AudioCircle

Audio/Video Gear and Systems => Cheap and Cheerful HiFi => Topic started by: charmerci on 24 Sep 2019, 04:44 am

Title: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: charmerci on 24 Sep 2019, 04:44 am
So I bought one based on recommendations here. I was letting it play trying to get to 100 hours break-in, hoping the high end harshness (I'm sensitive to that) would go away. Suddenly the thing simply stops playing. The Khadas team says it's "sensitive to momentary USB instability." Seriously, for $100 bucks? A loose circuit board that will be sensitive (to vibration) in a sound system? Other people have suggested another USB-C cable. I just bought it. To return it, you have to send it back to China too!
Sorry - NOT recommended!

https://forum.khadas.com/t/my-tone-board-just-stopped/5404/8 (https://forum.khadas.com/t/my-tone-board-just-stopped/5404/8)
Title: Re: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: wushuliu on 24 Sep 2019, 06:02 am
Sorry to hear that. Pretty sure I didn't recommend it! It's just another typical ESS dac based on the cheaper mobile chips that somehow became the flavor of the month. Now I don't hear so much about them.

Sensitive to USB? Lol, just like the ODAC, another pinnacle of perfect objective performance.

I've been wary of USB-C since I had some issues with my Sabaj DA3's connection as well as my cell phone charger. There seems to be a lot of very crappy quality USB-C cables in the market.
Title: Re: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: JohnR on 24 Sep 2019, 08:13 am
What is this month's flavor...?
Title: Re: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: slash71 on 24 Sep 2019, 09:06 am
the tone board I think is an affordable-fi, assembled on top of a  VIM3 with Roon bridge endpoint installed  it sound excellent.. pure DSD flavour for my ears!
I'm sorry for your issue  , 100bucks ? anything  cheap,   open an rma I'm sure to be worth the effort..
Title: Re: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: charmerci on 24 Sep 2019, 11:14 am
Sorry to hear that. Pretty sure I didn't recommend it! It's just another typical ESS dac based on the cheaper mobile chips that somehow became the flavor of the month. Now I don't hear so much about them.

Sensitive to USB? Lol, just like the ODAC, another pinnacle of perfect objective performance.

I've been wary of USB-C since I had some issues with my Sabaj DA3's connection as well as my cell phone charger. There seems to be a lot of very crappy quality USB-C cables in the market.

ODAC - I've had one for years, plugged and unplugged it  over a 100 times and had no problem with it. Sounds OK. Small and convenient.


Gosh, maybe I should have saved my money and just used the ODAC.....
Title: Re: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: wushuliu on 25 Sep 2019, 07:55 pm
What is this month's flavor...?

No longer paying much attention now that my Soekris (re)build is complete. I do see that SMSL has a spiffy ES9038Pro DAC with XMOS 216 (upgrade from 208) w/MQA all for just $400. So that sounds like a contender, at least until something even cheaper appears by year's end.
Title: Re: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: ttan98 on 30 Sep 2019, 03:41 am
No longer paying much attention now that my Soekris (re)build is complete. I do see that SMSL has a spiffy ES9038Pro DAC with XMOS 216 (upgrade from 208) w/MQA all for just $400. So that sounds like a contender, at least until something even cheaper appears by year's end.
SMSL model is: SMSL M500 DAC MQA ES9038PRO ES9311 XMOS XU-216, US$399, any reviews yet?
Title: Re: Khadas Tone Board DAC - cheap, yes....
Post by: charmerci on 30 Sep 2019, 04:22 am
Oh yeah, the engineers on the Khadas site thought it was a problem with the board and not the cable, so I had to send it back to China at a cost of $15.
Sounded pretty good while it did work.