mrkoven Posted July 16, 2021 Share Posted July 16, 2021 1.536m distorts on linux (euphony OS). intel mobo USB output. guessing its a driver thing since it worked fine on windows ASIO. wonder if a jcat usb card would work instead. probably a long shot but has anyone tried a jcat usb on a euphony server, into May 1.536? Link to comment
scintilla Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 Welp, I just bit the bullet and ordered a Serene. I just didn’t have quite enough gain for DSD playback with my RC filters inline. As the May has been simply superb, I figured the Serene was going to be equally great and the prices are going up tomorrow. Time to commit. I’m so impressed with Jeff’s designs. He’s definitely one of the brightest audio designers of the day. Link to comment
GoldenOne Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 On 7/16/2021 at 6:44 AM, mrkoven said: 1.536m distorts on linux (euphony OS). intel mobo USB output. guessing its a driver thing since it worked fine on windows ASIO. wonder if a jcat usb card would work instead. probably a long shot but has anyone tried a jcat usb on a euphony server, into May 1.536? Linux 1.536mhz will not work stock. You need @Miska's modified kernel https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/ mrkoven 1 https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
John Hughes Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 1 hour ago, scintilla said: I figured the Serene was going to be equally great and the prices are going up tomorrow. Wait, what? Prices going up? Where? Link to comment
scintilla Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 All the Holo prices are increasing by 10%+ and Tim has warned on his store. Link to comment
audio.bill Posted July 18, 2021 Share Posted July 18, 2021 3 hours ago, scintilla said: All the Holo prices are increasing by 10%+ and Tim has warned on his store. Currently Kitsune is showing the May KTE retailing for $5,598 but on sale for $4,998 (which was the old price.) 😕 Link to comment
MichaelHiFi Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 Time for me to decide on which direction (or both) to send music to my May KTE. What has worked well is using my Sigao server running HQP and Roon endpoint. EtherRegan through Microrendu USB into May. Using motherboard USB out of the server with HDPlex didn’t sound as well in my system. HDPlex 300 watt PS is gone. I just moved and the “almost audio room” is ready for setup. 🙁 I ran 3 different cables from the home network utility room to where my stereo will reside. OM1 fiber, Cat6 UTP, Cat 8 and a generic contractor installed Cat6. One scenario would be to purchase the JCAT duo PS and USB card taking USB straight out of my server. I might use a Farad3 PS for the server coupled with powering the JCAT USB and the SATA storage drive with the duo. The other option involves the fiber, Sonore Optical Rendu setup, good PS running through EtherRegen to USB May. Anyone here have compared these 2 approaches? Link to comment
dkdali Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 Finally got my Innuos Zenith to run embedded HQPlayer OS and streaming sweet 1536kHz (Sinc-Mx, LNS15) to the May. I had expected to run the Zenith as a NAA but after having had huge problems with running the NAA image I ended up trying the OS image instead. To my huge surprise the Zenith upsamples to 1536kHz without any problems and I don't have to use my Windows PC to run the Desktop app - big win! I have made a post in the Music Servers section if anybody else is interested in how to do this. I have a HQPlayer - May dac question: I see that people like @GoldenOne configures HQPlayer to only send 20 bit sound to the May. I thought the May was capable of running 24 and 32 bit. Why not use the full bit resolution? Gavin1977 1 Roon ROCK server (NUC10i7FNH) -> Etherregen (Powered by a Teddy Pardo PSU) -> Innuos Zenith Mk3 running HQPlayer -> Tellurium Ultra Silver -> Holo Audio KTE May DAC -> Tellurium Ultra Black XLR -> KGSSHV Carbon -> STAX SR-009. Audio components all connected to a PS Audio PowerPlant 3 via Tellurium Black. Link to comment
KenMoreira Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 11 minutes ago, dkdali said: Finally got my Innuos Zenith to run embedded HQPlayer OS and streaming sweet 1536kHz (Sinc-Mx, LNS15) to the May. I had expected to run the Zenith as a NAA but after having had huge problems with running the NAA image I ended up trying the OS image instead. To my huge surprise the Zenith upsamples to 1536kHz without any problems and I don't have to use my Windows PC to run the Desktop app - big win! I have made a post in the Music Servers section if anybody else is interested in how to do this. I have a HQPlayer - May dac question: I see that people like @GoldenOne configures HQPlayer to only send 20 bit sound to the May. I thought the May was capable of running 24 and 32 bit. Why not use the full bit resolution? May is 23/24 bit dac chip. The spring is 21. Most delta sigma are 20. Don't confuse audio bit rate with dac chipset bit rate Link to comment
Popular Post Miska Posted July 19, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 19, 2021 1 hour ago, KenMoreira said: May is 23/24 bit dac chip. The spring is 21. Most delta sigma are 20. Where are you pulling these figures? There's no DAC chip in May or Spring. Both are discrete. Plus a separate DSD mode. Delta-sigma DAC chips are 1 - 6 bits, with 24- or 32-bit inputs to their DSP. Plus various such have direct path for DSD, bypassing the DSP. If you send one bit too many with May, your linearity is screwed up and distortion is back. But you can safely go down to 16 bit without losing dynamic range or adding any distortion. So rather send too few bits than too many, with correct kind of noise shaper. 1 hour ago, dkdali said: I have a HQPlayer - May dac question: I see that people like @GoldenOne configures HQPlayer to only send 20 bit sound to the May. I thought the May was capable of running 24 and 32 bit. Why not use the full bit resolution? Because it is not physically possible to create R2R ladder that is accurate to such resolutions especially at sampling rates suitable for audio. For this reason you get more accuracy by using less bits, but higher sampling rate. (note, Spring takes in 32-bit samples, but reports it's resolution to be 24-bit) I just covered the topic once again here: Fourlegs, GoldenOne and happybob 2 1 Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers Link to comment
dkdali Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 10 minutes ago, Miska said: Where are you pulling these figures? There's no DAC chip in May or Spring. Both are discrete. Plus a separate DSD mode. Delta-sigma DAC chips are 1 - 6 bits, with 24- or 32-bit inputs to their DSP. Plus various such have direct path for DSD, bypassing the DSP. If you send one bit too many with May, your linearity is screwed up and distortion is back. But you can safely go down to 16 bit without losing dynamic range or adding any distortion. So rather send too few bits than too many, with correct kind of noise shaper. Because it is not physically possible to create R2R ladder that is accurate to such resolutions especially at sampling rates suitable for audio. For this reason you get more accuracy by using less bits, but higher sampling rate. (note, Spring takes in 32-bit samples, but reports it's resolution to be 24-bit) I just covered the topic once again here: Thank you for the help (again) and Sorry for making you repeat already answered questions! i must say that my system has really come alive after the change from pure Roon upsampling to HQPlayer upsampling/filtering. It is a bigger upgrade in sound quality than most hw upgrades i have made! Miska 1 Roon ROCK server (NUC10i7FNH) -> Etherregen (Powered by a Teddy Pardo PSU) -> Innuos Zenith Mk3 running HQPlayer -> Tellurium Ultra Silver -> Holo Audio KTE May DAC -> Tellurium Ultra Black XLR -> KGSSHV Carbon -> STAX SR-009. Audio components all connected to a PS Audio PowerPlant 3 via Tellurium Black. Link to comment
KenMoreira Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 21 minutes ago, Miska said: Where are you pulling these figures? There's no DAC chip in May or Spring. Both are discrete. Plus a separate DSD mode. Delta-sigma DAC chips are 1 - 6 bits, with 24- or 32-bit inputs to their DSP. Plus various such have direct path for DSD, bypassing the DSP. If you send one bit too many with May, your linearity is screwed up and distortion is back. But you can safely go down to 16 bit without losing dynamic range or adding any distortion. So rather send too few bits than too many, with correct kind of noise shaper. Because it is not physically possible to create R2R ladder that is accurate to such resolutions especially at sampling rates suitable for audio. For this reason you get more accuracy by using less bits, but higher sampling rate. (note, Spring takes in 32-bit samples, but reports it's resolution to be 24-bit) I just covered the topic once again here: Tim Connor (Kitsunehifi) Jul 13, 2021, 7:10 PM PDT Spring3 and May are both 24bit dacs. Effective resolution is more like 22 bit for spring3 and 23bit for May. Far better than most chip dacs that are 32bit etc and few of those surpass 20bit effective resolution Link to comment
GoldenOne Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 5 minutes ago, dkdali said: Thank you for the help (again) and Sorry for making you repeat already answered questions! i must say that my system has really come alive after the change from pure Roon upsampling to HQPlayer upsampling/filtering. It is a bigger upgrade in sound quality than most hw upgrades i have made! The difference HQPlayer can make is honestly stunning. I'd agree fully, a proper HQPlayer config makes a bigger improvement than quite a lot of hardware changes! https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
Miska Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 7 minutes ago, KenMoreira said: Tim Connor (Kitsunehifi) Jul 13, 2021, 7:10 PM PDT Spring3 and May are both 24bit dacs. Effective resolution is more like 22 bit for spring3 and 23bit for May. Far better than most chip dacs that are 32bit etc and few of those surpass 20bit effective resolution Here is for example Stereophile's linearity measurement of May: You can see it begins to go off at -120 dB which equals to 20 bit. But using 20 or less bits correctly, you can take it way beyond that point. Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers Link to comment
KenMoreira Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 Now if only I could limit audirvana to 20 bit 6 minutes ago, Miska said: Here is for example Stereophile's linearity measurement of May: You can see it begins to go off at -120 dB which equals to 20 bit. But using 20 or less bits correctly, you can take it way beyond that point. Link to comment
GoldenOne Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 18 minutes ago, Miska said: Here is for example Stereophile's linearity measurement of May: You can see it begins to go off at -120 dB which equals to 20 bit. But using 20 or less bits correctly, you can take it way beyond that point. Fwiw I got much better results when linearity testing my may (and the spring 3) in nos Will post here in the morning KenMoreira 1 https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
Popular Post Miska Posted July 19, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 19, 2021 1 minute ago, GoldenOne said: Fwiw I got much better results when linearity testing my may (and the spring 3) in nos Will post here in the morning Likely depends on the particular unit as well due to manufacturing tolerances. But since 20 bits can give over 160 dB digital dynamic range over 100 kHz bandwidth, it is safe to use it, or even much less bits and still be sure that the noise floor is dominated by analog noise. On my testing of Spring 2 I could drop number of output bits to 16 and still noise floor was dominated by the analog noise, and thus wasn't limited by number of bits used. Once I get my Spring 3 I will run measurements for it too the same way I've done for other DACs. But I'd say it is safest to use at most 20 bits, since there's no reason to use more and it is around the figure there is most consensus about in measurements. 87mpi, StreamFidelity and KenMoreira 2 1 Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers Link to comment
KenMoreira Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 Does all this mean I should be limiting my playback to 24bit in tidal / audirvana? Or just to 20bit in hqplayer only? Link to comment
Miska Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 9 hours ago, KenMoreira said: Does all this mean I should be limiting my playback to 24bit in tidal / audirvana? Or just to 20bit in hqplayer only? Tidal is 24-bit at most anyway. You can improve performance over standard 24-bit output by using suitable upsampling and noise shaping with output bits limited to 20. KenMoreira 1 Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers Link to comment
CJH Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 Miska Which version of the Spring 3 are you getting? CJH KenMoreira 1 Link to comment
KenMoreira Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 1 minute ago, CJH said: Miska Which version of the Spring 3 are you getting? CJH KTE Link to comment
Miska Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 5 hours ago, CJH said: Miska Which version of the Spring 3 are you getting? L2 just as Spring 1 and 2 before. Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers Link to comment
KenMoreira Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 Just now, Miska said: L2 just as Spring 1 and 2 before. So you've had all the versions, must be a fan of this dac then 👌🏿 Link to comment
CJH Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 Looking at pictures of inside of May (and Spring 3) I see a large film cap at the output of each channel. How are these used? If used for DC coupling at the output, shouldn't there be two for each channel with a fully balanced design? CJH Link to comment
GoldenOne Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 56 minutes ago, CJH said: Looking at pictures of inside of May (and Spring 3) I see a large film cap at the output of each channel. How are these used? If used for DC coupling at the output, shouldn't there be two for each channel with a fully balanced design? CJH It is for power filtering only. The DAC output stage is direct coupled https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
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