HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[digitaldufferme]

Has anyone else purchased the May and would like to share listening impressions? I’m really curious whether there is a significant difference in sound profile between the Spring 2 and the May. Quite a premium in price so I’m wondering whether the already excellent Spring 2 & the law of diminishing returns makes the May not worth having other than for the enjoyment of having the best measuring R2R.. I can’t audition either so am having difficulties deciding between the Terminator, Spring 2 KTE or MAY L2. 1st world problems....🤭

[digitaldufferme]

If it matters to you, there are measurements on both ASR (WolfX700) and SBAF forum (Atomicbob) using professional measuring equipment which have both found the Holo Audio L2 May to be the best measuring DAC using R2R technology ever and better than many DS DACs. Whether measurements are important to you and whether you feel they relate to sound quality is a personal opinion of course. I use measurements as an indication of good engineering competence and attention to design and manufacturing. Only your ears can can tell you whether something sounds better. One thing is for sure from my viewpoint, the audio manufacturers making R2R dacs who say this type of tech needs to measure badly vs DS based DACs by virtue of the basic design concept have been proved to have inadequate engineering skills. Holo Audio has shown them to be wrong purely from an engineering and design viewpoint. This has nothing to do with your listening pleasure which is an entirely subjective aspect and what you (I hope) pay for. I don't think you can go wrong from all the happy users of the Terminator but I wanted to support the engineering persistence of Jeff Zhu the designer who has been working on the May for more than 4 years with such beautifully precise results.

[digitaldufferme]

On 5/30/2020 at 11:37 PM, barrows said:

I know some people like I2S, but it is somewhat flawed in a technical sense vs. USB.  The USB input on the May has been shown through jitter measurements to be very, very good.  I would expect best performance using the USB input via a very, very good Renderer.  Using a Renderer allows your (powerful one needed for HQP of course) computer to be located far from the audio system where things like electrical and RF interference and even fan noise will be of no concern.  I work with Sonore, so of course you know my preference for Renderers!  Regardless, you will want to use a Renderer which has the HQP NAA protocol available.

@barrows Putting aside your Sonore connection, what is the argument that a renderer with NAA needs to be "powerful" for HQP? What is the issue with a RPi4b running @Miska dedicated NAA software? Thanks for sharing your viewpoint and hoping this doesn't trigger a Pi fans' war. I'm genuinely curious as I have a Pi4B and my Holo Audio May L2 should arrive today. Cheers

 

[digitaldufferme]

13 hours ago, barrows said:

Sorry friend, for any confusion caused by my post:  I was saying that a powerful computer is needed for running HQPlayer (especially with the fantastic sounding EC modulators), not that the Renderer needs to be powerful. 

 

Now, certainly there are better performing Renderers than OTS commercial computer gear like a RPi, but that is another topic and it would not be appropriate to talk about that further in this thread.

@barrows OK that makes perfect sense now. Appreciate your taking the time to reply.

 

[digitaldufferme]

7 hours ago, GoldenOne said:

does anyone know if the RCA/XLR outputs of the may are independently buffered? I know a lot of dacs if you use XLR to one amp and RCA to another it essentially removes the Common mode noise rejection on the balanced connection ( https://forum.psaudio.com/t/using-both-the-xlr-and-rca-outputs-on-a-ds-sr/5208 )

 

Is this the case with the may? Or will plugging something into RCA not affect the XLR outputs?

They are 2 completely separate paths. The XLR and RCA can be connected at the same time and the sound will not be degraded or affected at all and there is more than sample power supply as well. I checked with my main agent in Hong Kong for you.