HOLO Audio Spring DAC - R2R DSD512

[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.

[davide256]

9 hours ago, wanta911 said:

 

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.

I suspect that you will be asked what version of Windows is on the laptop

[SwissBear]

6 hours ago, wanta911 said:

 

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.

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.

[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 👍

[KenMoreira]

is there a place to find a log of the changes made with each firmware update ? 

[Luis Cesar Saiz]

Spring 3 KTE is "in da house" :D since a few weeks ago. Burn-in period with a Tellurium Burning CD and wav files extracted from this CD, around 60 hours of burning (with 15 hours aprox in 3 different sessions of listening to music).

 

Relaxed and enjoyable presentation... some doubts arise though... no sure if it is because of lack of burn-in or because it is its sound... and need a May KTE... 

Anyway always my feet start to dance with every song played via usb or CD., which is a very good thing.
 

[davide256]

On 1/13/2022 at 12:17 PM, Luis Cesar Saiz said:

Spring 3 KTE is "in da house" :D since a few weeks ago. Burn-in period with a Tellurium Burning CD and wav files extracted from this CD, around 60 hours of burning (with 15 hours aprox in 3 different sessions of listening to music).

 

Relaxed and enjoyable presentation... some doubts arise though... no sure if it is because of lack of burn-in or because it is its sound... and need a May KTE... 

Anyway always my feet start to dance with every song played via usb or CD., which is a very good thing.
 

 

 

I would suspect that the KTE has surpassed the limits of a Macbook pro and that a purpose built audio server is the wiser next move. In the FWIW column,

I have a Linn Genki CDP and an Oppo 103, an Intel NUC running HQPlayer or Euphony Stylus easily betters them feeding same  external DAC.

The usual suspects for music servers are Aurender, Innuos and Lumin.

[smooring]

Since we have some Holo Spring 3 owners here and Tim from Katsune  I’d like to ask what your favorite HQP settings for use with the Spring 3 KTE? I am very new to HQP and am looking for a good starting point

[KenMoreira]

[smooring]

Thanks Ken, I’ll give those a try. Does anyone else have any favorite settings for the Spring?

[KenMoreira]

11 hours ago, smooring said:

Thanks Ken, I’ll give those a try. Does anyone else have any favorite settings for the Spring?

Let me know your thoughts. 

[Miska]

I'm using one of three filters: poly-sinc-short-mp, poly-sinc-ext2 or poly-sinc-gauss-long with ASDM7ECv2 modulator to DSD256 output to Spring 1, 2 or 3 (I have all three).

 

If one wants to try PCM output mode, use 1.4/1.5M output rate, set DAC Bits to 20 and above filters. PCM Gain compensation set to -6 dB.

 

[KenMoreira]

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

I'm using one of three filters: poly-sinc-short-mp, poly-sinc-ext2 or poly-sinc-gauss-long with ASDM7ECv2 modulator to DSD256 output to Spring 1, 2 or 3 (I have all three).

 

If one wants to try PCM output mode, use 1.4/1.5M output rate, set DAC Bits to 20 and above filters. PCM Gain compensation set to -6 dB.

 

Where is pcm gain compensation 

[Miska]

5 minutes ago, KenMoreira said:

Where is pcm gain compensation 

 

Bottom right corner of Settings. If you hover mouse over a particular setting, you can see some help about each.

 

Here are my current settings:

[Bertel]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Here are my current settings:

 

You are using DSD512 with your Spring? Didn‘t your earlier measurements show that DSD256 was better, so that was/is your recommendation? Just checking whether I missed something, to eventually adjust my own Settings as well 😉

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Bertel said:

You are using DSD512 with your Spring? Didn‘t your earlier measurements show that DSD256 was better, so that was/is your recommendation? Just checking whether I missed something, to eventually adjust my own Settings as well 😉

 

Sometimes yes (also because I test that I can run ASDM7ECv2 to DSD512 without issues). And yes, DSD256 gives you lowest audio band noise at least with Spring 1 and Spring 2. I don't have measurements saved for DSD512 on Spring 3 case (only DSD256 results), so not 100% sure. I will check again some time later.

 

[pavi]

10 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Sometimes yes (also because I test that I can run ASDM7ECv2 to DSD512 without issues). And yes, DSD256 gives you lowest audio band noise at least with Spring 1 and Spring 2. I don't have measurements saved for DSD512 on Spring 3 case (only DSD256 results), so not 100% sure. I will check again some time later.

 

I wonder if this is also true with the May. I remember you saying you haven't tested it with the May, @Miska... has anyone else measured band noise against DSD256/512 on the May?

[Miska]

12 minutes ago, pavi said:

I wonder if this is also true with the May. I remember you saying you haven't tested it with the May, @Miska... has anyone else measured band noise against DSD256/512 on the May?

 

I'm pretty sure the conversion stage is same or similar as Spring.

 

[Luis Cesar Saiz]

 

Hello there, as mentioned before, I bought a new Spring3 KTE a few weeks ago. The burn-in goes as total 100hours with 75hours the Tellurium Burning CD and 25hours of listening done in several different days (5 hours each session aprox).

My comments here are mainly from CD as source, (but I did not hear anything different from USB and my MAC either playing Tidal or HQP files)

 

I want to be brief… if that’s possible :D

 

I listen to 60’s blues rock, 70’s blues rock, hard rock and proto metal bands, (AC/DC, Aerosmith, Dylan, Hendrix, Doors, Beatles, Stones,Zeppelin, Purple, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd…) 80’s hard rock & heavy metal, some 90’s rock/metal bands…some 70’s-80s funk, some 80-90’s electronica, some Jazz (classic and modern), some hip-hop, and some classical (mainly opera and big orchestrations). And for recent bands a lot of Stoner, Doom, heavy psychedelic, heavy blues, Prog,..

 

The sound of the Spring 3 is very rich, fun and engaging, without zero fatigue (and I mean after 5-6 hours of continuous listening is zero fatigue !!), Bass extension is correct and do not tend to be overwhelmed like other DACs (in my book this is good), mid bass is rich and beautiful, midrange algo beautiful, maybe too thick warm, I’d say Neutral Warm ++ :D, not neutral warm that many people say it is… anyway sweet tonality and mid highs and highs are fine.

 

BUT BUT BUT !!!  :D

There is like a fastidious recessed top end, shy I’d say, especially noticeable with drum cymbals, it is like someone put a door of -6db/-12db on some frequencies, and cymbals sounds very low in level, and somewhat disconnected from the rest of the drum kit.  (I play drums ….)

Also noticeable but less is the room reverb or room ambience… there is less less here too.

 

I noticed too, that sometimes if the music recorded signal is very loud, the cymbals are correctly present , for example Metallica Black Album, and Metallica albums are known for being recorded too loud and with a lot of compression.

 

Mostly the “thing” I have to claim to Holo Audio is the cymbals interpretation and some highs

People who bought the Spring 3 KTE. Have you experimented the same? Do you think is going to improve this with more burn in time? 

And if someone experience both MAY KTE and SPRING 3KTE I’d like to see your comments here. Worth jumping onto a MAY KTE?

 

Sometimes if the record or track has a very busy rich bass, the rich midrange is going to be too much rich and sometimes get congested or busy. Mostly this happens on modern records. Take OM album God is Good as an example. Anyway This effect is less noticeable in general terms.

 

I don’t know if the maths and audio algorithms are in a FPGA programmable chip and Holo Audio can revisit this and put a new map of conversion on some frequencies… hopefully addressable via a firmware … 

Generally speaking I’d say put some +6/+9/+12 db more into the highs and 1-2 less db into mid bass. 

 

I think  Holo is somewhat equalizing the sound looking for a rich tonality, emphasized rich mid bass, and somewhat recessed top end for a fun and enjoyable listening. 

 

A listening that I enjoy !!!!a lot!!! but with some caveats. 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Luis Cesar Saiz said:

Generally speaking I’d say put some +6/+9/+12 db more into the highs and 1-2 less db into mid bass. 

 

I think  Holo is somewhat equalizing the sound looking for a rich tonality, emphasized rich mid bass, and somewhat recessed top end for a fun and enjoyable listening. 

 

You can of course do that with HQPlayer's EQ.

 

5 hours ago, Luis Cesar Saiz said:

People who bought the Spring 3 KTE. Have you experimented the same?

 

All my Springs are L2, not KTE. But I have not noticed such. But first question is how are you running your Spring? PCM mode? DSD mode? At what rate, word length, etc?

 

I'm running mine with either of three filters; poly-sinc-short-mp-2s (good for the kind of music you are referring to), poly-sinc-ext2 or poly-sinc-gauss-long. At DSD256 or DSD512, using ASDM7ECv2 modulator.

 

[Luis Cesar Saiz]

12 hours ago, Miska said:

 

You can of course do that with HQPlayer's EQ.

 

 

All my Springs are L2, not KTE. But I have not noticed such. But first question is how are you running your Spring? PCM mode? DSD mode? At what rate, word length, etc?

 

I'm running mine with either of three filters; poly-sinc-short-mp-2s (good for the kind of music you are referring to), poly-sinc-ext2 or poly-sinc-gauss-long. At DSD256 or DSD512, using ASDM7ECv2 modulator.

 

Hi Miska, thank you for your answer. I did my critical listening via my CD player, via coax with a Kimber D-60 illuminati cable to the Spring3KTE. So PCM 44,1Khz/16bit. PLL activated in The Spring. 

I compared same tracks with my vinyl rig, and there were a huge difference with highs among other things (fully expressed in my analog rig, but I think it is not fair to do comparisons here because only the cartridge, a Lyra Etna SL, cost 3 times more than the Spring)
I went sometimes back and forth to compare some tracks to the USB input but I did not appreciate any significative difference. (The settings I used was the recommended by Goldensound in his review of Spring 3KTE). But again I did use de HQP a few times. I'll check your recommended settings to see if there is any difference here. 

Thanks
Again the most weird thing is if the sound level of the song is high in level, the Spring awakes his highs, like the Black album from Metallica I did mentioned,... dunno why...

Cheers

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Luis Cesar Saiz said:

Hi Miska, thank you for your answer. I did my critical listening via my CD player, via coax with a Kimber D-60 illuminati cable to the Spring3KTE. So PCM 44,1Khz/16bit. PLL activated in The Spring.

 

Then you get the low sample rate NOS effect, you will have pretty notable treble roll-off that way. (and plenty of out-of-band images)

 

If you want to use the PCM side, remember to use at least 705.6k output rate, set DAC Bits to 20 and use a suitable noise-shaper, such as LNS15, NS9 or NS5. And set PCM gain compensation to -6 dB. Same filters as with SDM output case.

 

[Luis Cesar Saiz]

24 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Then you get the low sample rate NOS effect, you will have pretty notable treble roll-off that way. (and plenty of out-of-band images)

 

If you want to use the PCM side, remember to use at least 705.6k output rate, set DAC Bits to 20 and use a suitable noise-shaper, such as LNS15, NS9 or NS5. And set PCM gain compensation to -6 dB. Same filters as with SDM output case.

 

Woa!! I did not realize it was so huge then,....
I dunno if you have tried May KTE and if it affects the same way in the highs or are better portrayed. 
I'll get your recommendation and this weekend I'll play PCM via HQP with this rates 

 

Cheers

 

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, Luis Cesar Saiz said:

Woa!! I did not realize it was so huge then,....
I dunno if you have tried May KTE and if it affects the same way in the highs or are better portrayed. 

 

Due to how sampling works, by definition you get -3 dB roll-off at Nyquist frequency on sample-and-hold process. This practically starts a decade earlier.