HOLO Audio Spring DAC - R2R DSD512

[wanta911]

Happy New Year!

 

I have an issue with the USB input on my Spring 3 KTE that was delivered in late September. Usually I feed it either USB from my 2015 MacBook Air using Audirvana for headphone listening or AES from my streamer/MiniDSP room correction setup for speaker listening and have had zero issues.

 

Anyway, yesterday I got a new MacBook Air with the M1 processor and USB C outputs. I have both USB C to USB A adapters and a USB C hub so I thought it shouldn’t be a problem - I thought wrong! Every time I connect to the Spring my MacBook crashes, I have tried different adapters, a USB hub, different USB cables, different powering on routines but the same result every time.

 

So I started to curse Apple (a lot) before I thought about trying a different DAC with the new Mac. It’s a good thing I’m a DAC hoarder and too lazy to flip my stash.

 

Using just a $15 USB C to USB A adapter it all worked flawlessly with every other DAC I tried:

 

Topping D10S

Topping D70

RME ADI 2

Chord Qutest

 

So the issue is unique to the Spring.

 

I've contacted my dealer and asked him to contact Holo Audio. I know there are USB firmware updates but surely they are for Windows and not Mac OS?

 

Just thought I'd post the issue here in case anyone has any experience with this?

[wanta911]

22 hours ago, Bimmer100 said:

There are firmware updates that address the issues with macOS. However they require a windows pc to load the firmware. Your issue will be addressed if you can get access to a windows pc, or use emulator on your Mac to run windows OS. Like boot camp or parallels.
 

the newest firmware is 31.42 and will be on our site soon. Albeit 31.40 also addresses the issue you mentioned.

 

Excellent! Thanks, I'll download it and give it a try...I have a Windows laptop handy.

[wanta911]

23 hours ago, Bimmer100 said:

 

the newest firmware is 31.42 and will be on our site soon. Albeit 31.40 also addresses the issue you mentioned.

 

 

I just tried updating the firmware with 31.40, I followed all the instructions with level changes to get into configuration mode but it didn't work when I executed the bat file.

 

File not found

Start updating firmware with and 'xprog' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Update firmware failed.

[wanta911]

4 hours ago, SwissBear said:

Please make sure you have extracted the zip file you downloaded before trying to update and you launch the update process from the extracted folder.

 Doh! Yes that did it - thanks for the reminder on how to use a computer properly LOL

 

MacBook now connected without crashing. Thanks to @Bimmer100 for the fix 👍