Khadas Tone High Resolution Audio Board is Designed for Khadas VIM/VIM2, PCs, and Other SBCs

Khadas VIM and Khadas VIM2 are development boards powered respectively by Amlogic S905x and S912 processors that come with decent software support.

The company also provides application specific add-on boards for their SBCs, and a while ago, I reviewed VIM2 with their dual tuner board and showed how to stream videos from my satellite dish or terrestrial antenna to the local network. Their latest solution is Khadas Tone board for high-quality audio applications.

Khadas Tone Board — Tone Board connected to Khadas VIM/VIM2 board – Click to Enlarge

Khadas Tone “VIMs Edition” specifications:

Multicore MCU – XMOS XU208-128-QF48 with 8x xCORE-200 cores up to 500 MIPS
DAC – ES9038Q2M 32-Bit Stereo Mobile Audio DAC
THD+N – ≤ 0.000337% @1KHz
SNR – ≥ 120dB @ 10Hz~20KHz
DNR – ≥ 120dB @ 10Hz~20KHz
Crosstalk – ≥ 127dB @ 10Hz~20KHz
Frequency Response – ±0.08 dB @ 10Hz~20KHz
Sampling Frequency
- PCM: Up to 768KHz @ 32bit
- DSD: Up to DSD256 @ 1bit
Clock Jitter
- Reference Clock Jitter < 3ps
- Data Clock Jitter < 30 ps
Audio Formats – APE2, FLAC, OGG, WAV, ACC, ALAC, MP3, WMA…
Line Out – 1x Red RCA for Right, 1 x White RCA for Left
S/PDIF – IN – Up to 192KHz
S/PDIF OUT – Yes
FPC Connectors
- 30-pin 0.5mm pitch for 8 channels extension
- 10-Pin 0.5mm pitch for VIMs I2S extension
- 10-Pin 0.5mm pitch for OLED display
Expansion headers
- 40-pin 2.54mm pitch female header
- 20-pin 2.54mm pitch female header
Indicator – 1x White LED
Power – 5V/500mA via USB type C port
Mounting Holes – 5x M2 size
Dimensions – 82.0 x 74.5 x 24.0 mm

There’s also a “generic edition” version with most of the same audio specifications, except for the lack of S/PDIF output, and some other differences for example the expansion headers are not soldered. The VIMs edition board works with with Khadas VIM boards, while the generic one can be used with Windows/Linux/Mac OS PC, or Raspberry Pi boards (or other Arm Linux SBCs).

The board comes with a user manual, a screw set, and a USB type C cable for power. The company says it works with Android (44.1KHz output max), LibreELEC, and Linux distributions with Volumio. You’ll find some more details on the product page.

If you’re interested, both the VIMs and Generic edition have just been listed on GeekBuying where they are sold for $99 including shipping.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.