HOLO Audio MAY DAC

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Hi GoldenOne,

 

Are you still enjoying the May with volume controlled by HQPlayer? Would it be possible to hear your assessment w.r.t. your RME ADI-2 DAC? Do you have a favorite HQPlayer upsampling with these DACs? Would you mind sharing this maybe?

 

Many thanks, Frank

 

 

 

 

 

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Many thanks for your detailed reply, GoldenOne. This is very helpful information for me.

 

In fact I had used my current MetricHalo LIO-8 interface (with analog vol control) directly into MarkLevinson 434 monos for quite some time. Before that I had also tried a passive attenuator (but probably not at the level of your Goldpoint) with a borrowed Ayre QB9 DAC but that was not really convincing. At some point I got an Ayre KX-5 (non-20) preamp over the weekend for testing, which I could not return thereafter. And even recently, I had tried again to go back to DAC directly into power amp but I had to add back the Ayre pre rather quickly. Still I have to admit that the Ayre does add a little bit of color but in a pleasant way according to my ears.

 

For room correction I have just started to use Audiolense. Thus, I am somewhat in favor of multichannel dacs/interfaces. For example with your 4-channel ADI-2 Pro (if not using DSD direct mode unfortunately limited to stereo playback), you will be able to use two channels for the mains and two channels for subs whereas Audiolense can take care of the crossover between mains and subs. See the great article here by Mitch on how to use Audiolense for subwoofer integration.

 

In fact, I had the earlier version of the ADI-2 for testing in over a weekend. It was very, very good (also in comparison to a probably not well run-in Ayre QX-5/20) but not sooo much better than my Metric Halo LIO-8 even before upgrading the latter with the new 3D card. At that time I had blamed the stock power supply of ADI-2 which I still believe to be a very limiting factor. While I still use for now the stock SMPS also with the LIO-8, I use it with an amazing, game-changing Studio Connections Black Star Power Cord ... and of course I had not and in no way believed in the effect of power cords before.

 

Now the May DAC sounds very interesting ... also to explore HQPlayer which I plan to do next ... despite it being only a 2channel dac. Thanks again for your descriptions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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@luismaI cannot comment on Acourate. No experience. Getting optimal results Audiolense however seems to be more difficult than I had expected. Still have to get rid of some preringing ... Will have to experiment further. Also room treatments seem to be necessary. Not enough time here ... Note that AL correction implies few dB smaller signal. Thus DACs with excellent signal-to-noise like the May will be beneficial. While I win in bass quality with AL filters on, it seems to me that I loose a bit of air even when doing just partial correction up to say 500 Hz.

 

@GoldenOne Impressive measurements of your Goldpoint. Very interesting.

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Hmm, I had just looked at the JAs Stereophile measurements of the May:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/holoaudio-may-level-3-da-processor-measurements

 

What surprised me to see was the somewhat early rolled-off top end in the frequency response in Fig.7 (and Figs.8&9 for DSD in particular). Compared to this, the Chord DAVE (at much higher price of course) shows a much better performance as can be seen in Fig.3 here:

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/chord-electronics-dave-da-processor-measurements

 

Contrary to that the impulse response (Fig.1) of the May looks much better than the one of the DAVE (Fig.1).

 

... just wondering whether the May is in the same class as the DAVE for example. Stereophile lists both in their A+ category. Any listening experiences from comparisons between May and DAVE (or Mola-Mola Tambaqui or dcs Bartok etc.)? Does one hear the somewhat rolled-off top end?

 

 

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Many thanks. Indeed the 0.75dB @ 20kHz drop is not so significant. Readjusting speaker position by a little can easily have a larger effect. Also correction via DSP tools such as Audiolense would probably be a possibility to compensate for the drop to some extend. Good to hear about the comparisons with DAVE in favor of the May. 

 

 

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@MiskaWondering about the sonic implications of a steep analog reconstruction filter? Does it mean it will roll off earlier in the frequency response and thus sound less open? Looking at the Stereophile measurements of Mays NOS mode, one sees a somewhat early roll off. Wondering how much HQP could help here, e.g., by upsampling to 706.5kHz or to DSD256 or higher? Also since the Stereophile measurements of JA do not consider the DSD DAC inside the May, I am wondering how the corresponding results would look like? Any experience maybe from measurements of your Holo Audio Spring (2) that you would be willing to share with us?

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Thanks a lot. Very helpful. In fact I had been searching in the Spring 2 thread but was not able to find a freq response plot for the DSD DAC part or the Spring 2. I will check again ... in case you remember the page that will be great to know.

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So I have found again this post from the Holo Audio Spring Thread that seems to be revelant for the May as well. In my view it clearly documents the benefits of HQPlayer upsampling to DSD512 before sending digital to the May in NOS mode. Still wondering about the shape of the frequency response zoomed in up to say 196kHz when feeding the Spring (or May) with DSD256 or DSD512. 

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On both DACs I am using (Chord Mojo, Metric Halo LIO-8) the benefit from upsampling via HQPlayer to the highest possible rates (768kHz/DSD256, 192kHz) is substantial. Here in my system this difference is not subtle but decisive. My favorites are sinc-L and sinc-M since timing seems to be more accurate then with others I have tried. I will be very surprised if the May does not benefit similarly.

 

The OP seems to prefer the May when fed via high rate DSD to using the PCM R2R mode. Requires lots of CPU power but those coming from T+A DAC8DSD should be well prepared since DSD256 and DSD512 seems to be the best feed for this unit as well.

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Stereophiles Digital Component of the Year 2020 = Holo Audio May L3

https://www.stereophile.com/content/stereophiles-products-2020-digital-component-year

(Wondering whether they had listened to its DSD DAC part with redbook upsampled by HQPlayer as well without telling us?)

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Hi luisma, unfortunately I did not have access to the May (yet?). 

 

6 minutes ago, luisma said:

so you do prefer "decisively" DSD over PCM?

 

Well I prefer decisively using HQP to upsample to the highest rates my DACs can take as opposed to no software upsampling (or to upsampling via JRMC). In fact, the LIO-8 unfortunately cannot play DSD only PCM. The Mojo can do both but appearantly converts DSD into PCM inside. Here I had once very good results with DSD256 but my current server is not really capable of doing this without problems in real-time. Still PCM 768kHz from HQP with sinc-L sounds wonderful on the Mojo, as does PCM 192kHz from HQP with sinc-L on the LIO-8. Comparing Mojo and LIO-8, the Mojo is a tad cleaner with slightly better timing while the LIO-8 offers more physicality and stucture down low.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 9/30/2020 at 3:22 PM, luisma said:

Be aware that after trying HQP this there is no turning back :)

You were absolutely right with this statement in my opinion! :-) Thanks!

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12 minutes ago, Diavolo said:

I use Roon which is limited to 768khz 32bit pcm. I never thought I'd use hqplayer

While Roon seems to be more server-friendly and gives betters results than JRMC here, HQP with sinc-L (or sinc-M) is much better than anything I got with Roon. 

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19 minutes ago, GoldenOne said:

You can use HQP + Roon. Roon supports HQP as an output option.

Indeed and this is what I am using right now. In fact, for certain tracks, it even seems to come with slightly superior SQ than using HQPlayer/NAA without Roon. Is this maybe even supported by the following two measurements of master Chris?

 

 

 

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Anyone here using the Holo Audio May with the HQPlayer volume control directly connected to power amps as the favored setting? Is that a setting that works well?

 

According to JAs Stereophile measurements it seems to have a max output on the balanced outputs of 5.8V at 1kHz when using NOS mode.

(https://www.stereophile.com/content/holoaudio-may-level-3-da-processor-measurements)

Does this apply when feeding native DSD to the Holo Audio May NOS mode as well? Also does the voltage value matter when thinking about using a DAC with HQPlayer volume control directly connected to power amps?

 

Somehow I remember that I had read a comment from @barrows on this somewhere even in relation to the Holo Audio May but I was not able to find it.

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16 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Keep in mind, for those looking for the May (and others) to directly drive amps, that HQPlayer has a setting (not usually accidentally set but FYI) called "DirectSDM" which bypasses remodulation, etc AND the volume control...so beware.  :)  I'm sure you won't set it accidentally, but just FYI (again).  :)

Thanks! This is a very important point. I was glad that I had checked this "DirectSDM" mode while still using an analog volume control to find out that the HQPlayer volume control is bypassed as well. More generally, one has to be very careful when using software volume control as stressed also in the HQPlayer manual. E.g. one has to make sure that the connected PC does not play any sounds (e.g. for incoming mails) that do not go through HQPlayer in that case. I think the use of software volume control does require some extra care. However, the benefit of HQPlayer software volume control is quite substantial for my T+A DAC8DSD ... still I hope that I will never fry my tweeters/ears that way due to some accident ... such as forgetting about that bypass mentioned by @ted_b when using DirectSDM mode at some point in the future towards the end of a long nightly listening session. 

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On 2/25/2021 at 6:35 PM, GoldenOne said:

And yes, I have a may review coming soon^tm.

Looking forward to your May review. Saw your Qutest and DAVE/MScaler reviews today. Very nice work. Many thanks. Best wishes for your upcoming videos and your new channel!

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1 hour ago, Quadman said:

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.

Please Quadman let us know about your results ... Being a DAC8DSD owner myself I am particularly interested in your findings. Thanks in advance for keeping us informed!

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Actually since the DAC8DSD power supply efforts seem not to be sooo much over the top ... even using an internal one ... I am surprised even more that it does sound so good. In this respect, the May looks much more advanced. Dual mono, external PSU. Would be cool if you could test both at DSD512 and maybe even direct to power amp with software volume control e.g. by HQPlayer @Quadman ... Anyhow any feedback will be highly appreciated. :-)

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14 hours ago, Quadman said:

Currently my T+A is so real, so solid and so palpable, if it gets any better I'll never sleep.

I know exactly what you mean ;-) ... same experience here with the T+A ... leading already to a significant reduction of sleeping time.

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15 hours ago, Quadman said:

This May was clearly a step up from the T+A, which I had thought was audio Nirvana at DSD512.

This is very good news. Many thanks Quadman. At present, also I am basically thinking that the T+A DAC8DSD at DSD512 is audio nirvana ... However, at times, I have the impression that bass transparency/speed could still be a tad better as well as the soundstage depth. I had realized this e.g. in comparisons to my Chord Mojo which however is lacking in other departments such as physical presence. Seems that the May is delivering both great timing as well as physical presence. Great that this can be achieved at a reasonable price.

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@Quadman you are using your DACs not directly connected to power amps right? Did you ever try to bypass your preamp and to use HQP volume control for example? Setting the T+A to fixed output connected directly to power amps with volume controlled in software is where I got best SQ with the DAC8DSD. Would be very interesting to hear how well the May performs in such a setting when fed with DSD512.

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18 minutes ago, Hiker said:

I will be using a stupendously good preamplifier

Indeed, I had tought that my Ayre KX-5 falls into the same category ... and with all other DACs experienced in my system so far it had a crucial role. Nevertheless, using the T+A DAC8DSD direct to power amps with software volume control gave such a wonderful purity to sound that made the great KX-5 clearly superfluous in my system. I would expect the same to hold for the May.

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2 hours ago, Toni-Mang said:

good preamps open the Soundstage...

I had experienced the benefits of a high-end preamp as well. Before that I had hoped so much that no preamp would be better than a preamp. With several DACs in my house, this has clearly not been the case and the preamp ended up being a crucial element in my chain. Also I had been very sceptical to use software volume control and in fact in many of my settings it did not turn out to be convincing. Even more surprised I was to experience how great the HQPlayer volume control is working when using the DAC8DSD directly on the power amps. In fact, being biased from previous experiences, I was very close not to try that setting at all which would have been a big pitty.

2 hours ago, Toni-Mang said:

It is as always a question of personal taste and synergie...

Often yes ... but not so with the T+A DAC8DSD once fed with DSD512, set to fixed volume output and using HQPlayer volume control: The added sonic purity is clearly evident and amounts to added realism in my opinion. Here adding my preamp added something somewhat artifical ... but of course I have only a very limited hands-on experience with one single high-end preamp.

 

Still with these experiences, one of my first tests with the Holo Audio May would be to see how well it would be working directly connected to power amps when controling volume within HQPlayer. I really would not like to add back a preamp and for me I will pick my next DAC - maybe the Holo Audio May - only if the preamp turns out to be superfluous ...  Even when focussing on one single preamp, too many additional variables/elements all affecting SQ to a significant extend: one additional pair of interconnects, one more power chord and one more set of footers under the preamp ...

 

PS Appearantly - as can be read in @ray-dude's extreme writeup here on this page - with a Chord DAVE this can even be driven further by connecting the DAVE directly to highly efficient speakers for maximum transparency. Very tempting.

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My pair of REL subs is connected via the high level outputs of the monos. Then they are placed on the sides at half the depth of the room. The crossover between mains and subs is set to be below 80 Hz. Works ok ... but here (with my T+A and it would be the same with a May unfortunately) I really miss to have a multichannel DAC. Thus, I am still dreaming of a multichannel version of either the T+A or the May (or a DAVE). Also the ExaSound S88 looks highly interesting this way. I know for sure that using Acourate and Audiolense with a multichannel DAC would allow for much better sub-integration ... however the realism offered by the T+A native DSD DAC was just too convincing so that I had to keep it ... and it seems that the same would hold (and maybe even more so) for the May.