HOLO Audio Spring DAC - R2R DSD512

[pkane2001]

1 minute ago, elan120 said:

This sounds like the case here...on the other hand, the hew Holo driver playing upsampled DSD512 seem to be quite good.  I will need to take some more time to see whether it is same or better than the Singxer driver.

 

Curious to hear if it's any better than the new Singxer driver... although I find this hard to imagine, since they are most likely based on the same XMOS driver template.

 

[Bimmer100]

20 minutes ago, elan120 said:

This sounds like the case here...on the other hand, the hew Holo driver playing upsampled DSD512 seem to be quite good.  I will need to take some more time to see whether it is same or better than the Singxer driver.

Same  

comparison wont be worth the effort to be honest. I believe the version on our site has a Kitsunetuned logo on the systray icon. I might update the singxer driver to have a different systray icon than a generic window. Personally I think it’s hard to see or distinguish the program with that icon being so generic

 

My of has over 20 items in the systray. I like having the kitsune logo as it’s easy to spot in midst of many programs in the systray 

[Bimmer100]

2 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Curious to hear if it's any better than the new Singxer driver... although I find this hard to imagine, since they are most likely based on the same XMOS driver template.

 

No, don’t bother wasting your time

[Bimmer100]

On 12/13/2017 at 2:23 PM, Boleary3 said:

I have an opportunity to hear this DAC, Kitsune edition,  in my room but have a few questions. I currently have an Yaggdrasil and I don't use a pre-amp. Volume is controlled digitally via XXHighEnd playback software. Can the HOLO DAC be run without a pre-amp? Anyone tried it? Thanks in advance for replies.

Depends on your gear. One of my setups I have a KTE spring and elac element amp to power elac uf5 slim towers. Another setup I use a iFi pro ican which actually can be used as a killer preamp  

 

we recommend you strongly consider XLR balanced with your amp to pre amp. Sound quality will be optimal and much better common mode noise rejection. But it’s not the end of the world if you have to use rca SE. however if you are in the market to buy new gear than choose balanced!  And I don’t want to start any argument with anyone about balance vs single ended.: spare me, spare us all.  My recommendations stand for xlr/balanced.

[pkane2001]

34 minutes ago, Bimmer100 said:

Depends on your gear. One of my setups I have a KTE spring and elac element amp to power elac uf5 slim towers. Another setup I use a iFi pro ican which actually can be used as a killer preamp  

 

we recommend you strongly consider XLR balanced with your amp to pre amp. Sound quality will be optimal and much better common mode noise rejection. But it’s not the end of the world if you have to use rca SE. however if you are in the market to buy new gear than choose balanced!  And I don’t want to start any argument with anyone about balance vs single ended.: spare me, spare us all.  My recommendations stand for xlr/balanced.

 

I'm not going to argue SE vs. balanced  as I use balanced from Holo Spring into my mono block, balanced amps. Works like a charm, and sounds better than with any of the preamps I've tried.

 

When driving amps directly from a DAC, you'll need to be careful about the software/PC volume control. I use HQPlayer volume control, but I had to disable all other sounds in the system, as these would bypass HQP and play at FULL VOLUME into the DAC and into my speakers. Not a pleasant experience when some notification pops-up on your PC at full blast! Since there is no hardware volume control in the system, it is very important to ensure that the software volume is always at a safe level.

 

 

 

[elcorso]

1 hour ago, Bimmer100 said:

Depends on your gear. One of my setups I have a KTE spring and elac element amp to power elac uf5 slim towers. Another setup I use a iFi pro ican which actually can be used as a killer preamp  

 

we recommend you strongly consider XLR balanced with your amp to pre amp. Sound quality will be optimal and much better common mode noise rejection. But it’s not the end of the world if you have to use rca SE. however if you are in the market to buy new gear than choose balanced!  And I don’t want to start any argument with anyone about balance vs single ended.: spare me, spare us all.  My recommendations stand for xlr/balanced.

 

Which common mode noise rejection? In my case I don't like the colored xlr/balanced SQ !

 

Me neither want to start any argument with anyone about balance vs single ended, but truly balanced stereo units could be very expensive to built, then to afford...

 

Many can be seduced for the "inflated" sound, more gain, etc. from xlr/balanced.  But quite far from the musicality. This was designed for crazy cable long run in the music recording industry.

 

Just my opinion,

 

Roch

[LoryWiv]

7 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Curious to hear if it's any better than the new Singxer driver... although I find this hard to imagine, since they are most likely based on the same XMOS driver template.

 

With the acknowledged disclaimer that it may be placebo, I prefer the Holo Driver 4.35 preferable to the Singxer 4.36 in my configuration. A bit warmer, forward yet preserved soundstage / separation, and detail retrieval. If it proves as stable as the Singxer driver I will keep it installed.

[Miska]

7 hours ago, elcorso said:

Many can be seduced for the "inflated" sound, more gain, etc. from xlr/balanced.  But quite far from the musicality. This was designed for crazy cable long run in the music recording industry.

 

I wouldn't be able to use SE in first place between pre- and power-amps, it would be too noisy. There's 5 m of cable...

 

My preamp has three balanced inputs and five SE inputs. All are in use... Holo Spring, T+A DAC8 DSD and RME ADI-2 Pro are connected through balanced. It is actually hard to find preamp with more than eight inputs in total!

[oneguy]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

My preamp has three balanced inputs and five SE inputs. All are in use... Holo Spring, T+A DAC8 DSD and RME ADI-2 Pro are connected through balanced. It is actually hard to find preamp with more than eight inputs in total!

 

First world problems

[volpone]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

....

My preamp has three balanced inputs and five SE inputs. All are in use... Holo Spring, T+A DAC8 DSD and RME ADI-2 Pro are connected through balanced. It is actually hard to find preamp with more than eight inputs in total!

 

Sorry @Miska if a little OT, what is your preamp model with 3 balanced inputs ?

[elcorso]

16 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I wouldn't be able to use SE in first place between pre- and power-amps, it would be too noisy. There's 5 m of cable...

 

My preamp has three balanced inputs and five SE inputs. All are in use... Holo Spring, T+A DAC8 DSD and RME ADI-2 Pro are connected through balanced. It is actually hard to find preamp with more than eight inputs in total!

 

I have a Conrad Johnson pre, SE only as all CJ products, then I managed to 6' (183 cms.) interconnects. I have a wood rack with 3 shelves, then it's easy to me not to exceed interconnect length.

 

On 5 meter I agree you need XLR / Bal cable.

 

Roch

[Bimmer100]

I apologize for bringing up the subject of balanced and SE. good lord we have gone off on a tangent when the topic is suppose to be the Dac. Lol

 

I should have known better.  

[elcorso]

1 hour ago, Bimmer100 said:

I apologize for bringing up the subject of balanced and SE. good lord we have gone off on a tangent when the topic is suppose to be the Dac. Lol

 

I should have known better.  

 

Anyway Tim, the Holo is so good that his intrinsic SQ will be more than OK to 'balanced' people (like you) and to the 'unbalanced' (like me).  The rest is only a matter of taste, system matching or whatever!

 

Roch

[Yun66]

On 12/14/2017 at 6:28 PM, Bimmer100 said:

Depends on your gear. One of my setups I have a KTE spring and elac element amp to power elac uf5 slim towers. Another setup I use a iFi pro ican which actually can be used as a killer preamp  

 

we recommend you strongly consider XLR balanced with your amp to pre amp. Sound quality will be optimal and much better common mode noise rejection. But it’s not the end of the world if you have to use rca SE. however if you are in the market to buy new gear than choose balanced!  And I don’t want to start any argument with anyone about balance vs single ended.: spare me, spare us all.  My recommendations stand for xlr/balanced.

Totally agree! One big attraction of the Spring DAC is the balanced design. My DAC to preamp to amp are both connected with XLR cables made of thick Mogami 3173.

[trybeingarun]

Any early impressions about the dacs?

[ted_b]

4 minutes ago, trybeingarun said:

Any early impressions about the dacs?

I'm gonna assume this was meant for the Cyan impressions thread? 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/37795-holo-audio-cyan-dacheadamp-impressions-thread/?tab=comments#comment-750469

 

This thread is about the Spring, a dac I formally reviewed here a year ago, and has a boatload of impressions since.

[drjimwillie]

On 12/14/2017 at 5:55 PM, elan120 said:

This sounds like the case here...on the other hand, the hew Holo driver playing upsampled DSD512 seem to be quite good.  I will need to take some more time to see whether it is same or better than the Singxer driver.

 How are you getting your spring to play DSD 512, please. 

 I am one of the ones who is not able to play DSD without using DOP. 

 When I first got the spring I was able to use HQ player to  Play DSD512.    I stopped playing DSD to burn in the PCM modules.  When I went back to DSD it would not play. I had not changed anything. 

 I loaded the latest HQ player.  I was able to play  DSD. But then I noticed that it was using DOP.  I cannot play DSD without using DOP. 

 I think I may have just solved part of it. 

 When I loaded the new driver I noticed that the other pull down menus showed DSD filters when I chose DSD in the right hand pull down in HQ player  

 When I restarted the computer I had to use DOP to play DSD   

 I realized that because I run roon server on my dedicated computer it starts automatically when I boot the computer   

 I had closed roon server when I loaded the new driver   

 I just turned off Roon server and restarted HQ player and I am able to play DSD files   

 I am playing DSD512 

 So now we need to find out what the setting in Roon is that is keeping us from playing DSD in HQ player   

[tboooe]

14 minutes ago, drjimwillie said:

I just turned off Roon server and restarted HQ player and I am able to play DSD files   

This doesn't sound right.  I have Roonserver and HQP running on the same machine and i am able to play DSD512.  So if you shut down Roonserver, you can play DSD but if Roonserver is running you can't?  

[drjimwillie]

32 minutes ago, tboooe said:

This doesn't sound right.  I have Roonserver and HQP running on the same machine and i am able to play DSD512.  So if you shut down Roonserver, you can play DSD but if Roonserver is running you can't?  

That is correct.  If roon server comes on when my computer boots up then I can only play DSD through HQP with DOP. 

  If I quit Roon server and restart HQP then I can play DSD native 

[drjimwillie]

1 minute ago, drjimwillie said:

That is correct.  If roon server comes on when my computer boots up then I can only play DSD through HQP with DOP. 

  If I quit Roon server and restart HQP then I can play DSD native 

 Will you please show me screenshots from roon?

[Miska]

28 minutes ago, drjimwillie said:

That is correct.  If roon server comes on when my computer boots up then I can only play DSD through HQP with DOP. 

  If I quit Roon server and restart HQP then I can play DSD native 

 

At least make sure you don't have same DAC configured as a zone in Roon...

[drjimwillie]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

At least make sure you don't have same DAC configured as a zone in Roon...

 I don't think I have any zones set up. 

 I have HQP and  roon server on the same CAPS pipeline.  USB out into a Iso regen-USBPCB into the Holo spring. 

 

I  have not done much with my Roon settings that's why I asked tboooe to send me some screenshots, please. 

 

Thank you

[tboooe]

3 minutes ago, drjimwillie said:

 I don't think I have any zones set up. 

 I have HQP and  roon server on the same CAPS pipeline.  USB out into a Iso regen-USBPCB into the Holo spring. 

 

I  have not done much with my Roon settings that's why I asked tboooe to send me some screenshots, please. 

 

Thank you

Here is a screenshot of the network section.  The section Connected to This PC I have nothing enabled.

 

[drjimwillie]

4 hours ago, tboooe said:

Here is a screenshot of the network section.  The section Connected to This PC I have nothing enabled.

 

 

 

here is my screen shot.  will you look at it please

[Yun66]

Don't know if anyone has experienced this: if the SU-1 and Spring DAC are left on continuously for a few days, both HQP and JRiver sometimes starts to make noises, not music, when the output is DSD. But they play fine if PCM is selected as the output. When the first time this happened to me, I re installed everything and failed to solve the problem. Finally, I turned off / on the SU-1 and the DAC, everything was back to normal. I haven't tried to isolate which one, SU-1 or Spring DAC, needs to restart. I'll try to figure it out if this happens again .