New Holo Audio Spring2 DSD1024 DAC

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, opus101 said:

 

Which do? Part numbers please. Multibit S-D modulators are in general used, whereas DSD is inherently 1bit.

 

Ya I think Jussi describes it more as 'something like DSD'. 

 

Even the Teddy Smith and Andreas Koch don't say they their DACs up-sample to 20 x DSD...  but to 20 x DSD rates. They acknowledge it's not really DSD anymore (even if it starts off as a DSD recording).

 

 

[asdf1000]

12 minutes ago, rafa said:

Upsampling can not make miracles 

 

Upsampling can sometimes have technical benefits compared with not upsampling... for PCM 16bit/44.1kHz especially...

Some great posts by @Miska:

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/hqp-and-nos-dacs/18636/10

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/hqp-and-nos-dacs/18636/11

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/hqp-and-nos-dacs/18636/15

 

 

[asdf1000]

11 minutes ago, opus101 said:

One benefit is a flatter frequency response, a remedy for the 'NOS droop' (-3.2dB @ 20kHz)

 

The elimination of the ultrasonic image energy is another plus point

 

Noted, as Jussi explains and shows in the links I shared above.

 

11 minutes ago, opus101 said:

however multibit DACs in general perform less well (in terms of distortion) as their sample rate goes up.

 

Not according to some of Jussi's measurements... Here for the very affordable John Westlake designed Pro-Ject S2 DAC which uses a pair of ES90382QM chips:

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/34777-pro-ject-pre-box-s2-digital-mqa-hw-decoding-at-reasonable-cost/?do=findComment&comment=782568

 

 

And jitter :

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/34777-pro-ject-pre-box-s2-digital-mqa-hw-decoding-at-reasonable-cost/?do=findComment&comment=782311

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

The race to find a computer powerful enough to do poly-sinc-xtr, non-2s at DSD1024 is now on ?

 

Enough of us are struggling to get DSD512 working with even 2s !

 

But I'm quite happy with poly-sinc-lp-2s at DSD512. My fanless NUC7i7DNHE does it nicely.

 

I'm going a bit off topic now, apologies.

 

[asdf1000]

2 hours ago, matthias said:

 

Some audiophiles on SBAF found that I2S is the best and USB the worst input of the Spring. 

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/holo-audio-spring-dac-level-3-kitsune-tuned-edition-impressions-reviews.3172/

I think there is also some consensus about on CA forum.

AFAIK @Superdad uses the Singxer DDC into I2S for his Spring too.

 

Matt

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/38240-network-streamers-with-i2s-output/?do=findComment&comment=783773

[asdf1000]

21 minutes ago, Miska said:

And I have doubts that transmitting clock over a cable is going to improve anything

 

Do I2S cables separate the digital clock from the digital data? Can that help with jitter?

 

And to be clear I personally have no idea, which is why I ask - never used an I2S cable in my life.

[asdf1000]

3 minutes ago, twluke said:

Thanks for this comment but I'm afraid to say that the data alone can not convince the USB superiority to I2S without comparison.

 

 

Jussi will answer for himself of course but he hasn't said anything about USB superiority?

 

He literally said "straight from my Xeon desktop using USB cable and at least phase noise is not an issue"

 

From his graph, his comment looks good to me. No jitter issues with USB at DSD256.

[asdf1000]

On 12/11/2018 at 12:41 AM, Miska said:

Holo Spring has two DACs in one box, R2R ladder - which performs notably better too at 352.8/384k. And DSD multi-element array that is similar to my DSC1 design, which performs best at 22.5792 MHz. I also have Holo Cyan DSD DAC, which is DSD-oly DAC and a bit like Spring, but without the R2R part (but Cyan has sweet spot more around 11.3 MHz).

 

Hi Jussi,

 

So the DSD conversion section/module of the Spring1 is different to the Cyan's DSD conversion section/module?

 

Is that why Spring1 is better at DSD512, compared with Cyan better at DSD512?

 

Or is Spring1 better than Cyan when both are at DSD512, more so because  different analogue output stages?

 

 

[asdf1000]

15 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Especially Cyan is sort of black box, where DAC is just a swappable module sitting on the base board, I could even buy R2R module too and swap. But I don't know precisely why Spring1 is better at DSD512 than Cyan. It could be either the D/A stage or the analog stage after. I really didn't put much effort into figuring out which one is the limiting factor.

 

 

I saw in the Cyan thread that early on there were issues with DSD256x48 base rate.

 

Was a firmware later able to fix this or is the problem still there because it's a hardware issue?

 

[asdf1000]

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

Chris,

They "48k" they are referring to is 48k-based DSD rates, like DSD64 being 3.072Mhz instead of 2.822Mhz.  It's used in software like HQPlayer when one supposes the DAC's own 48k clocks are more accurate or less noisy (oversimplified).  My Spring is still boxed up from the move or I'd confirm that it doesn't work.  I assume Jussi knows best (but from memory I'd swear it worked).

 

Does same apply to PCM x48k based rates. Not just DSD? @Miska

 

The Spring1’s 44.1k clock is used to output 48k based rates, even for PCM?

[asdf1000]

On 12/30/2018 at 3:07 AM, louisxiawei said:

As you may know, there will be another DSD1024 DAC called "MAY" released by Holo audio after Chinese new year. I will directly go for MAY instead of Spring 2. 

 

Hi Louis

 

Can you share more info on the MAY DAC?

 

Or links to where features were discussed?

 

Many thanks