HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[Quadman]

For those of you with this dac are you able to stream dsd512 via HQplayer to it with Linux or similar version of as your servers OS?

[Quadman]

1 hour ago, GoldenOne said:

Yes. Dsd512/pcm 768khz both work fine from Linux and Linux based streamers. 

 

Dsd1024 and pcm 1.536mhz you need Intel hardware normally. As far as if you need Windows and the asio driver or if Linux will work, I'm not sure. 

Thanks GoldenOne, exactly what I was looking for.  My T+A Dac8DSD has older firmware that I cannot directly flash the newer firmware to handle DSD512 with Linux.  I am curious because I believe strongly that lower overhead OS systems sound better then heavy overhead OS (windows 10 with no optimizations).  I have never tried Linux based OS but would like to as I am about to build a new intel i7-10700K based server for this purpose.

 

Has anyone compared the T+A at DSD512 with the Holo May at DSD512 (or even DSD 256 with EC modulators).  I find it hard to believe the Holo could be much better than the T+A.  I get a very large, 3D, very palpable audio Hologram with my T+A.  A walk around soundstage with specific images located within, so real and so involving.  Spooky almost.

[Quadman]

On 3/13/2021 at 9:36 PM, lpost said:

My May DAC is complete and with the carrier service. Tim said to expect DHL info shortly.

Congratulations!  when did you place your order?

[Quadman]

I have seen many people post here that communication is slow, at least initially, with Kitsune.  Now an order was placed Thursday and an invoice has not been sent.  That is not very good communication and reflects on the company itself.  I get it they are busy, but I remember when Alex from uptone audio was slamming, working in the shop 10+ hours a day and constantly replying to emails and forum questions in a timely manner.  He just got er done.  It looks like the dac's come direct from China as ordered L1,L2 KTE so Tim does not have to mod himself in house.  I can't imagine what is keeping them so busy they can't reply to new inquiries or orders in a timely manner.  I am seriously thinking of ordering this dac but these issues keep me from pursuing it further.  Hire someone..cheez

[Quadman]

1 hour ago, John Hughes said:

Yes, Tim is slow to respond to initial orders and questions.  Usually it takes a couple of days to respond to new orders or a legitimate question.  However, once the connection is made, he is fairly prompt, on point, and very useful. Each order I have received the package faster than expected.

Thanks John.  Good to hear from multiple times buyer.  And yes I imagine the crazy questions he gets is maddening, a good Q+A sections could probably answer most of those questions.

 

39 minutes ago, sledwards said:

Those who are patiently waiting will not be disappointed. Questions and comments welcome.

Great write  up Steve, one of the first I read that actually use HQP and send up a sampled stream to the dac.  Most reviewers just NOS or play with the dac's internal up sampling.  Say what was the shipping cost of your dac to the US?

[Quadman]

Does anyone happen to know the value of those large grey rectangular vishay capacitors, found near the front of the middle input board?

 

I just bought a used L2 may, it already has a audiophile fuse installed.  Hopefully I'll get by the weekend.  It should be broken in already so a few hours warm up and I can compare to my T+A dac8DSD streaming DSD512 from HQ Player. The T+A at 512 is a special dac so very interested in this.  What sold me on the may was all the very positive listening impressions and reviews talking about how real and natural this dac sounds and the massive separate PSU which is much more advanced and capable than the in chassis T+A.  All of my audio experience I have found the better the PSU, the better the sound.

 

I would expect down the road I'll replace those grey vishays with a much more capable capacitor, similar to what the KTE version does.  Then I'll be 90% to the KTE version.

[Quadman]

1 hour ago, lpost said:

Did you grab the one on Usaudiomart for just a couple hours yesterday?

Yes, shipping today but UPS is snail, they project Monday arrival to E TN😥

1 hour ago, fds said:

maybe even direct to power amp with software volume control

I bi-amp and will not use an RCA splitter to do this, I run to a buffered preamp then RCA to each amp and I use HQP volume control currently.  Of course DSD512 will be tested.  Currently my T+A is so real, so solid and so palpable, if it gets any better I'll never sleep.

1 hour ago, lpost said:

I find DSD to be quite rolled off with the May compared to the same track PCM.

Interesting I will run pink noise upsampled to DSD512 and use audiomatica's Clio to measure RTA frequency response and compare to PCM 768k.  I would be shocked if there is a difference, we'll see.  I believe the firmware will be 30.14 which cannot do 1.5K or 1024DSD, I may roll back to 30.12 in the future if I feel the need to do so.  

 

I will also be building a new i7-10700K server to replace my older ryzen 7-1800x so more filters to play with...Whoo Hoo.

[Quadman]

Hey @Iceaero and @Extreme_Boky did you roll back your firmware from 30.14 which I believe comes installed on the May dac's and is unable to do DSD1024 or PCM 1.536Mhz to version 30.12 which does handle those sampling frequencies?  If so how did you do that? I downloaded the driver and firmware package found on the spring 2 page and the directions at a glance seem a bit awkward.

[Quadman]

25 minutes ago, lpost said:

I upgraded to 30.12 for 1.5M support a few days ago. I found that 30.12 worked fine for 768k/20bit however, this morning I went back to .14 as my motherboard USB ports sound absolutely terrible at 1.5M/20 and still not quite right at 1.5M/16. I suspect this is all dependent on your particular USB output et al.

I thought in the notes in the firmware/software file and on the holo spring 2 page they mention .14 has better USB compatibility among various boards.  Of course you lose 1.5M/1024 ability, (only .12 allows that).  Guess it is MB dependent.

[Quadman]

1 hour ago, lpost said:

Well I've tried just about all the 1 and 2 port cards with Asmedia chips on them. Anyone else find others, PCI-e, to work at 1.5M?

From what I read from the firmware notes 3o.12 firmware (1.5pcm and 1024dsd) seem to have issues with non-intel usb chipsets.  Hence they developed 30.14 which is compatible with many 3rd party usb chipsets but forgoes 1.5 pcm and 1024 dsd. 

 

From firmware notes:

take note dacs from late 2020 were shipped with version 30.14 are for those with either JCAT Femto PCI-E card (renasas chipset) or the Matrix Element or Element H card (texas instruments chipset) these are LIMITED TO DSD512 and PCM768 at this time.

 

HIGH content resolution firmware - version 30.12 is for motherboard USB chipset which is commonly Intel base USB controller and should support DSD1024 and PCM1.536Mhz as stated above in overview.
 

[Quadman]

Hey is anyone with this dac having issues playing DSD output with HQplayer?  I am

 

Today I built my new 10700K server, fresh install of windows 10 pro, HQP 4.10.3 and roon.  I have not installed AO or fidelizer as yet.  In connected output devices in roon the only one I have enabled is HQplayer.  So there is no conflict with another ASIO device via roon.  I set up HQplayer to output DSD512 (I have used hqp since 2015), the hqp player screen shows DSD filters and output rate that I set up.  As soon as I hit play in roon, HQP switched to PCM output.  The settings dialog in HQP shows SDM as the selected output despite PCM actually being output.  The filter listing on HQP main player page has switched to the PCM settings in the settings dialog.

 

This happened ever since I got the holo dac, although I can stream DSD using roon only to upsample redbook files, so I know it can play DSD.  So frustrating.  Any ideas appreciated

 

 

[Quadman]

55 minutes ago, Diavolo said:

I only ran into this exact issue because I forgot to disable the Holo May ASIO device in Roon, but based on what you said you have nothing else enabled. Is 48k checked on top in DSD settings and Adaptive Output Rate unchecked on the bottom?

The only enabled device is HQplayer.  Holo waspi and asio are not enabled.  Jussi mentioned to do this, as I had the issue yesterday on a older windows 10 pro version (1909).  I figured fresh install of everything would solve this, nope.  48K is checked as is adaptive rate as I don't want to up sample all 44.1 rates to 48 based rates.  I never had an issue with my T+A and its non-theyscon driver.  Yet yesterday with 1909 windows I output DSD512 via roon with holo asio enabled.  

[Quadman]

I just solved it.  Yes, no other outputs or sources were enabled in Roon.  I just clicked on device in HQP settings and sure enough there was a realtek ASIO driver listed as well as the holo asio.  Windows must have installed this.  So I deleted it and now, as it should, I can play DSD through HQP to the holo.  Dang those theyscon drivers are really really fussy.

[Quadman]

Today marks one week with my L2 Holo May, I bought used so it is already broken in.  My reference dac up to the May had been a T+A dac8DSD and with that I used HQPlayer 4, Audiophile Optimizer 3, Fildeizer pro 8.7, and win server 2019.  I up sampled all streams (Roon HDD, Tidal or Qobuz) to DSD512.  My current favorite filter is minringFIR-LP (the HQP android app, really makes testing filters very easy and shockingly this one became my favorite, I was a  Sinc-s guy)  For Dither I usually used DSDv2 or ASDM7.  My old ryzen 7 1800x with 1060GPU did not have the horsepower to do DSD256 with 7EC filters, even 5EC caused dropouts most times.  I stuck with DSD512 as I still felt it sounded better.  I seriously listen to my system 90-100 hours per month, I know it well.

 

At first I had issues with HQP, the Holo driver and winserv19.  HQP would no longer open, ugh  So I was forced to listen to Qobuz's web player streaming native NOS into the Holo.  I was shocked, I mean shocked at how good this dac sounded with a straight NOS stream into the Holo with NOS selected.  I thought I could live with this as it is and be very happy.

 

After a couple of days in PC hell, I got the May and Holo driver and HQP to play nice and I could finally listen to this dac the way I was used to with my T+A.  And I have to quote Herb here with the holo getting a DSD512 stream from roon/HQP minringFIR LP "Music "sounded more fundamentally right than any digital reproduction I have experienced in my system" (or any system for that matter).  This May was clearly a step up from the T+A, which I had thought was audio Nirvana at DSD512.  Everything and I mean everything was different with the May.  What got me first on music I knew well was the percussion (not drums) from the back of the stage which always had a nice, transparent and very present sound with the T+A, with the HOLO suddenly individual instruments and their tones were very distinguishable I was hearing much more of what was going on.  The space around them and the feeling of several people doing percussion was greater than with the T+A.  Then drums, wow, the Holo really added some weight, air and body to those and I had thought the T+A was already excellent here.  In general the sound stage was slightly bigger than the T+A but the individual performers were more clearly delineated with more palpable presence and greater transparency.  The bass was better defined with great weight and the pace and drive of the music seemed a touch faster than the T+A.  Together this was by far the most musically and emotionally involving music I had ever heard in my system.  I didn't want to turn it off and listened to 4:30 am that first night (8 1/2 hour session).  And since that night I have listened every day.  I wake up, I want to listen to it, I can't stop thinking about.  Like a new lover when the passion and newness is so strong you can't get away from each other.  Maybe someday I will settle and go a day without hearing this marvelous dac.  Right now I am addicted and need my fix every day.  That is the greatest compliment I can give any component.  Its ability to so involve us in the music that we forgo sleep, food and other necessities just to hear more.  Hello my name is quadman and I am a aupiophile'holic, LOL.

 

For those of you on the fence and don't want to spend $10K plus on maybe an even better dac get this one.  You won't be sorry.

[Quadman]

23 minutes ago, ted_b said:

have you tried comparing taking PCM to DSD512 versus taking PCM to very high PCM (like 1532k)?  If so, what is different (or lacking) that you hear better in DSD512?  BTW, "dither" is a PCM term; your ASDM7 or DSDv2 are modulators. 

With the new i7-10700K server I built last week my options in HQP now are almost endless, so many new toys to play with.  Yes I have listened to PCM streams from my HDD and Tidal and Qobuz with HQP set to either 1.4Mhz or 1.536 Mhz, I keep auto rate family engaged (sinc-L filter, LNS15 dither (thank you)).  To be honest everything I hear through the Holo is excellent and I like it.  But PCM 1.4 and 1.5Mhz ultimately seem a little more 2D'ish, flatter than the holographic 3D stage of DSD512 or DSD256 w EC7.  1.4 or 1.5Mhz may seem to be a little more defined on the leading edges of transients and perhaps appear to have a touch more high frequency content, but when I switch back to DSD 256 EC7 or 512 I relax a bit more and just get drawn into that holographic, so transparent and 3D stage.  

 

I don't like quick A/B between formats (PCM/DSD), I prefer longer listening sessions, where you get a better sense of how the music affects you, draws you in.  PCM 1.4 or 1.5 certainly sounds excellent, but in extended session its DSD where my heart lies.  I still have a lot of options to try thou. 

[Quadman]

4 hours ago, fds said:

you are using your DACs not directly connected to power amps right?

I run a bi-amp system, my bass units are fed from a 250W SS amp and I use a parametric equalizer for the lower frequencies only.  My DiAppolitto mid/hi heads are fed by a 18W per channel 211 based SE triode amp.  Both amps only accept SE inputs so either I use a splitter at the preamp or if both outputs can be used a balanced to rca adapter.  I prefer not to do that.  I have a buffered preamp that I made with very high quality parts.  It has no remote volume control so I set the T+A at Line out volume and use HQP as digital volume control which works excellent as you know.  The Holo is such a step up from the T+A I am sure it would preform excellent here as well, be aware the T+A outputs 2.5V SE and the holo outputs 2.9V SE, double those for balanced out.  Stage width and depth, at least in my room, is excellent with the T+A and very close to the holo (my speakers are 8.5' from the rear wall)  it is the definition and energy within that stage that is so much more involving with the may over the T+A. It sure shocked me, I love the T+A, it is amazing, it has definitely been bettered by the holo tho.

[Quadman]

2 hours ago, scintilla said:

I won't know how it lights up the corners until it gets here...

and yet you helped derail this thread for almost 1.5 pages.  Back on topic tho, you thought your bass was good with what ever dac you have, boy are you in for a real treat.  As Toni-Mang says it "really lights up all back edges of the stage".  In a way you've never heard before,  The energy, the realism the transparency that you will experience will transport you to a musical world you have never been to before, but will happily return to again and again.

[Quadman]

14 minutes ago, scintilla said:

I truly do not expect them to be that far apart. The D90 is the best DAC that I have had in my system to date in direct-dac dsd-mode, running 128xDSD, 7EC, poly-sinc-ext2.

Yea well you'll be surprised.  I came from T+A dac8dsd a world class dac when up sampling to dsd 256 EC7 or DSD512, I thought I was in audio nirvana with it.  Then came the Holo and I was schooled again.  It is a whole different league.  You'll see.

[Quadman]

9 hours ago, John Hughes said:

What's the settings that you guys are using to get 1.5M output?

In the holo driver control panel, about, you can see what firmware version you have installed.  It needs to be 30.12 to get 1.5Mhz or DSD1024.  In the downloads off the kitsune site there is a text document giving brief instructions on how to update firmware and a package for firmware 30.12.

[Quadman]

On 4/15/2021 at 1:37 PM, Jean Paul D said:

May trounces his once beloved T+A DSD8 ; is it true of the Spring as well ? should I get a  Spring2L2 rather than a T+A DSD8?

As fds says above, the T+A is made for DSD512 via HQP.  It is an incredible dac and it is better if you can utilize the balanced out as opposed to the SE (RCA) outs. I could only use the RCA out.  Herb Reichert said the difference between the Spring dac and the May was not subtle leading me to believe the T+A at 512 DSD or perhaps 256 DSD with EC7 modulators is going to beat the spring.  My listening notes 3 days before the Holo appeared said "does it get any better than this, how can the May beat this".  The T+A is an amazing dac and I was in audiophile nirvana with it.  I took the leap primarily because the reviews were so positive on the May's sound and the real clincher was the May's stand alone PSU.  In my experience the better PSU always wins.  Think Naim with their box and the better versions of that box were simply better PSU's.  You can't go wrong with a T+A if you play DSD as described above.  The PSU between the spring and T+A are similar, in chassis designs, so I'd give the edge to the T+A.

[Quadman]

1 minute ago, Jean Paul D said:

do you prefer the T+A @512 with non EC modulator or  @256 with 7EC? i'm limited to 128 nowadays but love 7EC

Unless you have an updated T+A with the newest Amanaro firmware it will not play DSD512.  Both FDS and I used windows.  My server at time could not do DSD256 EC7,  but occasionally could do DSD256 EC5 and I still preferred DSD512 over that.  And with the Holo and my new server as of today I sill prefer DSD512 over DSD256 EC7 or PCM 1.536.

[Quadman]

1 hour ago, Jean Paul D said:

second hand T+A or more than triple the budget for a May

May would be 2x maybe 2x+ over used T+A,  if you can stretch, the may is the clear choice.  It is that much better almost an endgame dac.  My SME30 mk2 TT and dynavector XV1s cartridge just sit idle as my digital has surpassed it in SQ (even the T+A at 512 was the equal to it). I briefly tried the T+A direct to my amplifiers like @fds does and it was very good, but I have a buffered preamp with a very simple circuit and very high parts quality and really heard no difference between direct to amp or through my buffered pre.  So I keep my buffered preamp in the chain.

 

I also, last weekend, made an upgrade to my L2 May (making it almost a KTE minus the copper R2R board covers) and will report on that tomorrow after one more long listening session.  Dang I just love the MAY.

[Quadman]

4 hours ago, fds said:

To my knowledge, the "-6 for DSD vs PCM" is not present with the T+A whose balanced XLR outputs I am using. Thereby, it still seems to me that a preamp cannot be avoided

It is true despite the Holo having a higher output voltage SE (2.9V) vs the T+A SE (2.5V) (balanced should be 2x) I find I have to use higher volumes (when up sampling to DSD) in HQP to play my usual loudness compared to the T+A.  OTOH if you think the T+A direct to amp will still beat the Holo through a preamp then Aerosmith wrote the perfect song for you, Dream On.  And seriously what is your amps sensitivity?  Balanced Holo out is 5.9V, -6db I believe is still 1.475V most amplifiers reach full rated power well below this figure, My amp reaches full power with .75V.  Do you still need to set HQP at -3 if the signal is already -6?

[Quadman]

As I mentioned Friday, last weekend I performed surgery on my Holo L2 dac to make it as close to the KTE as possible.  the main difference's between the L2 and KTE are as follows.

*  Kte replaces the IEC copper wire and regular faston connectors with 1.5MM silver wire and silver/rhodium plated faston connector

    they also remove the "connector" to the Power PCB and solder direct to board.

*   The stock Shurter gold plated fuse is replaced with the Red Nano fuse

*   Standard Vishay capacitors are replace with special KTE branded capacitors

*   Hand selected Dac modules with black coper metal shields over the boards

*   KTE branding logos

 

*  I replaced the standard copper wire and standard faston connectors with DH Labs Silver Sonic high performance silver plated          continuous crystal 14ga hookup wire and WBT gold plated copper faston connectors, soldered direct to the PCB.

*  Previous owner of my L2 had already swapped the stock shurter fuse with a synergestic Orange Fuse.

*  I replaced the 2-Vishay MKP 1848s 10uf, 700v capacitors with Auricap XO 10uf, 160Vdc capacitors

 

If you look at all the pictures posted on the Kitsune Holo May page the first group show the L2 dac then in the middle they show a full assembled dac with the fox KTE logos then after this all internal pictures are from the KTE version so you can further study to see the differences.

 

Power wire harness before and after.

 

Vishay Caps on input board near front of dac and replacement Caps

 

Now I just have to figure out if it is worth covering the R2R modules with some type of RFI/EMI covering.  For now I listen.

 

The KTE special Capacitor they use only has a black wrap and a fox logo so brand is unknown.  I do know that the solder points for the Vishay's are 37.5mm apart and in kitsunes photo's the new KTE cap has at least 2-3mm inside those dimensions making the cap 31.5mm - 33.5mm long.  Searching the web trying to find 10uf caps that fit that size there are only 2 I could find that would make possible replacement, a Nichicon or an Illinois' capacitor.  I am very confident it is not a Teflon capacitor as the film is thicker and any Teflon cap I could find is bigger than the solder points.  I choose a very high end Auricap XO which is about 35mm wide, the pair were $80.  Is it better?  no idea its really good though.  Is the Synergestic orange fuse better than the red nano fuse I don't know either, some KTE owner would have to try and report back.  FYI, Tim told me NO caps are in the signal path!

 

As I completed this fun project, he says tongue in cheek, I let the dac run with a signal from HQP continuously .  The first serious listening session was 50 hours in and through Friday night I had completed 150 hours of burn after that session.

 

The dac is better with the mods.  I find myself listening mostly to DSD512 up sampling as it is so organic, so real and so believable so palpable. I call it an audio Hologram.  With the mod the already huge stage expanded a bit more and individual images which already where very present had more weight and and better definition, subtle sounds before part of the mix now came forward with more of a presence themselves.  Bass further tightened up and the leading edges of it had better definition.  The lead performer was more present and the definition of their vocals was heightened in a very real and more believable way, very intimate.  Overall the new presentation was more real more satisfying.  Something you wouldn't be aware of until you hear it.  The mod was worth it, a lot of work and worth it.  I noted as the week went on and the hours increased on the cap very slight improvements.  I am not sure when this cap is done forming I suspect by now it is 99.x% of the way there.

 

I am still learning this dac but I find most of my listening is at DSD512 and I ask myself why is everybody else not hearing this, why is there not universal agreement like the T+A?  All I can come up with is Room and speaker placement within.  My large full range speakers are 8.5' into the room, a luxury most people do not have (see my profile page about my set up, its long a maybe boring but gives you a good idea) so the stage is really large in my room which plays into DSD 512's strengths, even 1024 with its so 3D palpable images.  It just trounces the more 2D, less palpable PCM 1.5 MHz which although very transparent with excellent bass feels like paper cutouts playing compared to full 3D with 512.  DSD256 EC7 is interesting and I need to spend more time there but every time I go back to 512 I relax a bit more.  What is shocking to me is un-up sampled PCM and how good it sounds, I may even prefer it to PCM 1.5MHz as the images are a bit more 3D un up sampled.  I set HQP to none for filters, Dither set to TPDF and sampling rate to 192 (the highest in my library or on Qobuz) music then plays back at its native rate and I like it a lot not 512 a lot, maybe better than PCM 1.5.

 

There are so many ways to play back your music with this dac, I am still learning.  I am having a blast but still learning and loving every minute.  My love of this dac just gets stronger as I listen more.  You cannot go wrong with this dac.  L2 is great but KTE is better.

 

 

 

 

[Quadman]

23 minutes ago, Extreme_Boky said:

The mains switch, as part of the IEC socket at the back of the unit. 

Yea that one is super easy to bypass, front panel switch I assume would still allow dac to go to standby if needed, I would assume. I would also still have the fuse in circuit.

 

23 minutes ago, Extreme_Boky said:

The 110/120 <-> 230/240 switches (2 switches) for the transformers (located on the PCB)

embarrassed I didn't do that, head was focused on match KTE.  And yes it would make a nice uptick in SQ.  That I assume would also be relatively easy to do.  I'll look into it, Thanks!

 

23 minutes ago, Extreme_Boky said:

So, you do not have to stay with 10uF capacity... lower values will also work, which means that any cap that you like in your system

I almost did exactly what you suggest, but in the end I found those really good Auria caps and so far I am really pleased.  Your thought on soldering small wire leads in the PCB to roll was exactly my thought as well should I decide to roll caps.  Remember according to Tim, NO capacitor is in the signal path.  Not even that Teflon 1uF, 1000Vdc near the output. (it replaced the Mundorf)