Asus Tinker

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
NOTE: the link is now dead and "Asus Tinker" or the part number doesn't bring up any hits on the CPC UK web site.

Sure, I would like to get my hands on one of these to test it out, especially the quality of the onboard audio codec. It's more than twice as expensive as the R-Pi 3, so it remains to be seen if it is really worth it for the kind of audio processing that I do (IIR filtering).

Here is a nice detailed comparison between R-Pi 3 and the Tinker board:
www.cnx-software.com/2017/01/05/asus-tinker-board-is-a-raspberry-pi-3-alternative-based-on-rockchip-rk3288-processor/
 
Last edited:
I understand that, but it's still not enough to sway me.

I can buy a complete Pi system from IQ Audio, including his fantastic DAC, for £70

From Asus I can buy a board for £55, then have to buy SD, psu, case, etc. as well as some way of connecting the s/pdif 'hole' to an audio device, and all that without knowing that their OS is stable and bug-free, vs buying a cheaper, more tested and proven system.

Of course there will always be some other board to try and be the best. We've seen any number of clones, 'improved' Pi designs and competitors trying to move us on to a 'better' platform, and yet it's the Pi with the 5+M sales. There's a very good reason for that.

I'm sure that for some people this will be a boon, but I'm not one of them. There's nothing in this offering, for me, to change.

And you can't buy them.

Update: 17/02/2017
A member of the Asus Marketing team read this review and contacted Hackaday with some updated information. According to our discussion, the Tinker Board has not officially launched. This explains a lot about the current state of the Tinker Board. As Jenny mentions in her review below, the software support for the board is not yet in place, and as comments on this review have mentioned, you can’t source it in the US and most other markets. An internal slide deck was leaked on SlideShare shortly after CES (which explains our earlier coverage), followed by one retailer in the UK market selling the boards ahead of Asus’ launch date (which is how we got our hands on this unit).
 
Member
Joined 2000
Paid Member
Last weekend I picked up an ASUS Tinker Board (TB), Verbatim Pro+ microSD card and RPi 3 box. Already had 2.5A micro USB power supply. Downloaded the Volumio version for Tinker Board. Connected to the Soekris DAM1021 DAC. Works great. Sounds great. Much better than RPi3. There is a lot of noise with the RPi3. TB is quiet and smooth.

It sounds as good as my $300+, external linear supply, 4gb RAM, onboard CPU with heat sink server. It is a good sounding server, but since installing the TB, I haven't felt the need to install the bigger server in the TBs place.

Total cost of the TB build is $100 US, plus tax.
Comes with a little heat sink too, which the RPi3 doesn't.
 
Member
Joined 2000
Paid Member
The $100 cost includes a power supply, which I already had, so it cost me $90.

Also of note is the TB has 1Gb Ethernet connection and 2Gb of DDR3 RAM.
Nice spring loaded sd card slot. Which I suppose can break, but whatever.

I would like to try the onboard outs to see how the TB sounds without an external DAC.
Might be good enough for casual listening. It was "not good" to "ok" with the RPi3, so I imagine the TB will be better in this respect as well.
 
Member
Joined 2000
Paid Member
Something lacking with the lows and highs in the RPi, although the mids were very pleasing. Just an overall more pleasing presentation with the Tinker Board (TB) in the chain. The Ethernet and USB use the same bus on the RPi, so there's bound to be some cross-talk there, although "cross-talk" is probably not the right way to describe it technically.

It's also nice to have the extra RAM. If you're into DXD or DSD, it helps, if you expand the buffers in the software. Could cause less gaps or blips.
Library refreshing is also nice with 1Gb connections.

I have the RPi doing all sorts of AV jobs in my house, even video surveillance. It's a great board. No doubt about it. I just got a 4K HDR TV last night. RPi3 running Kodi.
Can't do 4K. TB can upsample to 4K. I digress.

I'm not saying take my word for it. I'm sure the RPi is fine for you, but if you get the chance, try the TB. Just be open to it. Will fit right in your RPi case.


Vince
 
@vdi_nenna: Thanks for posting about the Tinker board. I just pulled the trigger on one to evaluate.

It is interesting that you mention that your DAC seems quieter on the Tinker compared to the Pi (if I understood your posts correctly). I wonder why that is - a USB peripheral is operating off of the supplied USB power, so I would think that the power supply is primarily determining the quality of the USB power. Other than that I am at a loss at why you think the DAC would sound "much better" than on the Pi. Any ideas about this on your part?
 
Member
Joined 2000
Paid Member
Perhaps it's not a sound quality issue to blame in the RPi. It's just 1s and 0s after all. Maybe when I listen to the RPi there is, how do I say this, a breakup of the packets being shared over the same bus as the USB. USB is known to be noisy anyway. Music streaming is UDP, right? Can't be full error checking or else things would be a real mess for audio and video. If incoming packets are being interrupted from the NAS, could that effect the sound quality? I'm not a hardware architect, so perhaps I'm wrong. I just know I can hear the difference.

To be fair to the RPi, I will try the RPi again. Will use the same power supply as used with the TB. Maybe there's a discrepancy there. Also using only USB between DAC and servers. Trying to use USB 2.0 where I can.

Vince
 
Perhaps it's not a sound quality issue to blame in the RPi. It's just 1s and 0s after all. Maybe when I listen to the RPi there is, how do I say this, a breakup of the packets being shared over the same bus as the USB. USB is known to be noisy anyway. Music streaming is UDP, right? Can't be full error checking or else things would be a real mess for audio and video. If incoming packets are being interrupted from the NAS, could that effect the sound quality? I'm not a hardware architect, so perhaps I'm wrong. I just know I can hear the difference.

To be fair to the RPi, I will try the RPi again. Will use the same power supply as used with the TB. Maybe there's a discrepancy there. Also using only USB between DAC and servers. Trying to use USB 2.0 where I can.

Vince

There are lots of steps, and places where you can get problems, if/when you use internet streaming audio as the source and listen to your USB DAC for audio quality. The stream is coming in via your internet connection and this is testing the quality of the LAN connection, whether it comes via WiFi or cable. The quality of this connection (or lack of it) can be a source of full dropouts, packet loss that leads to loss of quality, and so on. All of this is on the "source" side of things, so you seem to have included that in the overall evaluation of your DAC and the board(s). Once you are "on board" with your audio stream, the ability of the OS and hardware to keep the USB bus operating properly and the quality of the USB peripheral power (both +5V and GND) can also come into play.

I think if you repeated the test using an uncompressed WAV file or the like that you play from the SD card on both board, you will find no difference in the DAC sound quality from board to board. I would be quite surprised if you found any difference, and if you do I would start looking around for a problem.
 
Member
Joined 2000
Paid Member
I originally used "sneaker net" avoiding all network connectivity. I found very little different between a direct connected USB drive to Ethernet. I don't use compressed music, although I do like the internet radio stations out there. Great intros to new music. I wouldn't be as serious about internet streaming as I would about 16/44.
BTW- I'm not impressed by Tidal and I heard it in vastly better systems than mine.

I'm not above being fooled by my own brain and ears. It happens all the time, not just to me. I'll give it an honest try again with same PS and USB drive of same music on NAS and USB drive on the RPi and USB cable. I'd like to try GPIO and DAC I2S in the future.

However, if the TB still sounds better to me than the RPi, then I'm going say it.

I'm using the Amanero I2S board. If I understand correctly, one side uses the power of USB from the computer side? That true?
 
Member
Joined 2000
Paid Member
Plugged in the same power supply into the rpi . Sounds really great. I was starting to think maybe they are all the same, but unfortunately its not true. The Tinker outshines the rpi in too many areas. Too many areas to describe, but I'll give you one. Musicality. It souds like real people playing instruments. Rpi sounds more like mid hifi.

I'm sorry. I wish it were that easy: a $35 soc killer server, but it's not better than the Tinker at $60. Just isn't. Using same exact connections to the same gear, the Tinker wins.
Could my rpi be faulty? Maybe.

I welcome any of you guys to come hear it in my area. Just PM me. Bring a thumb drive...:D

Happy listening.

Vince
 
I finally set up the Tinker board that I bought. The process was easy, and similar to the Pi. In general use it seems much more "snappy" (responsive, faster) than the Raspberry Pi 3. All of the Tinker board hardware testing posted to the web bears this out - it's several times faster than the Pi, both CPU and GPU. At $50-$60 the Tinker board is worth the upcharge over the $35 Pi when using it as a small computer. The Tinker board does run hotter than the Pi by 5deg C or more, when using included heatsink (just sitting out on the desktop and not in a case it was over 50C after very light use).

I ran a quick tests both on the onboard sound, and using an ES9023 USB stereo soundcard that I know works pretty well on the Pi (so that I can compare measurements). This is just a spectrum and THD on a 1k test tone generated internally on the Tinker board. Conclusion: the onboard sound is somewhat noisy and not all that clean (not low distortion). That is about what I would expect for an onboard sound codec on a SBC, honestly. Even an under $50 external USB soundcard smokes it. On the other hand, for casual listening via headphones the onboard sound is just fine but I would not use it to send audio to my stereo.

The ES9023 card was almost exactly the same as on the Pi 3, so no difference there.

Measurements attached. If you are not sure which is which, you aren't paying attention.
 

Attachments

  • Asus Tinker onboard sound codec.PNG
    Asus Tinker onboard sound codec.PNG
    79 KB · Views: 459
  • Asus Tinker with PCM2706 ES9023 USB soundcard.PNG
    Asus Tinker with PCM2706 ES9023 USB soundcard.PNG
    77.8 KB · Views: 435
Last edited:
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.