HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[KenMoreira]

Hope, to hear a follow up 

[toddrhodes]

I'm on night #2 with May KTE. I've had music playing for about 30 hours so far. DSD256, ASDM7EC, gauss-long from HQ Player via Zen Stream NAA, USB into May. Other DAC is a DF Venus II.

 

A little early to make any sort of final conclusion, but so far - I am really impressed by May. Excellent detail retrieval but it retains the musicality and swing and "fun" that I so enjoyed from Venus II. And I am absolutely a fan of Venus II despite a couple minor gotchas. It just sounds fun to listen to while being resolving and natural in its presentation. 

 

But May seems to take that same approach and build from it in a noticeably more transparent manner. 

 

And all this talk of burn in, but if I'm going to see improvements over the next 200-300 hours? Well hell yes. Because it already is the superior DAC, and it's not exactly subtle. 

[Extreme_Boky]

I was able to obtain further improvement in sound quality once I separated DAC from the power supply box. Stunning, really - transparency, detail, definition, separation... all better. The additional extra is better DAC box cooling during hot summer days; that thing dissipates a lot of heat.

[toddrhodes]

I had an extra shelf open on my rack so I have the PSU on one shelf, DAC on the shelf above that. Seemed rude not to :)

[damascato]

In one of the few moments of total silence I notice that, when turned on, my L2 May emits a slight hunk/buzz from the power supply unit. 
 

Any idea of the reason why and how to get rid of it?
 

 

[Extreme_Boky]

Mine does the same... it's the transformers in the PS unit. They are potted.... the case is aluminium... so the only other possible root cause is the loose windings... The noise starts to be audible when the analog circuitry is switched on and starts drawing substantial current to ensure its class A operation. It is quite faint though. I think the buzz got reduced when I unstacked the DAC from the PS unit. I don't really take it as a negative; I kinda expect it from class-A electronics, to a certain degree, and the May is within my expectations. 

[damascato]

1 hour ago, Extreme_Boky said:

Mine does the same... it's the transformers in the PS unit. They are potted.... the case is aluminium... so the only other possible root cause is the loose windings... The noise starts to be audible when the analog circuitry is switched on and starts drawing substantial current to ensure its class A operation. It is quite faint though. I think the buzz got reduced when I unstacked the DAC from the PS unit. I don't really take it as a negative; I kinda expect it from class-A electronics, to a certain degree, and the May is within my expectations. 

I must say that in normal conditions it almost inaudible.

 

I may want to uncouple them or put the power supply on top of the dac maybe.

[Extreme_Boky]

4 minutes ago, damascato said:

I must say that in normal conditions it almost inaudible.

 

I may want to uncouple them or put the power supply on top of the dac maybe.

The idea is to leave the DAC box free in space to improve cooling (and sound 🙂). Don't put anything on top. DAC runs fairly hot, especially during summer. 

[scintilla]

I have my Serene stacked on the May with 2" ironwood blocks between them.  The May runs about the same temp as before I stacked.  I have the PS unit separated on a different shelf adjacent in my Salamander Berlin cabinet.  I keep the door open on the side with the DAC and preamp boxes, mostly for convenience of using the remote for the Serene. But it does run a bit warmer when i close the door. Even so, I haven't been concerned about case temps at any point.  I do suggest some air space between the dac box and anything else and definitely get the PS box away from signal circuitry by a foot or more.  It may not help, but it sure won't hurt...

[mfalcon]

How long is the cable from the PS to the DaC?

[KenMoreira]

 

On my spring 3 kte 

Opinion, upsample pcm is horrible. Takes the smooth natural sound n makes it overly sharp and focused. Pushes the vocals forward and defeated the purpose of buying a nos r2r.

 

DSD 256 from hqplayer or no upsampling at all seems to be my personal preference.

[GoldenOne]

1 minute ago, KenMoreira said:

 

On my spring 3 kte 

Opinion, upsample pcm is horrible. Takes the smooth natural sound n makes it overly sharp and focused. Pushes the vocals forward and defeated the purpose of buying a nos r2r.

 

DSD 256 from hqplayer or no upsampling at all seems to be my personal preference.

What config were you using? 

The specific settings make all the difference

[Extreme_Boky]

29 minutes ago, KenMoreira said:

 

On my spring 3 kte 

Opinion, upsample pcm is horrible. Takes the smooth natural sound n makes it overly sharp and focused. Pushes the vocals forward and defeated the purpose of buying a nos r2r.

 

DSD 256 from hqplayer or no upsampling at all seems to be my personal preference.

The only time I can tell the natural harmonics & beautiful depth in the soundscape in front of me is with the native recordings, played back bit-perfect, with no upsampling of any kind. The moment I start oversampling - things turn ugly; bigger than life, impressive, trying hard... but unnatural, flat and ultimately boring and unlistenable - like something sucked out the living thing out of music... The biggest hit is the loss of depth perception.

 

I use nuc 11 with the linear power supply (which is just one half - the positive one, of the symmetrical power supplies I use for my class A amplifiers...). This proved to sound by far the best and seriously close to my analog vinyl playback... and May is the first DAC ever to get me there.

[ted_b]

34 minutes ago, KenMoreira said:

 

On my spring 3 kte 

Opinion, upsample pcm is horrible. Takes the smooth natural sound n makes it overly sharp and focused. Pushes the vocals forward and defeated the purpose of buying a nos r2r.

 

DSD 256 from hqplayer or no upsampling at all seems to be my personal preference.

I assume the Spring 3, like all Spring and May dacs, has an NOS setting.  Are you saying that using this setting, and using a 3rd party to upsample, the sound is bad?  OR...are you saying the sound is bad using the Spring 3's OS setting?  If the latter, then yes, same with my Spring 1 KTE and my May KTE.  Not sure who uses OS but its a waste of time.  The setting to use is NOS, and then use a 3rd party like HQPlayer to do the upsampling. 

 

I know nothing of the Spring 3 so sorry if this is irrelevant.

[KenMoreira]

Just now, ted_b said:

I assume the Spring 3, like all Spring and May dacs, has an NOS setting.  Are you saying that using this setting, and using a 3rd party to upsample, the sound is bad?  OR...are you saying the sound is bad using the Spring 3's OS setting?  If the latter, then yes, same with my Spring 1 KTE and my May KTE.  Not sure who uses OS but its a waste of time.  The setting to use is NOS, and then use a 3rd party like HQPlayer to do the upsampling. 

 

I know nothing of the Spring 3 so sorry if this is irrelevant.

I was using HQPlayer. I found it made the music seem unnatural.  

[Miska]

NOS PCM at 44.1k just produces horrible amount of distortion, of course if one likes this, it is another thing. But it is not accurate rendering of the original signal. It will sound "smooth" because of the 3 dB high frequency roll-off that is by-product of running D/A conversion at 44.1k.

[KenMoreira]

Most my music is using tidal with Audirvana studio 

[mr. Fancypants]

On 9/2/2021 at 11:18 PM, mfalcon said:

How long is the cable from the PS to the DaC?

It is about 1 meter.  

[KenMoreira]

On 9/3/2021 at 9:34 PM, GoldenOne said:

What config were you using? 

The specific settings make all the difference

I am open to suggestions for sure.  But with most my listening it tidal and only ten or so albums on local it isn't a huge deal. 

Audirvana upsampling is ok not great. Would be nice for hqplayer type program with streaming content upsampling support 

[KenMoreira]

21 hours ago, Miska said:

NOS PCM at 44.1k just produces horrible amount of distortion, of course if one likes this, it is another thing. But it is not accurate rendering of the original signal. It will sound "smooth" because of the 3 dB high frequency roll-off that is by-product of running D/A conversion at 44.1k.

So I'm gonna use 20 dac bits, filter 1 and filter nx sinc-m. 

 

Dither recommended?  

[BrownMagic]

2 hours ago, KenMoreira said:

I am open to suggestions for sure.

I have a may KTE. After playing with the filters, I settled for Sinc MX at 1.5M pcm LNS15. I use Qobuz. 

[KenMoreira]

My laptop doesnt playback if I have source set to output all pcm, has to be on source... Weird.  I don't think my desktop has that issue 

[KenMoreira]

13 minutes ago, BrownMagic said:

I have a may KTE. After playing with the filters, I settled for Sinc MX at 1.5M pcm LNS15. I use Qobuz. 

Trying these settings atm. Listening to future nostalgia album. 

 

[GoldenOne]

1 hour ago, KenMoreira said:

So I'm gonna use 20 dac bits, filter 1 and filter nx sinc-m. 

 

Dither recommended?  

Set dither to lns15. 

Also make sure volume is -3dB to avoid clipping. 

 

 

[KenMoreira]

Yes I'm using 20 bit Sinc MX  lns15, output - 3.3