Khadas Tone 2 Pro has just been announced and its specs and features revealed. Some of you might recall the original Khadas Tone Board, which at the moment of its release matched the sound fidelity of more expensive products, but was a barebone DAC board without many features, and even the case was sold separately. Now, that’s all to change with Tone 2 Pro.
Firstly, gone is the Board from the name since you now get an attractive aluminium chassis. But that’s not all, the headphone output is added this time around, both single-ended and the balanced one too. Even more, custom made RCA connectors support balanced connection while being backward compatible with the regular single-ended RCA. Headphone functionality wouldn’t be complete without the volume control, so a physical volume knob is present. Finally, two USB-C ports are present this time, one for signal and power, the second one for auxiliary power or Bluetooth receiver. Yet, with all these connection options, Khadas Tone 2 Pro somehow manages to keep a very slim profile.
Looking at the spec list, a well known Sabre ESS ES9038Q2M D/A converter is kept and paired with four OPA1612 operational amplifiers. XMOS XU216 processor enables full MQA decoding for high-quality web streaming.
Khadas Tone 2 Pro will set you back for $169 and it’s already up for a preorder on the product page. I’ll be testing and making the review as soon as I get my unit. Until then, you would maybe like to refresh your memory with the original Khadas Tone Board review.