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HOLO Audio MAY DAC


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So, that new 180g Kerosene Hat got a play tonight (actually still playing).  I had to get a bit tricky to try this a new way TASCAM 192k to macbook air for Purevinyl RIAA, then out to the TASCAM and into the other TASCAM AES/EBU and into iMac and HQP for DSD 512.  I am applying my RC in HQP convolution instead of Purevinyl in this setup and running up to 24Mhz.  I adjusted my gains in Purevinyl and have plenty of overhead now to avoid digital overs while staying well below -3b in HQP.  Finally enough gain for my DL-S1.  A little hum, but theres 60db of gain on the preamp.  This sounds most excellent.  Lots of depth and transient snap. Definitely digging the May.

 

image.thumb.jpeg.a4a84e289e35c7e49a6d3042fc9b2a99.jpeg

 

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4 hours ago, barrows said:

also, are you avoiding stacking the May DAC directly on top of the power supply?  I would definitely separate them if so, as the filed strength of most transformers is going to be enough in the vertical to potentially create interference with the DAC via magnetic coupling in the vertical plane.  

 

@GoldenOne: What is your take on this? Considering the May is over engineered, my guess is that the designer would have thought about this two before offering a two chasis design and it is not logistically convenient if we cannot stack these too. Have you made any observations of interference during your tests? Thanks

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'So yep, basically any source should work with the may and be absolutely ideal. 

It truly is a remarkably and wonderfully over-engineered product. '

 

I suppose this explains why I hear zero difference when changing power supplies that feed my UP gateway NAA computer (Intel Cherry Trail SoC) that connects to the May via USB. 

 

I have my May and PS separated only because I built the shelves and could easily separate them some. The DC cable is generously long allowing for this so why not if able. It certainly cannot hurt to have separation though it also may not matter/help anything audible and at the end of the day audible is all that really matters (to me).

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I have May DAC L2 and Aleph J with no AC coupling (sound-coupling/DC blocking) capacitors - apart from the tweeter X-over capacitor inside speaker cabinets. Balanced silver ribbon interconnects, silver alloy speaker cables, solid core gold plated pure copper power cables. Very revealing. The best sound I can achieve is with native sampling rates (44.1/88.2/96/192 kHz). No oversampling in software, nor hardware (inside May). This gives me completely natural sound, relaxed presentation and depth perception (layering) that is simply beautiful. The native 44.1kHz material, in NOS, should be a no-no... but it sounds amazing with May.

 

I also prefer to underclock the CPU (minimum frequency AND voltage), with a skeleton number of background OS processes, and I run my laptop on battery power <- all of which contribute by a large amount to this natural 3D presentation.

 

I know many will disagree.

 

I also have NUC11 and HQ Player, to impress friends (especially when May starts showing that 1.536Mhz number!). But people who play natural instruments/musicians in particular, easily go for that battery powered laptop sound, with starved CPU and native, non-oversampled material.

 

I am not sure if anyone else tried what I'm suggesting here..? It would be good to see what others think...

 

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Extreme_Boky said:

I would agree with you 100%, though I prefer to use an high quality endpoint as an additional firewall from the noise in the PC.  

 

12 minutes ago, Extreme_Boky said:

I have May DAC L2 and Aleph J with no AC coupling (sound-coupling/DC blocking) capacitors - apart from the tweeter X-over capacitor inside speaker cabinets. Balanced silver ribbon interconnects, silver alloy speaker cables, solid core gold plated pure copper power cables. Very revealing. The best sound I can achieve is with native sampling rates (44.1/88.2/96/192 kHz). No oversampling in software, nor hardware (inside May). This gives me completely natural sound, relaxed presentation and depth perception (layering) that is simply beautiful. The native 44.1kHz material, in NOS, should be a no-no... but it sounds amazing with May.

 

I also prefer to underclock the CPU (minimum frequency AND voltage), with a skeleton number of background OS processes, and I run my laptop on battery power <- all of which contribute by a large amount to this natural 3D presentation.

 

I know many will disagree.

 

I also have NUC11 and HQ Player, to impress friends (especially when May starts showing that 1.536Mhz number!). But people who play natural instruments/musicians in particular, easily go for that battery powered laptop sound, with starved CPU and native, non-oversampled material.

 

I am not sure if anyone else tried what I'm suggesting here..? It would be good to see what others think...

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, GoldenOne said:

PLL applies to the digital inputs.
It's active on all inputs including I2S. So with PLL on, no matter which input/source you use, it should end up basically "perfect".

To be clear though. There are good and bad PLLs. Lots of other DACs will have a PLL which will attenuate jitter a little bit. But it's because the may's PLL is so ridiculously good that you can use any source and have it come out basically perfect.

It's my understanding that usually an asynchronous USB transfer will not use a PLL, rather it receives the input with the transmitted data rate / clock and then sends it onward (into the DAC in this case) with a completely separate clock that's in the DAC. Am I missing something? Why does the May have a PLL at all if it can completely isolate the input and output clocks for the USB stage?

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13 minutes ago, happybob said:

It's my understanding that usually an asynchronous USB transfer will not use a PLL, rather it receives the input with the transmitted data rate / clock and then sends it onward (into the DAC in this case) with a completely separate clock that's in the DAC. Am I missing something? Why does the May have a PLL at all if it can completely isolate the input and output clocks for the USB stage?

It has been established by the manufacturer earlier in this thread that the May's USB input does use PLL. Another way the May is pretty unique. 

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3 minutes ago, John Hughes said:

It has been established by the manufacturer earlier in this thread that the May's USB input does use PLL. Another way the May is pretty unique. 

Thanks for clarifying! Was there a reason given as to why a PLL is used in the May? I'd rather not slog through 40 pages of post responses to find it if it's even stated. Thanks!

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15 minutes ago, John Hughes said:

It has been established by the manufacturer earlier in this thread that the May's USB input does use PLL. Another way the May is pretty unique. 

 

Did the manufacturer say whether the USB transfer mode was isochronous or adaptive? Only those two modes require a PLL, asynchronous does not.

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Tim from kitsune said that the pll was active when using the USB. I'm not entirely sure if that's the case though for two reasons:

 

1) the jitter performance doesn't change at all regardless of whether pll is on or off

 

2) there is 0 locking time with usb even with pll on

 

 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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Hi @GoldenOne It would be really cool to keep measurements of this DAC over time. The big issue that manufacturers, who don't offer R2R DACs, bring up is that R2R DACs can lose accuracy over time because of all the resistors. I have no idea how big of a deal this is, how much time we are talking about, or if this is still an issue. 

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4 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Hi @GoldenOne It would be really cool to keep measurements of this DAC over time. The big issue that manufacturers, who don't offer R2R DACs, bring up is that R2R DACs can lose accuracy over time because of all the resistors. I have no idea how big of a deal this is, how much time we are talking about, or if this is still an issue. 

I'd be happy to do that. 

Fwiw this dac is over a year old and measures exactly the same as when I got it. 

 

Im not sure why the performance would change over time though cause afaik resistors don't degrade over time? (unless you're running it above its rated power spec which wouldn't be the case here cause everything is line level at most) 

 

The only thing I'd be concerned about degrading I think would be the capacitors but then that's the same for just about any product regardless of design. 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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Also just thought I'd post here in regards to USB sources for 1.536mhz for the may.

I was previously using an SMS200 Ultra, but couldn't do 1.536mhz from HQPlayer with it.
You have to use an intel device in order to reliably get 1.536mhz working. (Some other PCIe cards work on and off but intel is the only thing that works reliably).

This limits you to not massively ideal devices in terms of your source. I bought a NUC as I could then run a roon core on it, and also use it as a source for the may.

BUT, if you're wanting a really good USB source that DOES do 1.536mhz. Get an intel machine (cheapest options are the intel compute stick or one of the mini-PC options on amazon for ~£100 with the atom x5 cpu) and an ifi iGalvanic 3.0. This provides full galvanic isolation, an output noise floor of <5uV and also does reclocking etc.

It's 'transparent' from a digital perspective. Meaning the system does not see it as a USB hub or controller. It looks to the PC like a cable pretty much. And I can confirm that 1.536mhz is working flawlessly with NUC -> ifi iGalvanic -> May

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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In a fixed-resistor network, I could see some drift over time.  However, here the design affords two different ways to combat that: 1) dynamic compensation and 2) dual-mono, differential networks.  Jeff uses the two best way to assure constant linearity and lowest noise floor.  Resistor drift is unlikely here but compensation is going to ensure that it isn't going to degrade. As to the PLL, it could be employed between the USB receiver implementation and the resistor network rather than to corral in the data at the input receiver that is using an asynchronous isochronous protocol.  We don't have a lot of details on the Titanis code, but since it is proprietary it is possible Jeff uses the USB receiver as a way-station for the data and locks the data output with the PLL for the highest quality clocked-out data.

 

image.thumb.jpeg.a4a84e289e35c7e49a6d3042fc9b2a99.jpeg

 

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On 5/4/2021 at 8:56 AM, GoldenOne said:

Honestly the may usb is so good, and has galvanic isolation built in anyway, that I've found that many usb cleanup options make no difference to it. (subjectively or objectively) Even though they do make a difference on other dacs. 

Golden One, you said the above quote last week, but then today said (in a great post about USB sources doing 1.5Mhz PCM)

 

13 minutes ago, GoldenOne said:

BUT, if you're wanting a really good USB source that DOES do 1.536mhz. Get an intel machine (cheapest options are the intel compute stick or one of the mini-PC options on amazon for ~£100 with the atom x5 cpu) and an ifi iGalvanic 3.0. This provides full galvanic isolation, an output noise floor of <5uV and also does reclocking etc.

What is the purpose of the iGalvanic if the May USB is already there? 

 

Also, I assume those intel compute sticks or Intel NUCs would run Linux NAA as opposed to Windows NAA (I ask cuz I found Windows has high frequency hash at 32fs and 20 bit; 18 bit seems to tame it). 

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6 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Golden One, you said the above quote last week, but then today said (in a great post about USB sources doing 1.5Mhz PCM)

 

What is the purpose of the iGalvanic if the May USB is already there? 

 

Also, I assume those intel compute sticks or Intel NUCs would run Linux NAA as opposed to Windows NAA (I ask cuz I found Windows has high frequency hash at 32fs and 20 bit; 18 bit seems to tame it). 

Honestly, nothing but nervosa :P

I don't think there is a difference but I wasn't using the Igalvanic anyway and figured some people may be looking for a 'just in case' solution. 

 

The nuc/compute stick can run whatever you like in terms of os. If you're getting high frequency hash though that might be your machine. I have that on my Amd pc but the Intel machine is perfect. 

 

(also double check you've got the latest drivers installed, are using asio, and the windows volume isn't anything below 100%) 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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Thx.  Your description of your new NUC sounds like you are using it as BOTH a roon core and an NAA.  Is this at the same time (NUC -> HQPlayer server -> NUC -> May), or can be used either (the same time thing has me baffled :)  ). ?

 

 

 

 

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That is a good discussion, maybe a DDC or an islolator can add an additional noise performance to the Titanis section...(the section befor the isolated handover to the Dac)...as mentioned above PLL should handle the jitter...

In my case the DI20HE sounded different compared to a direct connection via USB. I am using a noisy and old Laptop with Jriver. The direct USB connection is wider in soundstage, but has not the dephts as the di20he via I2S...thats why i think about a galvanic isolator to compare...maybe the DI is obsolete than...

Papas Gear...

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23 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Windows has high frequency hash at 32fs and 20 bit; 18 bit seems to tame it). 

Ted,  The PGGB website under dacs has this info...  It appears they recommend 16 bit at 32fs.

  • Holo Audio May DAC (16FS/20bits** or 32FS/16bits***)
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23 minutes ago, GoldenOne said:

Honestly, nothing but nervosa :P

I don't think there is a difference but I wasn't using the Igalvanic anyway and figured some people may be looking for a 'just in case' solution. 

I would suggest that things are not quite so absolute as this sounds.  "Isolation" like this is effective at reducing noise getting across the barrier, and is used in most good DAC's USB interfaces, and many very good USB sources as well.  But, this isolation is not 100 percent effective, there will always be some noise which makes it across the "moat" via capacitive coupling-this is likely why many persons using DAC's with well "isolated" USB inputs still hear some improvements with low noise USB sources.  Each level of isolation will still make for some additional (although perhaps minute) degree of noise reduction.

What is also important to remember, is that processor noise sources like an XMOS chip, or the upstream computer processor, produce noise at very high frequency-which means that some of that noise is going to be airborne, and able to cross galvanic isolation and interfere with DAC circuitry to the other side.  It is still going to be a good idea to use low noise sources with DAC's which feature "isolated" USB inputs.

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