That looks awesome 
… much more better than golden edges
2 Likes
Tone2 Pro includes a balanced 4.4 mm headphone jack, how many pins is the connector, would this cable be correct?
Yep, T2P follow the standard 4.4mm pinout with 5 pins:
- 2 pins for Left -/+
- Another 2 pins for Right -/+
- The remaining 1 pin for Ground.
Good day!
Hello All,…
I finaly red all posts and as some peoples here, I’m also a little disappointed, in fact doubly disappointed…
I have a VIM2 with Tone1 (formerly named Tone-Board) and was impatient to have the possibility to order Tone 2 Pro Bare-bone for my VIM3.
Unfortunatly I could read that Bare-bone T2P will not exist, instead we can, in the future (Q1 2021) order a Tone2 with less performances…
Tone2 is XMOS XU208 embeded (as Tone1), ES9038Q2M DAC ONLY (as Tone1), T2P has DAC + HPA, and with MQA support on XMOS XU216, Tone2 is completely proprietary RCA connectors for balanced line-out (As T2P) which oblige the owner to buy more proprietary convertor cables !
So future T2 is in fact a Tone1 with proprietary RCA connectors !!! (no advantages and all disadvantages)
It is clear that T2P is a very High Performance/Quality product and will satisfy many owners and I was eager to have the possibility to order T2P Bare-bone.
But why keep waiting Q1 2021 Khadas VIMs owners for a Tone1 equivalent performance Bare-bone, I don’t understand !
I’m sorry to tell you, as @ParasKPatel said, that I will also stick with my Tone1 Bare-bone unless Tone2 Bare-bone has the same performances as T2P !
Hi @DerFu
The Tone2 will with similar performance with the Tone2 Pro and also support balanced RCA.
Good day!
1 Like
So, Silimar or different ???
Do you have any plans to introduce a bluetooth module that supports Bluetooth 5.2?
It would be interesting to be able to test Bluetooth LE Audio and the LC3 codec, when new earphones become available…
I totally agree with your assessment. If Khadas wanted to really make a “true” Tone2 dev board, might as well go all the way and upgrade to an ES9068AS + XU216 + OPA1612. It would be pricier for sure, but that would be a next-gen board. I do like the balanced RCA though.
1 Like
Mqa only licenses to fully finished products. No DIY stuff, just like many other companies. Most Hypex modules for example. So they can’t possibly give the bare board the same performance. Also without MQA. There’s no reason to use XMOS 216. As far as a head phone amp goes. That’s up to you to decide if you want one, or not. That’s what DIY is all about. The ability to customize to your taste. So basically I’m saying it wasn’t up to them to decide, and there’s no point in being upset with them at all. It’s not their fault. It’s the MQA guys that are to blame.
3 Likes
Can we have impressions? Do the two HP outs hiss with sensitive IEMs?
Hello All,…
@HH_Scott, thank’s for your technical intervention regarding MQA Licences 
…
Far from me the idea of blaming anyone, I could read that many peoples here are trying to undersatnd what will be the Bare-bone T2 performances comparatively to T2P’s, just trying to undestand why in some posts it is said that T2 is similar to T2P and in some others T2 is different to T2P…
If the future Bare-bone T2 has only I2S USB-C and RCA-Balanced connexions without any other hardware ships évolution, I agree @destine1 post, and for me Bare-bone T1 is enought…
As you said @HH_Scott, “Mqa only licenses to fully finished products”, why could’nt Khadas develop a T2P Bare-bone, in a screwed metal box as the one that it is sold for the T1, like that, if someone want to use it as a “fully finished product”, he could, and if someone want to use it as a Bare-bone, he also could use it like that… no more MQA licences problems because T2P Bare-bone will be sold as a fully finished product …
Finally Available: 
FYI:
- If you didn’t register, you can still get $20-off until 2020-12-18 (coupon code: tone2pro20)!
- If you registered, we will email you a $30-off coupon code valid till 2020-12-31!
6 Likes
What exactly do you mean by “performance”? DAC is not about performance, but about features and quality. I suppose that T2P adds many new features and hopefully also some improvements in quality. T2 will probably have just similar features as T1 (maybe also adding the rotary encoder? or a header for a custom encoder?), but hopefully also slightly improved quality (if anything can be still improved). My hope is that T2 will have more usable pin headers, but let’s see. I am also worried about non-standard RCA and non-standard use of USB-C for I2S (will something possibly get burned if I plug something else into the I2S connector by mistake?).
And what do you mean by “T2P Bare-bone, in a screwed metal box”? That is either a contradiction or exactly what T2P is.
Still, I wonder who wants to use MQA? It means just worse quality (compared to 24bit FLACs at 96-192kHz) for more money and with dangerous licensing and technical limitations added on top. Just another marketing trap for squeezing money from people.
When is Bal-RCA to XLR-3 Male available?
I see it listed in https://www.khadas.com/tone-add-ons but no way to add to cart.
I may also be worthwhile mentioning, that DSD capability on tone2 (and perhaps tone 1 also after update to firmware v2.0??) may not be recognized on all linux systems as the usb audio sound driver needs to have been updated. The quirks list case (quirks.c) needs to have the new Khadas VID-PID added.
Latest 4.19, 5.4, 5.9 and 5.10 kernel versions seem to have it, any other kernel used must be patched. Just gone through checking all the Volumio versions on various platforms. We will be updating them.
1 Like
Yep, we’ve committed the patch ot upstream linux, more info here.
Thanks for the kind remind.
Good day!
Yep, the Bal RCA cable will be ready sometime in this week.
Good day!
Hello @wanthalf,…
Maybe I’ve misuse the term “performance” instead of upgrade, and as you can read up there, T2P is really a T1 hardware evolution (XMOS XU216 instead of XMOS XU208) (I’m talking about T1 because at the moment I’m writing these lines T2 does not still exist)…
At this Time nobody can exactly say what T2 bare-bone will be, even @Gouwa didn’t clearly answer to one of my question here after he said :
If you do as I did, read all posts up here, what comes out is that T2 will be a T1 with only RCA-Balanced … personnaly, I’ll stick with my old T1 (firmware 2.0 embeded) on my VIM2Pro and maybe buy another one for my VIM3Pro, nothing at home is RCA-balanced compatible !
At your question :
As the two T1 models (one stand-alone and on VIM bare-bone model with pin header), Khadas could have put T2P, pin header welded, in a finished screwed boxed product, so that anyone would want to use it as T2P Bare-bone on a VIM could do it by unscrew the box and place the board on his VIM…
For your others questions and reflexions, only a Khadas Team member as @Gouwa can answer…
Regards,
1 Like