting my pc to khadas. then khadas will be konnected with rca to my console mixer. and then the signal goes to my amplifier. to avoid distortion should i have the console, or the amplifier turned on more? cheers to all

 

[Veri]

as long as the job is done. would this cable be ok for example?

If you don't want to spend much money might as well use the stock cable and see if you have any issues. Some random banggood cable won't be an improvement.

 

[scruffy1]

the cable works fine

the volume of the output from the pc to the khadas should be 100%, as best as i understand how signals work; best pathway would be direct to the amp - an intermediate mixer is complicating the chain

why do that ?

 

[somebodyelse]

should i immediatelly replace the usb cable?is it crap?

The grey cable they supplied with the early stock has caused problems for many people - brief USB disconnects which stop playback, and may need the card plugging in again or the application restarting to restart playback. Because of this they changed cables - newer stock has a black khadas branded cable that should be more reliable. Any decent type A to type C data cable should work, but based on the schematic I suspect type c to type c may not, similar but not identical to the problem with the Pi 4. Random cables from Banggood/Ali/Ebay/Amazon may or may not be decent, and it's hard to tell until they arrive.

 

[porotikos]

the cable works fine

the volume of the output from the pc to the khadas should be 100%, as best as i understand how signals work; best pathway would be direct to the amp - an intermediate mixer is complicating the chain

why do that ?

i do that because i have other things connected to the mixer and i want to control easily many devices. i have also connected my drums, and my laptop etc and i want to control everything. i have to do that. so i will have the pc at 100%. that leaves me 2 options. haveing the amplifier as loud as possible and controlling the volume from the mixer, or having the console mixer at 0db and maintaining volume needed, from the amp. any ideas what would be better to avoid hump area? cheers guys


and thank you all for the cable opinions. ill wait to see how good the black cable is and if it has problems ill try another. thank you all

 

[scruffy1]

good reasons porotikos

i note the grey cable i received seemed to have the drop outs as described; i thought it may be the usb on the htpc, and indeed, changing the usb port fixed the issue

but thanks for the heads up

wrt the "hump" - apart from the graph, what might it manifest itself as in real life ?

perhaps better reproduction in quasimodo'"s dream" ?

 

[DomieMic65]

For Bit-Perfect playback you need the computer to be at 100% volume or even better with disabled s.ware volume.

 

[porotikos]

For Bit-Perfect playback you need the computer to be at 100% volume or even better with disabled s.ware volume.

thank you. I was googling on how to disable software volume in pc. I thought it can't be done, can it? I am using Windows 7x64