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Review and Measurements of WesionTEK Khadas Tone Board DAC

Esp3n89

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Mar 4, 2019
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Dammit i have no experience with soldering, maybe the solution is to get a case :)
The led on the Atom is so dim compared to how bright the led on the Khadas is

ASIO, WASAPI..Those words fly right over my head ahahahahahahaha!
i just installed the Khadas in the USB port on the back of my PC, put the RCA cables in it and on the Amp.. and then plugged in the headphones, on low gain.

So set it to 32 bits and 44100 on Windows, put the buffer and latency on the lowest possible.. if any problem occurs increase it a bit?

i had to install the Thesycon-Stereo-USB-Audio-Driver-V224 because i wasn't getting sound on my Windows 10 @brornstron , what case are you using?


A friend linked me this on Discord and said it improved his audio quality on Foobar2000,

anything else i can install or change on Windows and common programs to get the best audio out of them?

does firefox/youtube sound goes through the Thesycon-Stereo-USB-Audio-Driver-V224 i installed or will use WASAPI because of Windows?

Buffer and latency isn't the most important thing to keep as low as possible unless you work with audio recording and especially then recording a track on top of a track you play back. A lot of video players today also automatically compensate. Games not so much. Especially competitive ones, but there is also the display latency which usually is around 10-20ms.
 

Esp3n89

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@Tom51
I'm using Aluminum Case.

Btw what is Buffer Settings in Khadas options:
  • USB Streaming Mode (Safe atm)
  • Asio Buffer Size (2048 atm)

What to put there? Any insights about that?
I'm still doing my 2 story wooden case to separate Khadas and JDS Atom. My jigsaw blade clamp broke last night.

That should work fine for standard instances. You can try a lower ASIO if you use ASIO but for playback it's not really important. For the USB streaming mode. What choices do you have? I'm still waiting to receive my own KTB. So don't know the different options there yet. Though I'm guessing safe should be perfectly fine for most cases. Depends a bit. I know another dac where safe mode is when it's running usb 1 driverless mode with a max of 16bit 48khz. And the "normal mode" is usb 2 with up to 24bit 192khz. Though I'm guessing streaming mode in this case is also latency/buffer tweaking for wasapi and direct streaming. In any case should not be a problem for most usecases
 

bornstron

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That should work fine for standard instances. You can try a lower ASIO if you use ASIO but for playback it's not really important. For the USB streaming mode. What choices do you have? I'm still waiting to receive my own KTB. So don't know the different options there yet. Though I'm guessing safe should be perfectly fine for most cases. Depends a bit. I know another dac where safe mode is when it's running usb 1 driverless mode with a max of 16bit 48khz. And the "normal mode" is usb 2 with up to 24bit 192khz. Though I'm guessing streaming mode in this case is also latency/buffer tweaking for wasapi and direct streaming. In any case should not be a problem for most usecases

I don't know what ASIO is.
I'm just an average Joe. Listening to music (mostly Youtube), watching high quality movies and playing games. I'm at work atm so I can't check which options are there but I could get back to you once I get home. Or when you receive Khadas, just get back to this topic and post and highlight me if there is more to it that I could benefit from.

Btw, I had to switch USB-C cable on my Khadas. Their original one was losing connection frequently. I switched Khadas for my cellphone and my cellphone's to Khadas and it works perfectly now, no connection losses. Get one cable before you receive Khadas so you can switch it right away.
 

dweekie

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.

Btw, I had to switch USB-C cable on my Khadas. Their original one was losing connection frequently. I switched Khadas for my cellphone and my cellphone's to Khadas and it works perfectly now, no connection losses. Get one cable before you receive Khadas so you can switch it right away.

I developed disconnect issues as well when I merely breathed on the Khadas. I tried to be a little too smart with a 3.1 gen2 cable (for future proofing) and a 0.5ft silicon cable (for cable clutter), but they were way too thick and wouldn't let the lightweight Khadas sit still in one place. I ended up with this usb 2.0 cable that I really like. Anker is generally one of the safer brands to purchase USB-C products from, and this is one of their thinner cables (likely due to being USB 2.0 with less wires) as they are sometimes much thicker than other brands as well. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G114FZ7/
 

maxxevv

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The cable that came with the KTB was not very good. Detection by my laptop was not instantaneous as it should be.
Ended up using my own cable and all was good.
 

Esp3n89

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I don't know what ASIO is.
I'm just an average Joe. Listening to music (mostly Youtube), watching high quality movies and playing games. I'm at work atm so I can't check which options are there but I could get back to you once I get home. Or when you receive Khadas, just get back to this topic and post and highlight me if there is more to it that I could benefit from.

Btw, I had to switch USB-C cable on my Khadas. Their original one was losing connection frequently. I switched Khadas for my cellphone and my cellphone's to Khadas and it works perfectly now, no connection losses. Get one cable before you receive Khadas so you can switch it right away.
Then I can say your probably not using ASIO as that's mainly a setting you have to choose in the programs, and few "normal"programs give you that option. ASIO is mostly used in the pro audio world where you have multiple channels in and out at high bitrate and sampling rate (kHz).
So for you changing the ASIO settings won't matter.
I don't think you need to do anything with those to settings at all. If sound playes and doesn't stutter or sound very weird then it's fine.
The only thing would be going into the playback settings in sound devices on your PC. And under advanced setting it to output more than 16bit 44.1khz which is the standard Windows 10 setting.
 

zermak

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Dammit i have no experience with soldering, maybe the solution is to get a case :)
The led on the Atom is so dim compared to how bright the led on the Khadas is

ASIO, WASAPI..Those words fly right over my head ahahahahahahaha!
i just installed the Khadas in the USB port on the back of my PC, put the RCA cables in it and on the Amp.. and then plugged in the headphones, on low gain.

So set it to 32 bits and 44100 on Windows, put the buffer and latency on the lowest possible.. if any problem occurs increase it a bit?

i had to install the Thesycon-Stereo-USB-Audio-Driver-V224 because i wasn't getting sound on my Windows 10 @brornstron , what case are you using?


A friend linked me this on Discord and said it improved his audio quality on Foobar2000,

anything else i can install or change on Windows and common programs to get the best audio out of them?

does firefox/youtube sound goes through the Thesycon-Stereo-USB-Audio-Driver-V224 i installed or will use WASAPI because of Windows?
Sorry no e-mail notification.

Yes, keep using 44100Hz and 32bit on Windows advanced audio settings. You can change it to other values if you are listening to some different sample rates (maybe someyoutube videos/channels use 48kHz) and prevent the horrible Windows resampler to do its mess.

I am using that driver myself. It fixed a problem of mine in a specific scenario while the standard Windows USB 2.0 audio diver failed.

About foobar. It's a poweful audio player. I use it myself but I prefer the music as is/was recorded/mastered and so I don't use DSPs unless necessary and I output in WASAPI exclusive for bitstreaming as I already said.
EDIT: just took a look at that fidelizer thing. Leave it there, I doubt it will be useful. It looks like junk to me honestly and what it says to do it's what you can pratically choose and do in foobar and Windows itself (priorities and so on).

About the Khadas cable. Mine is working properly and I plugged/unplugged it more than usual and so far so good.
 
Last edited:

Herbert

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I do not need the USB Input in the Generic Version.
I will only use SPDIF and I will also power the board from the pin headers.

I am using a casing where there is no room for the USB - jack and I also no not want to mill a hole for it.
So I would like to desolder the USB-jack and also cut away the potrusion underneath it.
But I am wondering (as this is a multilayer board) Are there any traces hidden
in the potrusion? Ccould cutting away those 2mm do any harm...?
All the best,
Herbert
 

somebodyelse

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So I would like to desolder the USB-jack and also cut away the potrusion underneath it.
But I am wondering (as this is a multilayer board) Are there any traces hidden
in the potrusion? Ccould cutting away those 2mm do any harm...?
Unknown, and short of x-raying the board probably unknowable unless Khadas tell you. I'd worry about an accidental short between a ground and power plane too. Probably best to ask them on their forum.
 

Herbert

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Thanks, but they are also active over here. Many people probably bought the generic version and might have faced
the same issue, no need and no room for the USB-jack...
 

Esp3n89

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Hmm. Iv got my Khadas toneboard now, but Im getting a "hum" sounding that I can hear when i push the atom amp to the max. It has not been there with the other dacs Iv used. The hum is mainly at a 1000hz with its octaves upwards also sounding (but 1000hz is the loudest.) I was thinking could this be a groundloop hum? I live in Norway where the AC power cycles at 50hz. Any tests I could do to check this?

Scratch that. I removed the 3.5mm cable I have connected from the pc to the Atom amp secondary input and the sound disappeared...
 

JohnYang1997

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Hmm. Iv got my Khadas toneboard now, but Im getting a "hum" sounding that I can hear when i push the atom amp to the max. It has not been there with the other dacs Iv used. The hum is mainly at a 1000hz with its octaves upwards also sounding (but 1000hz is the loudest.) I was thinking could this be a groundloop hum? I live in Norway where the AC power cycles at 50hz. Any tests I could do to check this?
Are you sure 1000hz? That's not a hum.
 

Nango

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My KTB accepts USB audio from any otg mobile phone I attach to but it does not from a DAP Pioneer XDP-02U that has USB output too.

The iDSD accepts the USB from the XDP-02U with no probs. Other DAP/DAC accept it as well.

@willow Any ideas why the KTB does not???
 
Last edited:

zermak

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@Nango It's the Pioneer that doesn't recognize it and since the KTB is a standard USB audio interface I guess the problem is in the Pioneer side for some reason.
 

zermak

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Ask support to both Pioneer and Khadas. Someone will answer, eventually.
 

somebodyelse

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Well, the Pioneer feeds the iDSD, the HifimeDiY and Teac P90 with no problems.
The Pioneer manual lists only 2 compatible devices, with a plan to support more through firmware updates. We have no way of knowing what their firmware is looking for. It may have a list of 'supported' vendor and product IDs, known device strings, or just some combination of sample rates and bit depths, but without more info from Pioneer all we can do is speculate. Did the firmware come with more details about device support? Indications so far are that the Tone Board works as a UAC2 device with Mac, Linux and recent Windows 10 so it seems to be doing it right.
 
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