HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[louisxiawei]

I see people starting discussing the MAY DAC on Spring thread and ASR forum has given some detailed measurements of MAY. As an early MAY user, I feel it‘s necessary to open a new thread to have more discussions for this exciting DAC.

 

I just received it a few days ago and it is still warming up. So bear with me with the listening impressions as I haven’t got too much to say yet.

 

I purchased MAY mainly for the purpose of using its NOS feature with HQplayer (So I don't care other OS features). I used to have T+A DAC8 DSD and guess I might not help myself comparising these two DACs later on.

 

Persoanlly, I'm confident that my system is quite transparent and it's good enough to demonstrate differences among sources. Nevertheless, I have my own listening preference and may not suit your taste. If you want to pull the trigger on this DAC, don't judge too much of my comment as I'm not that type of person who is enjoying typing lengthy paragarph of subjective listening impression.

 

I will also share some of my practicial findings when using MAY. Sometimes these little trivial things can be helpful or can even expose some bugs, small issues so that product can be improved later on accordingly.

 

Ok, no more jibber jabber. Hope you find this thread and MAY interesting.

 

 

[Hyde27]

[louisxiawei]

I will now start with more objective operational stuff and later on towards a bit subjective things.

 

For connectivity, it is a VERY HQplayer friendly DAC. The manual will tell you to install windows USB driver in order to support DSD1024 & PCM 1.536M playback, but it is not necessary. I strongly recommend you use to burn HQplayer NAA ISO image on the USB and plug onto your NAA, then HQplayer will recognize the MAY's end. I believe the ISO image is a customized linux kernal by Miska and allows your NAA to playback native DSD1024 on MAY. As I'm sick of windows OS for audio output, I can't be more happier for this.

 

However, I do find that there is a tiny pop during DSD manual track switch on MAY (no pop during gapless playback track switch) and Jeff told me that there should be no pop during switch track on Windows OS using the offered driver. For linux, he has little idea and cannot guarantee. I'm aware that this pop noise is quite a common caveat for DSD playback, but the latest custom T+A DAC8 DSD firmware has solved this issue after years of struggling and effort of Amanero. If only for the sake of perfection, it would be better if MAY can make this pop disappear. 😉

[StreamFidelity]

2 hours ago, louisxiawei said:

However, I do find that there is a tiny pop during DSD manual track switch on MAY (no pop during gapless playback track switch)

 

I read with interest because I had a Holo Audio Spring I DAC for a while before the Denafrips Terminator and was very satisfied.

 

I also have the problems you described with my Terminator 😉: 

 

On 12/27/2019 at 8:55 AM, StreamFidelity said:

Loud crackling when played for the first time.
Soft crackling on a new stream like from a turntable.

 

Does anyone know that? For a few weeks now I've been going directly fom Terminator to my T + A M10 power amplifiers via xlr. The sound is great and better than over preamp. The volume is controlled via HQPlayer. It is played via USB from the audio PC.

 

I've only heard the crackle since bypassing the preamp. They were probably always there, but dejected by preamp.

 

Miska replied the following, unfortunately this don't solve the problem:

 

On 12/27/2019 at 11:15 PM, Miska said:

 

Small DC offset in the DAC output, possibly output combined with mute relay? May be handled differently by a preamp DC block/servo than by a power amp, and at least attenuated by the volume control.

 

This is not at all unusual behavior for a DC-connected DAC output stage. Other alternative is a series capacitor in DAC output that is floating until actually gets connected due to DAC unmuting the output. So it's DC-block behavior only begins to settle after first unmute. Time constant can be like 1 Hz or 0.1 Hz, so it takes some time to settle.

 

[asdf1000]

17 hours ago, louisxiawei said:

However, I do find that there is a tiny pop during DSD manual track switch on MAY (no pop during gapless playback track switch) and Jeff told me that there should be no pop during switch track on Windows OS using the offered driver. For linux, he has little idea and cannot guarantee. I'm aware that this pop noise is quite a common caveat for DSD playback, but the latest custom T+A DAC8 DSD firmware has solved this issue after years of struggling and effort of Amanero. If only for the sake of perfection, it would be better if MAY can make this pop disappear. 😉

 

@Miska do you have any DSD related pops with your Spring2, using your HQP OS image as NAA?

 

When using your headphones setup?

[Hyde27]

No pop on my Holo May. iMac HQPlayer4Desktop

[louisxiawei]

1 hour ago, Hyde27 said:

No pop on my Holo May. iMac HQPlayer4Desktop

As I said, it’s more a Linux issue. Good to know MAC doesn’t have that hassle.

[Miska]

3 hours ago, asdf1000 said:

 

@Miska do you have any DSD related pops with your Spring2, using your HQP OS image as NAA?

 

When using your headphones setup?

 

Spring 2 is on my loudspeaker system, but the preamp has headphone socket as well. Spring 1 is on my headphone system.

 

If you mean start/stop pops/clicks, absolutely nothing on either. I cannot check again right now.

 

[louisxiawei]

Another thing I like about MAY is its usb connection. Since it has a quite good USB galvanic isolation internally, I tried not using the USB dongle ISOregen and found the the sound "pure, clean" enough to be satisfied.
 

I’m sure someone can observe some differences/improvement if you plug these ISOregen-ish things back. But for me, MAY itself suffices. I enjoy more of the trouble-free operation. I’m a bit fed up with plugging dongle to the dac and powering the dongle with another LPS and then worrying about their disconnection from time to time. 😂
 

In my opinion, all DAC nowadays shall consider implementing galvanic isolation for its USB port or consider them outdated.

[louisxiawei]

28 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Spring 2 is on my loudspeaker system, but the preamp has headphone socket as well. Spring 1 is on my headphone system.

 

If you mean start/stop pops/clicks, absolutely nothing on either. I cannot check again right now.

 

I also don’t have start/stop pops. The pop I meant only occurres when switching to another track manually. Dac8 used to have this kind of pops and it might still have it on Windows OS.

[mevdinc]

2 hours ago, Hyde27 said:

No pop on my Holo May. iMac HQPlayer4Desktop

Are you able to achieve DSD 512/1024 on MAC, is there a supplied mac driver for Holo May?

[Hyde27]

Not on Mac and no driver

[MhtLion]

I cannot wait to hear your comparison between May and T+A Dac8.

[louisxiawei]

Some subjective listening impressions:

 

To better check any difference MAY could possibly bring compared to my previous DAC8, I applied the same HQplayer settings on MAY as on DAC8 DSD, so only DSD512 part. I will check the R2R or DSD1024 bit later on. MAY just has more fun to explore, needs take some time I'm afraid.

 

In general, I find MAY's sounding is very neutral, transparent and resolving. By comparison, I think DAC8 is obviously warmer while MAY is obviously calmer. This "clam" is not related to "not musical" or "thin" sounding, maybe I should say more neutral. 

 

- I'm quite picky about solo piano tone and will always test the piano track first on any new dac. So I played some good DSD piano recording from Challenge Classics label and I think MAY offers equally satisfactions as DAC8. I personally judge the performance of piano playback as an indication of sound tuned to be authentic. 

 

- You might be worried about this "calmness" of MAY might have some trade off like the mid range will not be soothing or musical. But it is not the case. I picked some tracks from some female singers who have edgy or airy voice like Kate Melua, Stacey Kent, Kat Edmonson. The vocal part is musical and pleasing with good density yet the instrumental part is being more neutral and transparent. 

 

- The thing I'm struggling/uncertain to judge now is about the bass. At first listen, I think DAC8 has more punchy and bouncy bass but then I notice that I prefer some other tracks' bass on MAY. For example, I prefer DAC8's more juicy bass when playing Coldplay's album. When playing some Daft Punk's tracks, then I think the bass on MAY is just about right and I can hear more bass details. I'm not sure if it's appropriate to conclude MAY offers better quality bass rather than quantity. I'm also not sure whether the warm/clam tune may have an effect on bass or not. Need more time to check.

 

As you can see in my system, I'm also a Spectral Audio fan. So you might somehow speculate my taste as natural, neutral, transparency, fast. If you want to ask me which one of these two DACs possesses more similar character to Spectral gear. I'm quite sure it's MAY. 

 

 

[Miska]

23 hours ago, louisxiawei said:

I also don’t have start/stop pops. The pop I meant only occurres when switching to another track manually. Dac8 used to have this kind of pops and it might still have it on Windows OS.

 

That is not very clear case, because what happens depends on the tracks being played. If they are same sample rate it is pretty much gapless operation. If they are different sample rate, then it depends if output rate family is being switched or not. If output rate is being switched between tracks, then the DAC is stopped, reconfigured and started again. If the output rate/format doesn't change, then it is pretty much gapless operation from the DAC's point of view.

 

I have not noticed pops with DAC8 DSD on Windows either...

 

If you are on Windows, make sure you have HQPlayer's Buffer Time set to "Default" and that you have large/safe buffers set from the driver's control panel so that you don't get dropouts at the point when CPU's can hit 100% load momentarily.

 

[louisxiawei]

7 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

That is not very clear case, because what happens depends on the tracks being played. If they are same sample rate it is pretty much gapless operation. If they are different sample rate, then it depends if output rate family is being switched or not. If output rate is being switched between tracks, then the DAC is stopped, reconfigured and started again. If the output rate/format doesn't change, then it is pretty much gapless operation from the DAC's point of view.

 

 

Ok, let me make a simpler example:

 

When I dragged the same track time bar (e.g. from 1:20 to 2:45), there is a pop occurred on MAY (or DAC8 on windows). I remember I sent an email to T+A regarding this and they confirmed this pop noise and told me it's normal.

 

Yes, the buffer time was set to be default. Maybe you have a different firmware? 

[Miska]

7 hours ago, louisxiawei said:

When I dragged the same track time bar (e.g. from 1:20 to 2:45), there is a pop occurred on MAY (or DAC8 on windows). I remember I sent an email to T+A regarding this and they confirmed this pop noise and told me it's normal.

 

Ahh, I don't do that. But that is discontinuation in the waveform and will result in some kind of a glitch. Nothing big, something  within the normal playback volume.

 

[mevdinc]

Am I correct in assuming that MAY DAC has no volume control?

[louisxiawei]

4 hours ago, mevdinc said:

Am I correct in assuming that MAY DAC has no volume control?

Yes, MAY has no volume control in either OS or NOS mode.

[mevdinc]

10 hours ago, louisxiawei said:

Yes, MAY has no volume control in either OS or NOS mode.

As I feared. That's a shame as I prefer all in one unit with my active. 'Less is more' I say.
Still, I can use the pre section of my existing DAC I guess if I decide to go for the Holo May DAC.

[semente]

45 minutes ago, mevdinc said:

As I feared. That's a shame as I prefer all in one unit with my active. 'Less is more' I say.
Still, I can use the pre section of my existing DAC I guess if I decide to go for the Holo May DAC.

 

Can't you use Audirvana's volume control?

[ferenc]

4 hours ago, mevdinc said:

As I feared. That's a shame as I prefer all in one unit with my active. 'Less is more' I say.
Still, I can use the pre section of my existing DAC I guess if I decide to go for the Holo May DAC.

 

I thought this too. Until I got a preamp for my active speakers. Since then I always use a preamp. It is a must. 

[OldBigEars]

Great.  We've got a new "DAC Flavor of the Month" for all the guys who just have to scratch that itch.

[mevdinc]

4 hours ago, semente said:

 

Can't you use Audirvana's volume control?

That's what I did when I used DACs with no volume control but a good DAC with a decent pre section gives much better results than using software volume control.
My current Musicbook has a very good analog volume control. I may just use it as a pre if I go for the MAY DAC.

Lossless Leedh digital volume control was talked about sometime ago, and Audirvana was going to adopt it too but haven't heard much about it for a while.

@damien78 , any news/info on this?

[mevdinc]

1 hour ago, ferenc said:

 

I thought this too. Until I got a preamp for my active speakers. Since then I always use a preamp. It is a must. 

What active speakers do you have?