HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[Mops911]

1 hour ago, Diavolo said:

I wish I could hear some improvement, but there just wasn't. Sorry,

 

I am sorry too looking at your speakers....pure horror....:-D

 

Just an opinion relax

[scintilla]

One of the more captivating listening experiences that I have had in the last 9 months or so is with with a Topping D90 in direct DAC mode fed 128x44.1 DSD, 7EC, poly-sinc-ext2 listening to live FM broadcasts from my local college jazz station from an Accuphase T-1000.  They have a downtempo/chill show from 9-12 M-F and the DJ hand-picks all his playlists.  Until last summer, I was limited to PCM 192/24 with my NAD M51. My soundstage expanded way out to the sides with this PCM to DSD arrangement, impossible to accomplish without HQPlayer.  It took some help from Jussi to get it configured properly for my proaudio digital interface which he gladly provided.  If I am brainwashed, then I sure wish I could find more areas of my life for Jussi to help with because he definitely nailed this one.  I am hotly awaiting the next level with the May in-house to take over for the Topping.

[bilboda]

I saw a terrific review of the May dac. A song is referenced ,The Appeal by The Toadies from the album Heretics.

Song starts with a panning organ, the bass drops and than a tambourine starts with a simple beat. For him, it was revelation, the space in the rear was lit up by the tambourine, it is not loud but well established by the May dac. For me, it was at first, what tambourine? Going thru some speaker moving it became, Hunh, that's a tambourine? Downloading the latest hqp and settling for poly sinc long and NS9 and upsampling 4x, it became, ah, there it is right center and it's a tambourine. Not quite what I was hoping for but I use the Morpheus, not the May and could probably shift my speakers and traps some, and maybe get a May. So hqp does do something. Anyone could likely repeat this, listening for the tambourine and how it resolves and changes with different filters and dithers. Qobuz sourced. roon - hqp - ethernet- pi2aes ropieeexl naa - i2s - Morpheus. Alternate route was thru USB Xspdif and aes, did okay, hqp arrangement did better

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, Diavolo said:

It doesn't improve sound quality. 

I used it for months just so I could be fair to it, but It's a big fat Nothing Burger 🍔.  I wish I could hear some improvement, but there just wasn't. Sorry, it's snake oil to me. That's just my opinion. By all means let your minions continue bringing you victims to brainwash into thinking they heard something. I'm just not one of them. 

 

Have a good day. Hope you have a banner year. 

 

Its just an opinion, relax. 

 

Stop being a jerk. 

[MichaelHiFi]

You know, I really like this post. 

 

When going through my music collection, I often get side tracked playing tracks on what to listen to when comparing... tracks. I mean I have my old standards but bilboda touched on something rather simple, a tambourine. I use Neil Youngs harmonica and his voice often enough and of course many other recordings but so often I struggle to get a good picture of what I'm hearing overall. And for me, it's just a crap shoot. Only continued listen between my wife and I had determined what sounded good over the course of time.

 

Looking forward to playing with the May and all its goodies.

[Extreme_Boky]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Asynchronous USB Audio Class transfer sends data every 125 µs (8 kHz rate  you can see sometimes leaking to DAC analog output).

 

How much data is sent on this block is controlled by two things; 1) audio format (sample rate, number of bits and number of channels), 2) asynchronous feedback from the DAC.

 

This data ends up in memory buffer at DAC which is then playing it out from there based on it's master clock. If the buffer level is dropping, it tells the computer "send me more", if the buffer level is increasing, it tells the computer "send me less".

 

44.1k base rates are not multiple of the USB clock, so the amount of data per transfer block varies all the time. While 48k base rates are multiple of USB clock and the amount of data per transfer block is more constant with less variation. But generally USB Audio Class is packet based transfer where the packet interval is constant but the amount of data per packet varies.

 

Then there are some DACs that use something else than USB Audio Class and use so called bulk transfer, and they operate in totally different manner. But these also require custom drivers to operate. exaSound DACs are example of such.

 

 

Thank you.

 

Even though I was aware of the above, you worded it so nicely that it truly helps understand what an a-sync data transfer between PC and USB interface card means.

[GoldenOne]

Whether or not HQPlayer brings an audible improvement to you is of course up to the listener, but to claim it does nothing is quite demonstrably false. And you can check the performance (and differences) of the various options it has available yourself. (The trial for HQP Pro offers enough to check that stuff using other tools without having to use a physical DAC/ADC)

 

NOS is inherently going to sound quite different to OS of pretty much any kind. 
And if you prefer it that's fine, audio is subjective and people are going to like different things, but making false and hostile claims about software being a virus/miner, or being abusive toward the dev isn't ok.....

[Extreme_Boky]

On 2/18/2021 at 7:45 PM, Miska said:

 

20... You can actually see that from their linearity sweep measurement Fig 11, where the linearity begins to deviate at -120 dB which is equal to 20 bits:

 

Setting DAC Bits to 20 won't affect noise floor when combined with LNS15, NS9 or NS5 noise shaper and high (>= 352.8k) sampling rates. This linearizes the D/A conversion removing distortion in low level signals while maintaining same noise floor.

 

Note that Stereophile measurements are with flat TPDF dither, not with upsampling combined with noise shapers.

 

You can even set DAC Bits to 16 when using the highest sampling rates and still the noise floor won't change as long as you use suitable noise shaper. In fact, setting DAC Bits to 20 and using for example LNS15 shaper at higher rates, digital noise floor at audio band is lower than it would be with DAC Bits set to 24 and TPDF dither, and without distortions. This is whole point of noise shapers; allows you to use linear region of the DAC while keeping or improving the dynamic range. But for the magic to happen you need higher sampling rates, noise shaper, and then the DAC's analog reconstruction filter does the rest.

 

Here is example from Spring 2 (these were measured before LNS15 existed)...

 

1 kHz tone at -120 dBFS, with DAC Bits set to 24 (at 1.4112M sampling rate):

 

 

Here with DAC Bits set to 20 and NS5 noise shaper at 1.4112M sampling rate:

 

Here again the same, but DAC Bits set to 16, NS9 noise shaper, 1.4112M sampling rate, very little noise floor increase at 90 kHz:

 

With NS5 shaper and DAC Bits set to 16, at 1.4112M sampling rate, you would begin to see noise floor increase above 60 kHz. So if you'd drop the sampling rate to 705.6k instead, the noise floor rise with 16 bits and this relaxed noise shaper, the noise floor rise would begin at 30 kHz instead - still above audio band.

 

With DAC Bits set to 20 and NS9 shaper, at 705.6k sampling rate, you still have flat, unchanged noise floor.

 

On 2/18/2021 at 7:55 PM, Extreme_Boky said:

Those NS5 and NS9 noise shapers at 1.4112M sampling rate and 20 bit-depth look absolutely unbelievable. 

 

Thank you for posting the plots, you are a gentlemen 😇

 

Regards,

Nick

 

The benefit of LNS15 dither at 1.536MHz, using poly-sinc-lp filter and 20 bits of bit-depth are undeniable. This is my favourite combination. Nothing comes close to it... and I can no longer listen to anything else...

 

It is like hearing all the details crystal clear, with great definition at all frequencies, firmly defined bass, shimmering highs, great width and height layered right in front of you. Truly enjoyable.

 

But the best thing is in fact how the whole presentation blends together in the "right" way, as one would expect by drawing a comparison with the best analogue reproduction, with no hint of digital glare and associated tiredness. 

 

This is truly exceptional. 

[lpost]

How many hours on your May?

 

I’m right in the 200 hours mark and frankly some of it’s been exceptional and some of its been quite difficult. I just turn off the amps and do something else while it burns the hours.

[lpost]

3 hours ago, scintilla said:

local college jazz station

 

Do they have a internet radio feed?

[Extreme_Boky]

1 hour ago, lpost said:

How many hours on your May?

 

I’m right in the 200 hours mark and frankly some of it’s been exceptional and some of its been quite difficult. I just turn off the amps and do something else while it burns the hours.

 

I did notice your previous post where you stated that the sound changed for worse....

 

This is what I experienced:

 

Brand new May, right out of the box - very nice even with a “raw” (non-upsampled) 44.1KHz material. The whole spectrum was there (highs as well !!). Nice and spacious sound, very pleasant. There was no "dullness" that is sometimes associated with NOS DAC's. The rising edge attack was also there. I was impressed. It was also very natural; especially the string instruments. Piano sounded better in DSD…. the piano with PCM in NOS had that “clingy” harmonics that are sooo difficult to get right with a true NOS and non-upsampled material. This was the only negative that I remember.

 

Around 200-300 hours’ mark: I noticed that the high frequencies have deteriorated somewhat...but only ever so slightly; the sound was shut-in, the high frequencies recessed.  I am not sure why....I am also not 100% sure that this was indeed the case…I know, it’s funny but I do think that something was not right at around that 200-300 hours ‘mark. I just left May working with upsampled (1.536MHz) material, but I was also feeding it the DSD (256x) material... 50/50... 24/7 for around 4-5 days.

 

Now I am at almost 3 –months‘ mark and May sounds lovely. I feed its balanced analogue-out straight to Aleph J with no capacitors in the whole signal path (apart from the speakers’ x-over). The interconnects and speaker cables are pure annealed silver ribbons and the silver alloy ribbons – respectively. I also use solid core power cables exclusively, a combination of pure copper, pure silver or a combination of copper – silver plated and then gold plated….This is my fine-tuning approach to achieve the most natural sound. The speakers are Dynaudio. The USB cable is Audioquest Coffee (I think it’s Coffee...).

 

I have been building amplifiers and DAC’s, doing high-end modifications and playing with electronics all my life. My friends are musicians and my kids play musical instruments (acoustic guitar and violin). What they keep telling me is that everything sounds really lovely and natural, exactly how it is supposed to sound, with May, minimalist approach (I have only 2 gain stages in that Aleph J that I built, the second one working in pure class A, single-ended) and HQ Player with settings I posted above. I was just about to give up on digital sound reproduction, and then May and HQ Player came along (and the improvements in PC-to-USB DAC transmission – aka a-sync, for which we are eversograteful!). Also, people are finally realising that importance of a very low phase noise clocks/oscillators (NOT only low jitter per se)… heck, we are finally able to measure this phase noise at 0.1Hz and lower, properly, and at a reasonable cost. So, it took only 2-3 decades to get digital sound reproduction to sound decent.

[lpost]

12 hours ago, bilboda said:

I saw a terrific review of the May dac. A song is referenced ,The Appeal by The Toadies from the album Heretics

I like Ron. He seems like a genuine person. I've never had to strain to hear the differences between filters or shapers. I was immediately attracted to the sound of Roon into HQPe from day one nearly 4 years ago. I've used PCM almost exclusively as I don't have a PC worthy of very high DSD and really don't want one. I don't like all filters for all music but I'm grateful for all the choices and have a few go to favorites.

[scintilla]

12 hours ago, lpost said:

 

Do they have a internet radio feed?

You can stream from your browser. 

https://www.ewu.edu/kewu/

 

You can add this link to your Roon live radio selections:

https://kewuradio.ewu.edu/KEWU_Jazz_89.5

 

They also have an app for iOS and Google on the respective app stores.  

 

If you add these, do post your thoughts about Nightfall, the downtempo/chill show 9-12am M-Th. Of course this feed sounds a lot better from the FM broadcast signal, but the content is still superb in MP3 and it is a 320KB/s 48k, 24bit stream. Enjoy!

[lpost]

I've now tried 5 'different' Amazon USB host adaptors. 2 were identical with Asmedia 3142, the others were a slightly different implementation of 3142, a 2142 and 1142. All produced the identical 'noise' playing 1536Mhz PCM as my motherboard ports. All sounded identical at 768Khz PCM as the motherboard ports. I've tried each at 16 and 20 bits. 20 definitely sounds worse but 16 is not good.

 

Looks like 705/768k PCM is my motherboards limit regardless. Sounding better and better every day. And yes, Virginia, different filters and noise shapers sound different to me and my non-audiophile wife. Thank you Jussi for such a wonderful and inexpensive product!

 

I'm curious from those that know how USB works, is it the system clock all USB interfaces use that is in common and thus at fault or does each interface have it's own inherent issues passing 1.5Mhz PCM?

[barrows]

1 hour ago, lpost said:

I'm curious from those that know how USB works, is it the system clock all USB interfaces use that is in common and thus at fault or does each interface have it's own inherent issues passing 1.5Mhz PCM?

I do not what specifically allows some USB interfaces to work at 1.5 MHz PCM, Jussi suggests that USB interfaces which use an Intel USB hub chip are more likely to work...  I very much doubt the USB clock has anything to do with it though.

[lpost]

Ok, thanks. 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?

 

Does Intel make PCI-e USB host adaptors? My searches so far have not turned up any.

[ted_b]

Have May I2S users (Singxer, etc) found that 1.5Mhz and/or DSD1024 is available?  Or does this still fall back to USB drivers (this time the Singxer-owned ones)?

[GoldenOne]

1 minute ago, ted_b said:

Have May I2S users (Singxer, etc) found that 1.5Mhz and/or DSD1024 is available?  Or does this still fall back to USB drivers (this time the Singxer-owned ones)?

It is available but you need an Intel pc/endpoint in order to use it. 

 

Also may has been shipping with firmware 3014 at stock for a few months (which provides compatibility with any USB host but doesn't support 1.536mhz).

 

So you'll need to swap it to firmware 3012 if you want 1.536mhz

[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.
 

[lpost]

Looks like I'll probably part with my AMD server with linear supplies since a bog standard Intel PC from 2017 equals or beats it in SQ and plays 1.5M/20bits without issue to the May. Saves power too! The USB input on the May is something special to not hear any difference between these two classes of computers/power supplies.

[Holzohr]

PCM 1411.2 and 1536 kHz playback is possible at least with my Spring 2 DAC and Asmedia 3142. Spring 2 and May have the same firmware versions 30.12 and 30.14 so the result should be the same. I have purchased this card. Additionally, I have the JCAT USB XE built in my "main audio-pc". For this audio-pc (Intel i7-8700) I have two installations (HQPlayer OS and Win 10 LTSC 2019 each of them on a 32 GB Optane stick) I swap now and then. At the moment I use Win 10 for playing with JPLAY and Diretta and HQPlayer Desktop.

 

I have made a short clip. Sorry for the quality. You see my NUC7i7DNKE as target-pc for Diretta and the Asmedia card connected with help of a m.2 to PCIe adapter. One thing I have to set DAC bits from default (or from 20) to 16. And before you ask concerning sq I think I prefer the NUC USB ports. Maybe because I am not really in the mood to order a HDPLEX case with NUC kit and m.2 to PCIe riser. 🙂

 

 

[MichaelHiFi]

This is a computer audiophilestyle forum so my post may be out of place, but I'm here listening to my May DAC KTE and F-it, I'll share an experience my wife and I had a few minutes ago. 

 

We've been enjoying this DAC for a few weeks now so maybe a 100 hours or better. At the same time I've acquired some pretty damn fine power cables (for me anyway), and today, I assembled a Furutech DPS 4.1 with the F series NCF connectors. I was thinking of wearing this cable as a necklace in downtown Las Vegas as it's bling compliant.

 

I replaced the Triode Labs Obsession's cable with the Furutech on my Kinki Studio M1+. The LessLoss C-Marc is plugged into the May from the Furutech NCF receptacle. Dedicated circuit cryo'd 10awg FWIW.

 

What happened? I'm nearly at a loss for words. I was listening to track after track and amazed at the clarity, the depth, the absolute quite that is allowing me to experience it seems, the intent of the music. While cooking dinner, music was playing in the adjacent room and Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" queued up. I ha d to cease eating as something was going on in our stereo room. I sat down and listened. WTF? The song finished and I asked my wife to listen to this song. She likes Neil Young, maybe more from respect as I don't remember her ever actually queuing up his music voluntarily, but she sat with me and I returned to the beginning of the song.

 

I've listening to this song 1 million times maybe. It's on my desert island playlist. But listening tonight had taken me to another realm. The tone and clarity, the silence between notes and the textures were extraordinary. I was moved to tears, I was inside the song, I was hearing Neil play his guitar in a different light, something had seriously changed. Music flowed around us, and when the song had finished I looked at my wife, her face was wet with tears. It was one of those rare moments when music had taken us completely out from our routine state of mind to a place of rapture. 

 

What is really damning is the speakers I'm listening through I built as a kit for $1K dollars. We will be doing some serious upgrading after the audio room is built but... damn. I'm forever a student as this hobby. So 55 years at it, I discovered a DAC, a frickin DAC can upgrade every component in ones system it seems. Now I know about DACs, I've probably easily owned more than 10 of them. Not like this one. But always be mindful of power, and especially power cables. My speakers had no business playing that loud and with the clarity they exhibited. Ridiculous.

 

My wife is a therapist. She understands the importance of music as a tool to relieve stress and to commune with what ever higher spirit one wishes to believe in, and whatever genre you connect to to get you there. To keep it "May" like, wow does this tool work for us.

[Extreme_Boky]

At those transmission frequencies, between the PC USB port and the DAC USB port, the amount of braid AND the way that braid is terminated to either (to both) USB shell metal cases, is of paramount importance. 

 

Next important thing is the impedance of the USB transmission line; not many manufacturers get it right - some (very boutique ones) do not get it at all - period. It should be 90 ohms. But, many expensive cables get this one completely wrong, and then we have reflections and dips that are clearly visible - reflections are particularly nasty. 

 

Then, there is a +5 V DC line there as well.... just to make things very difficult to get that USB data line impedance right.... So far, out of many that I checked, the one cable that got it right is Supra USB cable... 

 

Next, the USB line wire material makes difference as well.  Many would say it's 0's and 1's and it is impossible that the DATA+ and DATA- cable material (metal) could ever make a difference, but it does; huge.

[Extreme_Boky]

6 hours ago, lpost said:

Looks like I'll probably part with my AMD server with linear supplies since a bog standard Intel PC from 2017 equals or beats it in SQ and plays 1.5M/20bits without issue to the May. Saves power too! The USB input on the May is something special to not hear any difference between these two classes of computers/power supplies.

 

...just remembered that HQ Player caters for an on-the-fly phase inversion.... try that as well.

[lpost]

7 hours ago, Extreme_Boky said:

 

...just remembered that HQ Player caters for an on-the-fly phase inversion.... try that as well.

My last DAC had a phase invert on the remote. It was interesting how some tracks behave differently than others. How does one invert on the fly with HQPe?

 

Regarding USB and 90ohms. I've got a Intona USB cable and 7055-C in between source and May further isolating and ensuring 90ohms.