Tinkerbell got her mate

[Subbu68]

ASUS Tinker Board 2 S that featured in my earlier posts on installing LMS has a pet name Tinkerbell in my house.

Having named Tinkerbell, decided to get her a mate to fulfill the function as my streamer (can I call so?). After a lot of search, local Amazon was offering Khadas Tonebard VIM version at same price as US. Placed order on 21 Mar night. Got it in hand this afternoon shipped all the way from Phoenix US

Plugged it in to the USB of Tinkerbell. And a couple of restarts, opened Squeezer app on mobile and selected an album and clicked Play, it started singing. (Issue was LMS not mapping NAS).

Was using a ASUS USB C to 3.5mm headphone adaptor as DAC. The SQ was quite satisfying. But Tonebard seems to have removed a light veil. With the valve amp and Heresy IIIs I am hearing something more than PC and iFi?!!!

More tests later.

Khadas alone
Khadas mated to Tinkerbell

 

[MNX]

The KTB is a very clean sounding DAC.
Pretty impressive for the price.
What is the difference between the VIM version and normal one?

 

[Subbu68]

The KTB is a very clean sounding DAC.
Pretty impressive for the price.
What is the difference between the VIM version and normal one?

It is indeed clean sounding. As if a brush has been run over a shoe after one put self shine liquid on it.(literally try doing it, I was surprised with the result).

KTB VIM is specifically for Khadas VIM SBCs. It.comes with the GPIO soldered. Also I2S and. Touch screen connectors seem to be active. The SPDIF socket can be two way. You can get SPDIF OUT from Khadas SBC. Need to try feeding CD coax out to my KTB. Don't know how it switches from USB. There is a table in the link

https://www.khadas.com/tone1

Amazon UAE is selling to Prime member KTB VIM at near Khadas price while generic KTB (as Khadas call it) sold by 3rd party resellers on same Amazon (actually shipper) is 1.5 times VIM version price. So went in for VIM version.

. So went in for VIM version.

And if in future I got a Khadas SBC to utilise GPIO, need not buy another one. Thinking of it so Tinker becomes the main LMS plus a dongle DAC and be used as secondary player for desktop or tabletop radio and Khadas with Squeezelite can be main player.

 

[MNX]

Need to try feeding CD coax out to my KTB. Don't know how it switches from USB.

The KTB has higher priority for USB, and will switch to COAX if no signal is being fed by the USB.