HOLO Audio Spring DAC - R2R DSD512

[matthias]

Thanks for reporting, very interesting.

Did someone listen to it?

 

Matt

[matthias]

Looks like one of the first DSD512 DAC with I2S input!

 

Yes, I2S is nice, but why uses this DAC an AK4137 Sample Rate Converter?

Is PCM converted to DSD or DSD converted to PCM?

This does not make sense at all!

 

Matt

[matthias]

May I remind you that it has also a NOS mode which bypass any digital oversampling.

 

So do you think the AK4137 can be COMPLETELY bypassed for PCM AND DSD?

 

Matt

[matthias]

May I remind you that it has also a NOS mode which bypass any digital oversampling.

 

With diverse and flexible sampling mode conversion mode

1: NOS mode , no digital oversampling, the raw data is directly converted to analog. Because digital oversampling will produce time-domain distortions such as ringing, so NOS avoid these problems. Generally NOS mode other performance indicators have a significant impact, but the Spring is designed to allow top performance while in NOS mode.

2: OS mode , the PCM super-sampled PCM higher frequency, the DSD DSD supersampling to higher frequency, then digital to analog converter.

3: OS PCM mode , enter either PCM or DSD input, all the way to the PCM oversampling analog to digital conversion.

4: OS DSD mode , enter either PCM or DSD input over all sampled DSD approach to digital to analog converter.

 

 

Yes, the AK4137 seems not to work in NOS mode.

 

Matt

[matthias]

The AK4137 Sample Rate Converter is limited to DSD256.

 

Matt

[matthias]

5 hours ago, Bimmer100 said:

Also will include a src in case you would like to listen to dsd converted to pcm.

 

Does the DSD only version have the SRC too for converting PCM to DSD?

 

Matt

[matthias]

58 minutes ago, Veri said:

Hey guys. I have a spring coming soon, very hyped. 

 

Do you get a Spring1 or Spring2?

 

Matt

[matthias]

36 minutes ago, josephs said:

"Personally I would not strongly recommend anyone to “upgrade” from spring1 to spring2 since it’s a somewhat small difference imho."

 

As an owner of the KTE Spring DAC the statement above are simply words of a truly honest dealer who is not just looking to take the consumers money as far as I'm concerned. 

What more could one ask for? Nothing, as far as I'm concerned. Thank you for the clarification.

 

 

Please compare to this remark as well:

Matt

[matthias]

2 hours ago, ferenc said:

The Holo Spring 2 is coming up nicely and warming. I like it a lot even at 786 kHz or DSD256x. Really shimmering, organic sound, with a lot of energy in it. 

 

Which version do you have: L1, L2 or KTE?

Thanks

 

Matt

[matthias]

On ‎1‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 9:03 PM, ferenc said:

After roughly 36 hours of playing the new Holo Spring 2 just getting better. Every potential way. Sounds really entertaining, balanced and fluid even with rock, pop and punk music, with really anything Tidal can get in it in shuffle play. 

 

Hi ferenc,

 

just read your interesting post about your MBP with Elgato dock on WBF.

 

My questions:

Does the Spring2 sound better connected directly to the Elgato or directly to the MBP?

If it sounds better via Elgato is it better to have a long Thunderbolt cable from MBP  to Elgato and a short USB cable from Elgato to Spring2 or the contrary?

Thanks

 

Matt

[matthias]

1 hour ago, ferenc said:

Did not notice any difference with longer TB3.

 

So when using the MBP/Elgato with a 2m distance to the DAC it may be a SQ benefit to run a 2m length TB3 cable from MBP and place the Elgato close to the DAC?

Thanks again

 

Matt

[matthias]

9 hours ago, ferenc said:

The Singer SU-1 somehow and definitely sounds with a bit more juice through not only the I2S but the Coax as well in NOS mode and with 44,1k Tidal streaming or Flac files in Roon. Interesting. 

 

So even with the Spring2 the USB is some sort of bottleneck though they said it is much improved in comparison to Spring1?

 

Matt

 

[matthias]

15 minutes ago, barrows said:

USB audio quality is drastically improved when the USB source is improved.  Do not make the mistake of supposing a USB input is a "problem" unless you are sure you are already using the best possible USB source.

 

Yes, absolutely source first rules.

But when @ferenc puts the Singxer.between the source and the Holo and it sounds better.......

 

Matt

[matthias]

6 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

My measurements are made with my regular Xeon workstation feeding Spring 2. I don't see bottlenecks, but maybe someone else can show...

 

 

I trust you and appreciate your measurements but there seem quite a few people who report that the Singxer into Spring sounds better than USB Spring. Why?

 

Matt

[matthias]

25 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

How can I tell if my USB module is older or newer? My Spring is a couple of years old.

 

The newer one should be this:

https://wildism-audio-hk.myshopify.com/blogs/news/holo-audio-xmos-xu208-spring-dsd-r2r-dac

 

Matt

[matthias]

41 minutes ago, ferenc said:

 

I tried the 1.536 kHz 16 bit with HQplayer. It works. However, if I try higher than 16, 17 bit for example, I got the same distortion as with Core Audio, does not matter with what kind of algorithm and noise shaping. 

 

It can mean few things: 

 

- HQplayer is using the same Core Audio (or AV Foundation) built-in up conversion, I do not think so. 

- There is a general problem with the USB connection at this bitrate

- There is a problem with the Holo firmware or the hardware itself. 

 

In my Spring2 thread Miska mentioned that the Spring is not able to settle to 24bit accuracy at 1,5MHz. If I recall correctly he said he would be surprised if the Spring can settle perfectly even at 16bit 1.5MHz.

 

Matt

 

[matthias]

5 minutes ago, ferenc said:

 

It sounds perfectly ok in 16 bit 1.536 kHz. It could be use in 24 bit or higher only max at 768 kHz.

 

IMO, this makes perfect sense.

1,5MHz is too high to settle at more than 16bit.

The problem is the R2R architecture.

 

Matt

[matthias]

14 hours ago, Miska said:

 

With Holo Audio DACs you can run standalone with on-board DSP if you want.......

 

Miska,

do you know if the May uses the AK4137 SRC chip as well for on-board DSP?

Thanks

 

Matt

[matthias]

42 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Miska,

do you know if the May uses the AK4137 SRC chip as well for on-board DSP?

Thanks

 

Matt

 

@Bimmer100?

Thanks

 

Matt

 

[matthias]

33 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

True, also DAC dependant. 

 

I found DSD upsampling sounded too soft with iFi DACs (from iDAC2 to Pro iDSD).

 

But not too soft with my V2 RME-ADI-2 in 'DSD Direct' mode.

 

Modulator makes big difference I found too - ASDM7 vs ASDM7EC . DSD still sounds smoother than PCM for  me but that might be due to lack of anti aliasing images! 

 

I recall a post of @holswhere he describes the differences between DSD and high rate PCM:

 

"Actually it's difficult to describe the PCM1411.2. I can try to explain in the following manner. I tend to think that from 44.1 to 705.6 the improvement is along the same line, i.e increase in detail but without much change in character. But reaching 1411.2 there seems to be a change of character of the SQ. The most obvious is you tend to focus on individual instruments because they are so real and full of feelings so much so that you won't be paying too much attention to the whole orchestra. It is like you see more of the tree but not the forest as a whole. The details of the tree is portrayed beautifully and as musical as DSD. The music phrases comes out beautifully, the change in tone also brought out beautifully and there is not much air between the different instruments. In DSD I would think the image is larger and feels more juicy, a bit more harmonics but the flow as not as swift as in PCM.

To me this is a new experience and I think it may need maybe some specific filters to further bring out its benefits.

 

If I can start again from the very beginning I would probably go for PCM upsampling rather than DSD because the demand on computer is much less and there is a high potential to get equal satisfaction on musical feeling as in DSD. YMMV"

 

Matt

[matthias]

2 hours ago, hols said:

Hi Matt,

 

It was purely a coincidence that one day before this post I have upgraded my L2 Holo Spring to L2 Holo May. As outlined in the posts in the other threads I have growing interests in playing PCM 1411 in my Denafrips Terminator Plus and it is quite natural to make a comparison with the other R2R DAC that can also play PCM 1411 i.e. Holo May(also the Spring2). I have been quite surprised that in the 10 months or so since the May was out there was not much talks about how its high sampling rate PCM sounded. And I finally understand why as it is not an easy job to play PCM1411 in Holo May.

 

I have been using HQplayer(Taiko extreme Windows) and also HQP embedded(Linux system)to upsample to PCM1411 and I used to set it to 24 bits as T+ is a 26 bit DAC and there is no problem playing PCM1411 with T+. When I changed to May it returns some clearly distorted sound. The sound is normal if I play 705.6 but once I set to 1411 it returns some distorted sound. I tried setting it to 20 bits but sound is still distorted and finally I read through the threads here in AS and realized that Miska has illustrated that one has to turn it down to 16 bits before one can play PCM1411. And that is not the end of the story because if I use the Taiko extreme (set to 16 bits)to play PCM 1411 there is cracked high frequency sound but there is no such sound if I use Linux HQPe. We all know that there is a Windows Thesycon driver that comes with Holo but no Linux driver(usual practice). What's intriguing is that why with the Thesycon driver that comes with T+ there is no problem playing 24 bit 1411 with T+ but with the Thesycon driver that comes with May it can't even play PCM 1411 at 16bit in May? So is it a driver problem or is it the capability of the DAC ?  I still don't have an answer. But it seems it is a real pity that May cannot play PCM 1411 smoothly because when successfully played it gives an excellent sound as I shall briefly outline my impression below.

 

Although both T+ and May are R2R DAC the character of the two can be said to be totally different and I am only focusing on PCM1411. T+ gives a very transparent and detailed yet very natural sound. You can imagine its like you are amongst the musicians in the orchestra. You can literally hear 80 or so musicians making music together while in May you are hearing a very smooth sound with a group of violins or cellos playing in tutti. The phrasing is well displayed in both DACs but the T+ tends to give you a "let the music speak by itself" feeling while the phrasing from May is more emotional or a little more exaggerated than the real thing. The brass and woodwinds are obviously more rich in timbre in May than in T+ but surprisingly you can definitely hear more details with T+ because there is some really excellent inner clarity. It clearly represents two vastly different philosophy of sound and there is no right or wrong and both can achieve an excellent outcome although at this juncture I would say I prefer T+ to May. This is clearly an early impression of May since it is only sounding for little more than 2 weeks. I am sure it will further improve and hope that I can solve the problem of playing it smoothly in PCM high sampling rates. 

I am not commercially associated with both DACs. YMMV. 

 

 

 

Thank you @holsfor this update, much appreciated ☺️

 

Matt

[matthias]

7 hours ago, barrows said:

This seems like an epic fail for the (not inconsiderably priced) JCat USB card?  Really?  If I had purchased this card and encountered that a MoBo port was working better, i would be demanding the JCat card be fixed or my money be refunded.  What does JCat say about this?

 

JCAT provides only "Supports all lossless formats and sample rates".

What are the highest sample rates for PCM and DSD with Sonore?

Thanks

 

Matt

[matthias]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

The Truth (Hornshoppe) passive preamp

 

AFAIK, it is a preamp with no gain, a pure buffer one but not a passive one.

 

Matt

[matthias]

44 minutes ago, GoldenOne said:

It has upto 6dB gain

 

Yes, you are right. My point was that it is not a passive one.

 

Matt

[matthias]

How big is the difference in SQ between the RCA and XLR analog output of Spring 3?

 

Thank you

 

Matt