HOLO Audio Spring DAC - R2R DSD512

[asdf1000]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

ve been testing the Spring 2 L2 DAC with HQPlayer and with some interesting results.

 

If you wanna see some clean Jtest24 figures, here's one! Spring 2 running at DSD256

 

Have you mentioned the DSD256 performance specifically because it measures a bit better than with DSD512 for this DAC?

 

[Miska]

9 hours ago, Em2016 said:

Have you mentioned the DSD256 performance specifically because it measures a bit better than with DSD512 for this DAC?

 

It is the sweet spot based on my measurements, so yes that's the reason...

 

[asdf1000]

11 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

It is the sweet spot based on my measurements, so yes that's the reason...

 

 

Nice.

 

Is it the best measuring DAC you've had at your test bench? Must be close!

 

[Miska]

12 hours ago, pkane2001 said:

That looks great! Can you post one with a wider frequency range, say 20-20KHz?

 

1 kHz 0 dB tone at DSD256:

THD+N: 0.00080%

 

19+20 kHz IMD test at DSD256:

IMD: 0.00002%

 

So this is certainly among the best performing DACs!

 

[asdf1000]

14 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

1 kHz 0 dB tone at DSD256:

THD+N: 0.00080%

 

19+20 kHz IMD test at DSD256:

IMD: 0.00002%

 

So this is certainly among the best performing DACs!

 

 

Do you have the jitter measurement from 0kHz to 100kHz also?

 

[Miska]

6 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

Do you have the jitter measurement from 0kHz to 100kHz also?

 

No, because there's no point in such, you cannot see anything relevant from such. Rather I will start making also more zoomed-in versions with +- 1 kHz or +- 500 Hz frequency window to better show phase noise details like HiFi-News has started to do now.

 

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

No, because there's no point in such, you cannot see anything relevant from such. 

 

 

I've seen some people showing wide scaler jitter measurements to show if there is any power supply related noise, at low frequencies of course.

 

3 minutes ago, Miska said:

Rather I will start making also more zoomed-in versions with +- 1 kHz or +- 500 Hz frequency window to better show phase noise details like HiFi-News has started to do now.

 

I guess that will show any PSU related noise?

 

 

[Miska]

Just now, Em2016 said:

I've seen some people showing wide scaler jitter measurements to show if there is any power supply related noise, at low frequencies of course.

 

I'm no expert though, just something I noticed.

 

Jitter is always side lobes near the test tone main lobe. Phase noise is just widening of the main lobe base.

 

In this case there are no side lobes and the main lobe is very narrow. So extremely good performance.

 

If you have PSU noise leaking to clocks, it would generate for example +-50 Hz side lobes, but you wouldn't see it from wide band plot.

 

For other PSU things that directly affect analog stages you can better see from other measurements, like 1 kHz tones.

 

Here's 1 kHz -120 dB tone at DSD256.

You can see that 50 Hz hum and DC differential DC offset is below -120 dB. And no spurious noise tones from PSU or other leakage.

 

[asdf1000]

3 minutes ago, Miska said:

You can see that 50 Hz hum and DC differential DC offset is below -120 dB. And no spurious noise tones from PSU or other leakage.

 

 

Very nice. Thanks Jussi!

[tboooe]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

It is the sweet spot based on my measurements, so yes that's the reason...

 

Interesting.  So in your opinion does DSD256 sound better with this specific DAC than DSD512?

[asdf1000]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

So this is certainly among the best performing DACs!

 

What's your SNR calculation for your Spring2 L2?

 

Must be over 120? dB(A)?

[bibo01]

1 hour ago, Em2016 said:

What's your SNR calculation for your Spring2 L2?

From THD+N: 0.00080%, I get -101.9dB ...but I might be wrong

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Em2016 said:

What's your SNR calculation for your Spring2 L2?

 

Must be over 120? dB(A)?

 

I didn't save screenshots with SNR figure, but somewhere around 117 dB. Background noise for about 96 kHz bandwidth shows up at just few microvolts.

 

42 minutes ago, bibo01 said:

From THD+N: 0.00080%, I get -101.9dB ...but I might be wrong

 

SNR is not measured with 0 dB signal, because at 0 dB signal the figure is practically dominated by distortion products. Also note that the THD+N figure is for ~100 kHz bandwidth, not for 20 kHz.

 

That THD figure in itself is already very good. But even more so if you look at most audio electronics, you don't find much where all harmonic components would stay significantly below -120 dB at full level signal.

 

And with best DACs you are getting close to measurement equipment capabilities...

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, tboooe said:

Interesting.  So in your opinion does DSD256 sound better with this specific DAC than DSD512?

 

I don't say much about sound yet, been checking out other things and measuring so far, not so much listening... The difference between measurement results for DSD256 and DSD512 is not so big, so you can probably happily run both. But I just picked up the objectively most optimal ones.

 

[Miska]

And for those curious about R2R PCM performance, same as Spring 1 stands, but for higher rates. Send it 20-bit data, from 705.6 kHz to 1.536 MHz sampling rate for good results! Use noise shaping (NS5/NS9) or just TPDF dither.

 

At the highest 1.4112/1.536 MHz rates I didn't manage to capture any image frequencies in the output anymore.

 

[ferenc]

It is surprising to see that Mac OS X Core Audio supports 1,5 MHz, when the Spirit 2 is connected. I did not expect it.  Only in 16 bit it seems, however. It gives me a kind of scratching noise at 24 bit. 

 

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, ferenc said:

It is surprising to see that Mac OS X Core Audio supports 1,5 MHz, when the Spirit 2 is connected. I did not expect it.  Only in 16 bit it seems, however. It gives me a kind of scratching noise at 24 bit. 

 

 

 

I had similar problem on Linux with 24-bit and the 32x rates. Needed some driver hacking to get it working (including DSD1024)...

 

Good thing is that you can get practically same performance by using 16-bit at those rates and noise shaping like NS5 or NS9.

 

[ferenc]

18 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I had similar problem on Linux with 24-bit and the 32x rates. Needed some driver hacking to get it working (including DSD1024)...

 

Good thing is that you can get practically same performance by using 16-bit at those rates and noise shaping like NS5 or NS9.

 

 

I could not get PCM 1536 work properly and could not get DSD512 or 1024 work properly as well from Roon or HQP on my 18 core iMac Pro. The latter could be the limitation of OS X, but could not get it work with an SoTM SMS 200 as an NAA. 

 

So I may be forced to get a Windows machine just for experimenting with these very high sampling rates and native DSD. 

 

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. 

[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

[ferenc]

28 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

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

Thanks

 

Matt

 KTE

[Miska]

3 hours ago, ferenc said:

I could not get PCM 1536 work properly and could not get DSD512 or 1024 work properly as well from Roon or HQP on my 18 core iMac Pro. The latter could be the limitation of OS X, but could not get it work with an SoTM SMS 200 as an NAA. 

 

I needed to make a change to HQPlayer to make it pick up 16-bit format when available and DAC Bits is set to <= 16.

 

Now I have that and everything else too working on Linux. I need to check my CoreAudio code for Mac regarding 16-bit output. For macOS I cannot make 24-bit at 32x rates or DSD512 work because I cannot modify the driver. Of course this is not restricting NAA output.

 

[MikeJazz]

On 10/31/2017 at 4:08 PM, barrows said:

Hey guys, I care!  I have dropped out of this discussion here on VC, etc.  Back to Holo:  is Tim monitoring here?  any news on the DIY modules you had announced?  I would be interested in learning more about the HOLO DSD DIY module.  Also, is the Holo DSD approach essentially Jussi's DSC-1 design in a balanced version?  I have noticed that Jussi does appear to be using a HOLO DAC...

 

I am interested in that DIY approach.

And a integrated server/streamer of HQPlayer, embedded, even if running the more economical DSD512 filters.

[ferenc]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I needed to make a change to HQPlayer to make it pick up 16-bit format when available and DAC Bits is set to <= 16.

 

Now I have that and everything else too working on Linux. I need to check my CoreAudio code for Mac regarding 16-bit output. For macOS I cannot make 24-bit at 32x rates or DSD512 work because I cannot modify the driver. Of course this is not restricting NAA output.

 

 

Actually I could not get 1024x DSD (or 512x for the record) work using NAA and SMS200 Neo from my iMac Pro. It can be an old SMS firmware, need to check the latest. I think the 18 Xeon core in the iMac Pro should be enough CPU power to try 1024x DSD at least with some of the modulators but did not work with any of them. 

[Miska]

37 minutes ago, ferenc said:

Actually I could not get 1024x DSD (or 512x for the record) work using NAA and SMS200 Neo from my iMac Pro.

 

Yes, that's what I'd expect... It'll probably take some time...

 

[ferenc]

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.