His measurements and perceptions are in-line with mine (though much more precise given he’s spent 150x as much as I have on test equipment). The Tone2 Pro does seem to benefit a bit from Roon’s upsampling DSP. I am satisfied with power from the internal headphone amp, especially with external power.
Sound from the single-ended RCA outputs is excellent, so I’m really looking forward to hearing what it can do when my balanced cables arrive.
Maybe possible to use balanced headphone out to powered balanced input monitors?
With right adapters
My understanding is you can get “special” firmware from Khadas that allows you to control line out volume via the dreaded knob.
That’s nice of them hehe.
Something like this could work but would need longer length going to power monitors
Output level may be an issue too.
Bring them by!
Mine shipped today…so I should have them in a couple of weeks.
I guess this Khadas Tone2 Pro could work well for me.
My current headphone setup, driving a Sennheiser HD 660S and Sony MDR-1AM2 in combination with a Rpi 4 - 4GB and iFi Hip Dac powered by an iFi iPower. Both headphones through a Pentacon 4.4 plug.
What speakers?
Passive or active?
I remember you’re doing Acourate/Audiolense room EQ right?
Yes. I’m hoping to have a friend bring over his Hip DAC so that we can do some A/B listening. The iFi has more power on tap than the Khadas, but at normal listening levels, it will be interesting.
The Khadas does seem to benefit from having its own 5V power source since, unlike the iFi, it has no internal battery. I’m currently using the 3A tap on the Allo Shanti LPS to power the RPi4 and the 1A as secondary power for the Tone2 Pro (via “I2S” input). A $160 LPS for a $200 DAC seems a little nutty, but it works really well. 
Haha. I totally understand, that’s the reason I’m not using a spare 5V/3A Sbooster BotW PSU for this setup. 2,5A iFi iPower is doing fine.
I did read that the Hip Dac has more power to drive.
Interested in a comparison!
They are passive. Fritz Carrera 7 BE with REL T7i subs just to add a little room pressurization. Yes, I’m using Acourate from AudioVero. I’m one of @Mitch_Barnett 's disciples.
hi,
i have some questions, if i can :
i would like to know if it is possible to connect it directly to a nuc where roon is installed with ubuntu as os.
Does Linux natively recognize this dac?
Does roon recognize the dac connected via usb?
Can you tell me if this dac will be certified by Roon?
thanks and sorry for the many questions!
hello and good evening
Yes, but connecting a USB DAC to Core is not a Roon best practice if sound quality is a priority.
Yes. Building small computers that run Linux is kind-of Khadas’ thing. In this case, the Tone2 Pro is not just a USB audio interface but also a human interface device with control over play/pause/skip. The Linux kernel recognizes this feature, but a Roon Extension would be required for this functionality to work remotely, as there is no Roon desktop app for LInux.
Yes
The Khadas folks would need to create an account on Roon’s Partner page and then send the Tone2 Pro in for testing. I have suggested to them that they do so, but I do not know if they have or plan to. It would be nice to have default settings for the DAC and a nice little icon, but besides that, as I’ve already said, everything works as advertised.
It’s here!!!
what a great little toy, really! i got it in blue! 
Can I ask you how to best configure it with roon?
I would suggest that you set both “Enable MQA core decoder” and “Force max volume at playback start” to “Yes” Otherwise, this looks great.
Although this is a full MQA decoding DAC, allowing Core to do the first unfold is a better division of labor between server and DAC. It also enables you do do things like volume leveling and room correction convolution.
Force max playback start is almost always a good idea for DACs with their own volume controls, especially when used in conjunction with “Fixed volume” setting for Volume control.
Edit: for DSP settings, I’ve configured Roon’s “Sepaker setup” DSP to invert the phase of the DAC. For some reason the Tone2 Pro inverts absolute phase, so this corrects that.
I’ve also taken a more relaxed approach to upsampling. Asking Core to upsample everything to 705.6/784 kHz creates a lot of busy work with little benefit. I’ve found the sweetspot for PCM upsampling with the Tone2 is closer to 176.4/192 kHz, so I’m using these custom rules:
My balanced cables finally arrived today. I ordered both lengths. I’ll use the short ones with my THX AAA 789 headphone amp and the longer ones in the big rig.
I will say that there’s a much bigger difference in noise level than I expected between standard RCA and these balanced RCA cables. With good quality standard RCA (Straight Wire Virtuoso R2), when I place my ear to the tweter, I hear a fair bit of hiss from the DAC with my Emotiva XSP-1 preamp set to unity gain (0.0 dB). Switching to the balanced cable, the hiss is gone.
thank you so much, but I think I’m messing up… can I ask you if you post your device setup images?
PS: where do you find these settings?
That’s under DSP → Sample rate conversion → Custom
My Device setup screens look identical to yours except that I said “Yes” for “Enable MQA core decoder” and “Force max volume at playback start”
Hi,
My iFi iPower X arrived today and I was surprised at how well it works!
It has eliminated some annoying screeching that I used to hear on high pitched voices.
I’m super satisfied.
