HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[Quadman]

14 minutes ago, lpost said:

What cpu and motherboard?

i7-10700K with Asus Z590 Tuf Gaming plus wifi.  I use air cooling in a big HTPC case and PC sits 10-12 ft away from me, noise not an issue.  I don't think watt draw is to bad, I'll check HW monitor tonight for CPU package draw and UPS for total PC draw.  When I checked temps Wed evening the CPU ran 54-60 C, w 1024 and my air cooler.  Honestly I'd recommend a bigger GPU like 3070Ti or 3080 that would open up a lot more filters for 1024 than the 3060 does.

[lpost]

23 minutes ago, Quadman said:

 UPS for total PC draw.

Thanks, I'm most interested in total PC draw. You were lucky to find a 3060 let alone a higher end one.

 

Just before Covid hit I built two mega image processing PCs for a group at work (exceedingly high resolution tissue scans, billions of pixels and 10x depth levels. The app wants Tensor cores), both with dual 3090s. And these to replace the Titans from a year or so ago. Crazy. 

[lpost]

Hey all,

 

Is there anyway to reduce or eliminate the little snap that occurs when DSD starts? Path is Roon Windows Core to HQPeOS x64 PC to NAA endpoint USB to May.

 

I've read Jeff Zhu tried hard to reduce it as much as possible but seems to have not been terribly successful.

 

If I don't interrupt the flow of tracks from Roon, no snap, but if I skip or change to another radio station causing the stream to start over I get a snap in only my left channel.

 

Enabling DoP has reduced it considerably. The May still decodes DSD so I'll take it.

 

Looks like DoP is needed for Linux:

 

"HOLO Audio is the world’s first to support DSD natively on R2R DAC, so far the only one. This is not the DSD converted to PCM before digital-analog converter, but directly by the discrete components of the DSD digital to analog converter. Supported currently on MAC (DOP)and Linux (DOP), and Windows/PC (Direct Native and DOP).“

[lpost]

I tried an upgrade from i7-6700 to i7-9700. This is no appreciable upgrade. I was able to go from 5EC to 7EC modulator but still only DSD256 and it consumed nearly double the power. The i7-9700 is going back. If there is any audible difference I was unable to discern one.

 

Has Intel really made enough gains to beat the 6700 with 10th or 11th gen procs without requiring 2x-4x the power to do it? How about AMD?

[cjmv50]

On 6/17/2021 at 2:42 PM, mr. Fancypants said:

I see that what I mentioned is completely wrong now.  I sent Kitsune an email asking if the KTE was available for immediate shipping from the USA and got an answer and gave me the incorrect impression of the situation.  

 

Here is the question I asked via email:

 

E-mail
Message:	Hello,   I am planning on purchasing a Holo May DAC KTE edition. On the website it says "in stock", so does this mean immediate shipping from the USA, or is it shipped from somewhere overseas?

 

The response:

 

Sorry For any confusion. We try to explain this on the site. But it means we have components in stock and accepting the orders. Simply put we are building these Constantly and don’t have any inventory that sits on shelves. It’s all sold. We are still hiring more help to assist in production but sales are still increasing faster. The “in stock” just controls how many units we sell in case we are low on components we limit the sales or if we are out of components then the dac is out stock.

We usually average 4week production and have been up to 8-9weeks at times. But currently we are at about 5week production time if you were to place your order today. And ship time is about 4-5days.

Hope this clarifies things.

I was thinking about ordering a may also. With a 5 week lead time is the credit card charged at the time the order is placed or when the order is shipped?

[lpost]

They charge right away.

[luisma]

12 hours ago, lpost said:

Has Intel really made enough gains to beat the 6700 with 10th or 11th gen procs without requiring 2x-4x the power to do it? How about AMD?

This is not the HQPlayer CPU thread 😂

 

Kidding aside just built a 11600K temporarily until 12th Gen with improved architecture comes out, I will be buying one.
OC stable to 5 Ghz all 6 cores, vcore 1.415, no offset for AVX and AVX512 (since hqplayer uses it heavily) can do everything DSD256 ASDM7 except sinc-L, the package takes (posted on the cpu thread) how much?
120 W? Yes it is more than my AMD 5600X which takes maybe 40W tops. 12th Gen I expect it to be a very nice improvement.

EDIT01: we can move to the HQPlayer CPU thread

[Quadman]

10 hours ago, cjmv50 said:

With a 5 week lead time

My buddy ordered his KTE on June 1 and received on June 15th.  I don't know if that was a rare case or has the factory almost caught up with orders.

[lpost]

1 hour ago, luisma said:

This is not the HQPlayer CPU thread 😂

 

 

I move between this and that thread. My apologies. I think I'll wait for efficiency (and availability) to improve before upgrading. Thanks for the info.

[oneguy]

Anyone have any idea where Tim is? I ordered something that listed as in stock from Kitsune on Monday before opening and haven’t seen a shipping notification. I sent an email on Wednesday inquiring about this and so far no response. Just trying to see if you guys have heard anything outside of normal, reasonable processing times.  

[MrDerrick]

I placed an order and did not hear from them via email as far as shipping info or confirmation.

I did not reach out to them.

My order arrived in a week.

I suspect that they are very busy! 

[Roasty]

 

Both are excellent.

May KTE is a new addition and still being run in.

So far, am preferring the Rockna by a small margin. 

[ThenewGearPPK]

35 minutes ago, Roasty said:

 

Both are excellent.

May KTE is a new addition and still being run in.

So far, am preferring the Rockna by a small margin. 

 

Try to upsample with the May to 768k with your software music player.

 

[GoldenOne]

2 minutes ago, ThenewGearPPK said:

 

Try to upsample with the May to 768k with your software music player.

 

This. 

 

Definitely worth comparing the dacs on even footing. 

Else you're not really comparing the dacs and more just comparing if you prefer nos vs os or what os filter you like. 

 

Upsampling using the same filter for both will allow you to hear just the dac differences. And then look at what you like best for reconstruction later. 

 

Wavelight and May NOS are also fairly different so even having both on NOS will not actually be identical. 

 

May NOS has some analog reconstruction whereas wavelight has no analog lpf, but also overshoots on samples a bit. 

 

 

[Extreme_Boky]

Make sure that:

 

1. The power cables are of the same quality
2. The USB cables (if using USB inputs) are of the same quality
3. Same source, same sampling rates...
4. Same XLR cables

 

Any discrepancy in any of the above means you are doing an unjust  A/B comparison.

 

I go one step further: I do A/B for a while, and then I swap the XLR inputs on a pre-amp - not all inputs have the same path toward gain stage(s) inside the preamp AND not all paths have the same inductive/capacitive loads between signal tracks and the adjacent ground fill.

[GoldenOne]

Personally I've never found usb or power cables to make a difference when testing properly other than in one situation where an unshielded interconnect was picking up some interference from the power cable. But answer there is unshielded rca isn't a great idea. 

 

Can't hurt to keep stuff the same though. 

 

But different reconstruction approaches do make a big difference. May (or any dac) in NOS vs Internal OS vs HQP OS all sound very different (with HQP os being my favourite by some margin). 

 

Plus worth giving hqp os to dsd a go with the may given as the 1-bit converter is some people's preference. 

 

Not much point on the rockna though cause it doesn't convert true dsd. 

[BrownMagic]

In all fairness, one can only compare two boxes. Here the comparison is with a Rockna and a May. Not many are going to get into the details on how one’s tech is to the other. 

Asking one to bring an over sampling Software into the mix is not feasible for many. So if Rockna sounds better

on a particular mode compared to the May then it still does mean that the Rockna sounds better than the May according to @Roasty

[GoldenOne]

1 minute ago, BrownMagic said:

In all fairness, one can only compare two boxes. Here the comparison is with a Rockna and a May. Not many are going to get into the details on how one’s tech is to the other. 

Asking one to bring an over sampling Software into the mix is not feasible for many. So if Rockna sounds better

on a particular mode compared to the May then it still does mean that the Rockna sounds better than the May according to @Roasty

No need for upsampling software or anything. 

 

Roon for example it's just a toggle. 

 

Or, could just have both in nos or both in OS to get closer to a fair comparison. 

 

For most delta sigma dacs the differences in reconstruction filters will be so slight that it doesn't matter for comparison. 

But NOS vs OS is a massive difference to the point where it could arguably outweigh differences between dacs. So quite important to not have that in the way

[Extreme_Boky]

8 minutes ago, GoldenOne said:

Personally I've never found usb or power cables to make a difference when testing properly other than in one situation where an unshielded interconnect was picking up some interference from the power cable. But answer there is unshielded rca isn't a great idea. 

 

Can't hurt to keep stuff the same though. 

 

But different reconstruction approaches do make a big difference. May (or any dac) in NOS vs Internal OS vs HQP OS all sound very different (with HQP os being my favourite by some margin). 

 

Plus worth giving hqp os to dsd a go with the may given as the 1-bit converter is some people's preference. 

 

Not much point on the rockna though cause it doesn't convert true dsd. 

 

There's a huge difference in sound between different power cables. I use them to fine-tune the end result; custom tailor the sound to individual tastes and the rest of the system. You should just try multistrand "standard" cable vs solid core pure copper - I guarantee you'll be amazed at the difference in sound.

 

You should also consider doing the listening tests not only with the headphones, but with the speakers as well. This will flash out the differences (in everything) much easier.

[GoldenOne]

1 minute ago, Extreme_Boky said:

 

There's a huge difference in sound between different power cables. I use them to fine-tune the end result; custom tailor the sound to individual tastes and the rest of the system. You should just try multistrand "standard" cable vs solid core pure copper - I guarantee you'll be amazed at the difference in sound.

 

You should also consider doing the listening tests not only with the headphones, but with the speakers as well. This will flash out the differences (in everything) much easier.

I have several higher end power cords here and have done comparisons. But I just use them for aesthetics. 

[Roasty]

Yep same power cords, same xlr, same USB cable. Wavelight can't do 768, so listening done at 384.

 

XLR to Denafrips Athena to Apollon stereo 1et400a, and then Susvara. 

 

Anyways, like I said, they're both excellent. In the end it's just down to sound preferences. I'll be keeping both, since I have two listening rigs. 

 

Without going into too much detail.. For me, the May sounds clean, detailed, accurate. The wavelight has the more enjoyable low end, and sweeter lusher highs, as well as a sense of more "meat" throughout the range. 

 

[BrownMagic]

2 minutes ago, GoldenOne said:

 

Or, could just have both in nos or both in OS to get closer to a fair comparison. 

Yes, this is a fair ask. I am sure @Roasty can try to compare it this way. 

[Roasty]

On a side note, I have had hqplayer for a while now, and have tried a lot of variations in filters, sample rates, shapers, on both pcm/dsd etc but ultimately I find that I just prefer the sound of non upsampled music and NOS on both dacs. 

[James Stephens]

6 minutes ago, Roasty said:

Yep same power cords, same xlr, same USB cable. Wavelight can't do 768, so listening done at 384.

 

XLR to Denafrips Athena to Apollon stereo 1et400a, and then Susvara. 

 

Anyways, like I said, they're both excellent. In the end it's just down to sound preferences. I'll be keeping both, since I have two listening rigs. 

 

Without going into too much detail.. For me, the May sounds clean, detailed, accurate. The wavelight has the more enjoyable low end, and sweeter lusher highs, as well as a sense of more "meat" throughout the range. 

 

 

FYI May needs 500 hours before it is broken in.

[Roasty]

3 minutes ago, James Stephens said:

FYI May needs 500 hours before it is broken in.

 

Thanks man. That's good to know. I remember seeing that being posted earlier too. I think someone on audiogon forum mentioned 750hrs to 1000 too. 

That's also why I mentioned that it's still being run in.. And so far... 

👍