HOLO Audio Spring DAC - R2R DSD512

[wouterk]

16 minutes ago, bobflood said:

There is new firmware for the Spring/Spring 2. Please check the Kitsune website.

Do you have a direct link for the firmware? I had a quick look, but did not see anything.

 

Thank you

[Bimmer100]

Please be sure you are loading the firmware to the correct usb module. Instructions are included. This firmware update applies to models that have the Xu208 xmos module. Not the earlier xmos U8 module found in early Spring v1 dacs. 

[Superdad]

3 hours ago, Bimmer100 said:

Please be sure you are loading the firmware to the correct usb module. Instructions are included. This firmware update applies to models that have the Xu208 xmos module. Not the earlier xmos U8 module found in early Spring v1 dacs. 

 

Does it have any effect on the DAC (SQ?) if one is using the Spring's I2S input?  In other words, is this only firmware for the XMOS chip? I am assuming so.

[Miska]

Yes, it's only update for the XMOS...

 

P.S. The Spring 1 I have seems to have the earlier USB interface model, so one can take that into account on my Spring 1 measurements. So I've updated only Cyan DSD and Spring 2...

[Johnseye]

4 hours ago, Bimmer100 said:

Please be sure you are loading the firmware to the correct usb module. Instructions are included. This firmware update applies to models that have the Xu208 xmos module. Not the earlier xmos U8 module found in early Spring v1 dacs. 

 

Tim, is the firmware 21.16 for the Spring?

While you mention the USB driver is 4.67 I suspect that's for Windows.  Any concerns with Linux?

 

6 hours ago, wouterk said:

Do you have a direct link for the firmware? I had a quick look, but did not see anything.

 

Thank you

 

https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.109.21/t8x.dbd.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/HoloAudio-4.67-drivers-with-Firmware-update-2019.zip

 

[Bimmer100]

You must have windows pc to update firmware. Which all firmware for all Xu208 modules are included in this driver pack in a different folder with instructions.

 

only windows allows update of firmware. 

Those with Linux will need to figure on borrowing a windows laptop or something.

 

 

[Bimmer100]

Basically to find out if your module is xmos U8 or XU208 you will need to find out its firmware. It can be found in windows7/8/8.1/10 etc. the systray is where our drivers have the Asio control panel. A small icon to open up the program and find its firmware version.

any firmware that is 20.00 or newer is xu208. If the firmware is less than this than it is u8. Example : 16.95 is U8 xmos. 

 

Common firmwares for Xu208 May be 20.16-21.16 etc. and each is specific for the model. Like cyan dsd or pcm, Spring1 or spring2. 

[Account Closed]

2 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Does it have any effect on the DAC (SQ?) if one is using the Spring's I2S input?  In other words, is this only firmware for the XMOS chip? I am assuming so.

The short answer is that if you use the USB input, this firmware has a significant, immediately noticeable positive effect on the sound quality. If this firmware update applies to your Spring then by all means do it.

 

Thanks to Tim and Jeff for making the effort to improve an already impressive product! 

[Bimmer100]

3 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Does it have any effect on the DAC (SQ?) if one is using the Spring's I2S input?  In other words, is this only firmware for the XMOS chip? I am assuming so.

 

This is only firmware for the usb input. As Hdmi i2s does not use xmos. I2S users can ignore this update if they chose to.

 

there are multiple firmware on the dac, and this is simply just for usb input. Sorry if there was some confusion.

[StreamFidelity]

3 hours ago, Bimmer100 said:

Basically to find out if your module is xmos U8 or XU208 you will need to find out its firmware. It can be found in windows7/8/8.1/10 etc. the systray is where our drivers have the Asio control panel. A small icon to open up the program and find its firmware version.

any firmware that is 20.00 or newer is xu208. If the firmware is less than this than it is u8. Example : 16.95 is U8 xmos. 

 

Common firmwares for Xu208 May be 20.16-21.16 etc. and each is specific for the model. Like cyan dsd or pcm, Spring1 or spring2. 

 

Thank you for this valuable information. I was not sure if my ARMATURE Asterion (Holo Spring) R2R Balanced XLR DAC is suitable for this.

 

The good news is: Yes, it works.

 

The latencies are minimal with DSD 512.

 

The bad news is: I can not shake off the music anymore. 😄

[R1200CL]

On 6/27/2019 at 11:20 PM, drjimwillie said:

Has anyone tried or read about the new Singxer SU-6 with their Holo Spring?

I would also be very interested to understand how much better (if possible to hear) the SU-6 is over a modified SU-1. 

SU-6 draw more Vbus power than SU-1, (150 to 200mA) in case someone needs to know.

 

I wish there was a switch for removing Vbus power, and another DC interface for 5V Vbus only. To anything that uses Vbus power. A cheap modification to most DAC’s, that may lift the SQ quite a bit. 

 

Also the website states there is a supercap in use.  So 3A is needed. Have there been some cooperation with Uptone and some LPS-1.2 technology implementation ?

 

Can the supercap be bypassed, and hence allow for the use of the LPS-1.2 ?

 

Since we know how important the power supply is, I’m skeptical to purchase any item that doesn’t allow me to use LPS-1.2 as power source. (If current draw allows).  

Maybe the SU-6 needs it’s own thread ?

[CharlieMB]

On 7/16/2019 at 6:34 PM, bobflood said:

The short answer is that if you use the USB input, this firmware has a significant, immediately noticeable positive effect on the sound quality. If this firmware update applies to your Spring then by all means do it.

 

Thanks to Tim and Jeff for making the effort to improve an already impressive product! 

 

This dual USB firmware and driver update has resulted in a hugely significant improvement in sound quality in my system.  It's amazing to me that software updates can make this much of an improvement.

 

[To give you an idea of the magnitude of the improvement] To update the firmware I had to remove my ISO REGEN, per instructions.  I listened last night without the ISO REGEN and can say that my system sounded better after this update without the ISO REGEN than it did before with it.   And the ISO REGEN had always provided a big improvement, as you may have read, and such was true in my system.

 

If I had to state a reason for the improvement, I'd guess that USB's 8K packet noise is further suppressed with this update, somehow. 

 

Yes, hat's off to Tim and Jeff.  Big thanks guys.  

[jamesg11]

Have you tried with the isoRegen back in the system after the fw update?

[adamthebrave]

Hi Guys, I have a problem, if you can please help me.

 

I have a Spring Level 3 WILDISM  mod, it has an USB version 30.08. I succefully updated the driver to 4.67. Ibut  can't upgrade my firmware to 3.12 or 3.14 becouse I have an error message that this time there is no available firmware. I copied the files into the driver folder as it is in the description. I tried with my Sotm card and also with the onboard USB port as an admin, I have no more ideas...

 

Can it be the Entreq Atlantis the problem or am I doing somethng wrong?

 

Thanks for your help.

[TubeDriver]

On 7/16/2019 at 8:17 PM, Bimmer100 said:

 

This is only firmware for the usb input. As Hdmi i2s does not use xmos. I2S users can ignore this update if they chose to.

 

there are multiple firmware on the dac, and this is simply just for usb input. Sorry if there was some confusion.

 

I have a Holo Spring 1 that was upgraded with the XU208 USB board.  Should I load up this new firmware?

[ferenc]

On 7/23/2019 at 8:39 AM, adamthebrave said:

Hi Guys, I have a problem, if you can please help me.

 

I have a Spring Level 3 WILDISM  mod, it has an USB version 30.08. I succefully updated the driver to 4.67. Ibut  can't upgrade my firmware to 3.12 or 3.14 becouse I have an error message that this time there is no available firmware. I copied the files into the driver folder as it is in the description. I tried with my Sotm card and also with the onboard USB port as an admin, I have no more ideas...

 

Can it be the Entreq Atlantis the problem or am I doing somethng wrong?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

The 3.12 or 3.14 firmware is for Spring 2, not for Spring 1. Spring 2 is using XMOS 216 chip as I remember. Not the 208. This is probably the reason why the new firmware can not be installed. 

 

I installed the new firmware and it now works properly with Jcat Femto and PP v2 USB cards in Windows. It worked with Audiolinux with the same USB cards earlier but after the firmware upgrade the sound using AL considerably more airy and smoother. So it was not a firmware upgrade just for compatibility they could do something more. 

[CharlieMB]

On 7/21/2019 at 5:44 PM, jamesg11 said:

Have you tried with the isoRegen back in the system after the fw update?

 

I get the impression that the answer is Yes, it improves further.  But I have not switched back to confirm.  I will eventually switch back but for now please assume that it improves things.

[TubeDriver]

On 7/26/2019 at 7:02 PM, TubeDriver said:

 

I have a Holo Spring 1 that was upgraded with the XU208 USB board.  Should I load up this new firmware?

 

I'll answer my own question.  I updated my Holo Spring 1 with UX208 board to the 21.16 firmware.  Works fine and the sound is much more focused and holographic now.  Surprisingly different, you need to hear this to believe it.  I had upgraded the USB board a while back (U8 to UX208) and never updated the firmware until now.

[Bimmer100]

37 minutes ago, TubeDriver said:

 

I'll answer my own question.  I updated my Holo Spring 1 with UX208 board to the 21.16 firmware.  Works fine and the sound is much more focused and holographic now.  Surprisingly different, you need to hear this to believe it.  I had upgraded the USB board a while back (U8 to UX208) and never updated the firmware until now.

 

Sorry I didn’t reply earlier. But yes. This is for all Xu208 modules in our products. This firmware is a nice improvement as many have commented so far. It’s highly optimized compared to standard xmos firmware that is used in many other products on the market. 

 

 

[Johnseye]

1 hour ago, TubeDriver said:

 

I'll answer my own question.  I updated my Holo Spring 1 with UX208 board to the 21.16 firmware.  Works fine and the sound is much more focused and holographic now.  Surprisingly different, you need to hear this to believe it.  I had upgraded the USB board a while back (U8 to UX208) and never updated the firmware until now.

 

26 minutes ago, Bimmer100 said:

 

Sorry I didn’t reply earlier. But yes. This is for all Xu208 modules in our products. This firmware is a nice improvement as many have commented so far. It’s highly optimized compared to standard xmos firmware that is used in many other products on the market. 

 

 

 

There is no question this update is audible. Holographic, spatial, open, wide.  However described, the sound is different.

[CharlieMB]

On 7/21/2019 at 5:44 PM, jamesg11 said:

Have you tried with the iso Regen back in the system after the fw update?

 

On 7/27/2019 at 11:35 PM, CharlieMB said:

 

I get the impression that the answer is Yes, it improves further.  But I have not switched back to confirm.  I will eventually switch back but for now please assume that it improves things.

 

I have to walk this back.  The answer is no as it turns out, at least not for now.  When I removed the ISO Regen the sound improved with this firmware upgrade, 3.12. 

 

This has never been the case since I've owned the ISO Regen, which has always improved things.  Yesterday and today were the first time the opposite was true.

 

I partially attribute this to another change I made recently but never tried without the ISO Regen and that is moving my wireless keyboard w/ touch pad from the USB port.   The only thing on the USB port now, in my whole system, is the Spring 2 KTE.  Both my keyboard and mouse are now wired and connected with PS/2 cables to the PS/2 ports on the back of my music server (XXHighEnd PC).  Removing the keyboard/mouse from USB made a big change for the better all by itself.   I had such faith in the ISO Regen that I never questioned it.

 

Normally I run the ISO Regen off of a battery, since the included power supply is easily improved upon.  The ISO Regen is sensitive to its power source.  So it wouldn't surprise me if I tried a better power source that things could change again.   So I have that to explore or the Intona Industrial for a next step.

 

This is after two days of listening.  If things change I'll report back

[GUTB]

I tried to make a warranty claim a while back for my Cyan DSD (left channel noise) but Holo never responded to me. Are they still in business?

[Bimmer100]

12 minutes ago, GUTB said:

I tried to make a warranty claim a while back for my Cyan DSD (left channel noise) but Holo never responded to me. Are they still in business?

Yes, Holoaudio is doing well.

did you purchase at KitsuneHiFi? Or where from? Let me know and I’ll get things rolling for you if need be. Forward me any emails if you tried contacting us, and I’ll help you out.

 

 

best

-Tim

KitsuneHiFi and HoloAudioUSA

 

[Bimmer100]

Looks like you contacted us on Jan16th 2019. We replied jan 18th 2019 and again jan 22nd 2019 confirming a warranty claim and was preparing a replacement unit. We had never recirved any follow up emails from you so we figured maybe you the issue resolved itself as being something  else or if it persisted than you would have directly contacted us some time from Jan 2018 til now. Good thing I check these forums often. Our email response likely ended up in your junk folder or was overlooked?. However you could have tried to contact us again. 

If for any reason anyone contacts us and we don’t get back to you within a couple business days, just shoot us another email. We usually reply to 99.9% or all emails right away. In this case we still did, but must assume your junk mail folder caught this email. 

 

Your dac is still under 3 year warranty and you purchased it dec2017.  No worries. It’s a quick and painless process to get a replacement. It’s a very uncommon thing for this to happen. You actually were the 5th customer to purchase a cyan? And only a very small percentage of the first batch had a known issue that was quickly remedied and all other dacs are rock solid reliable. We replaced all dacs that had any issues. Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

 

Best

 

-Tim

 

[drjimwillie]

Hi

I have a Spring 1  and I was considering upgrading the USB board  or using a SU-1. 

 I would probably power the SU-1 with a UpTone LPS-1.2. 

 Has anyone done this comparison after the new firmware update? 

Thank you

Bill