HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[michaelvv]

2 minutes ago, ted_b said:

No, I'm running a three computer setup, with HQPlayer on Win10 (upstairs study), Roon core on Audiolinux (audio rack), and NAA on HQP OS on fitlet2 (audio rack). 

 

Are your HOLO May connected to HQP OS on fitlet2 ???

[ted_b]

Yes, I documented that on the fitlet2 thread I started.  The HQP OS has HQP disabled and running only NAA (fiber from Microtik switch).

[michaelvv]

1 minute ago, ted_b said:

Yes, I documented that on the fitlet2 thread I started.  The HQP OS has HQP disabled and running only NAA.

I have the exact same setup ...

And in this setup you have enough gain when playing PCM ???

 

[ted_b]

5 minutes ago, michaelvv said:

I have the exact same setup ...

And in this setup you have enough gain when playing PCM ???

 

Plenty.  DSD is low, but workable.

[Quadman]

2 hours ago, michaelvv said:

Hi Quadman. Are you running on Linux ???

No, Win 10 pro.  It just works

[michaelvv]

21 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Plenty.  DSD is low, but workable.

 

Funny I'm running the same version of ( hqplayer embedded ) , as you have documented in your fitlet2 thread.

Later on today , I'll just try the newest hqplayer embedded as NAA ...

[ted_b]

1 hour ago, michaelvv said:

 

Funny I'm running the same version of ( hqplayer embedded ) , as you have documented in your fitlet2 thread.

Later on today , I'll just try the newest hqplayer embedded as NAA ...

Major difference is that I am running HQPlayer on Win 10 pro.

[Miska]

If the USB interface has digital volume, you can use HQPlayer OS as NAA and perform following:

 

1. Login as "root" (no password)
2. Run "aplay -l" and take note of card number of your DAC
3. Run "alsamixer -c N" where "N" is your card number
4. Adjust possible volume control with arrow keys
5. Hit ESC to exit
6. Run "alsactl store" to store the settings for subsequent boots

 

This way you can get around with interfaces that have volume control and you want to set fixed volume.

 

In addition, HQPlayer Embedded supports optimized hardware + software volume combination where hardware volume is used primarily and software volume secondarily. But this makes sense only when DAC has actual USB controllable analog volume control (instead of digital). Setting this up is outside of this context, but it is documented in HQPlayer Embedded readme.txt

 

[michaelvv]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

If the USB interface has digital volume, you can use HQPlayer OS as NAA and perform following:

 

1. Login as "root" (no password)
2. Run "aplay -l" and take note of card number of your DAC
3. Run "alsamixer -c N" where "N" is your card number
4. Adjust possible volume control with arrow keys
5. Hit ESC to exit
6. Run "alsactl store" to store the settings for subsequent boots

 

This way you can get around with interfaces that have volume control and you want to set fixed volume.

 

In addition, HQPlayer Embedded supports optimized hardware + software volume combination where hardware volume is used primarily and software volume secondarily. But this makes sense only when DAC has actual USB controllable analog volume control (instead of digital). Setting this up is outside of this context, but it is documented in HQPlayer Embedded readme.txt

 

 

Thanks Jussi...

This did the trick , as the usb-volume was set to - 20 dB , now PCM is fine..

A ssh access would be a major upgrade to hqplayer embedded image :-)

 

 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, michaelvv said:

A ssh access would be a major upgrade to hqplayer embedded image :-)

 

It is not supposed to be necessary to access console on the image. However, I have included some small tools for console access to deal with special cases.

 

And remote root access without strong random passwords is a security risk.

 

[KenMoreira]

Any idea if these will work with diet pi via ssh 

[michaelvv]

16 minutes ago, KenMoreira said:

Any idea if these will work with diet pi via ssh 

I think it would work. I just have set it on my Linux laptop .. PCM is now fine on both laptop and hqplayer embedded image.

 

[Foggie]

Are people having to pay import duties (US) on their Holo's?  If so, what amount should one expect?

[KenMoreira]

16 minutes ago, Foggie said:

Are people having to pay import duties (US) on their Holo's?  If so, what amount should one expect?

I paid like twenty dollars 

[mr. Fancypants]

I think import duties were included in the shipping cost ($300 to USA IIRC).  I didn't have to pay any extra fees after placing my order.  

[MichaelHiFi]

A few things of note last night when listening with my wife. I'm often screwing around with my system and recently added the ultrarendu and the JS2 power supply. It was a startling upgrade. Simply more clarity and separation. Then I tried various tweaks with cables. But being busy setting up the house (new home new room) I haven't been listening much although the few times I had I felt anxious to get some room treatments. In my former home, bass was always a problem as in too much of it. In my new room it's as if I traded my speakers for monitors! The difference in sound between old home and new home is amazing. 

 

Last night my wife wanted to hear Eric Clapton's Layla (Derek and the Dominoes). First words out of her mouth was how flat and uninvolving it sounded. I figured hey, an old recording with limited dynamic range, what should you expect. She wasn't buying it. She heard it sound much better.  Admittedly, I wasn't having much fun either. I tried playing with the settings in HQP but it was not getting better. I'm using ASDM7EC poly-sinc-lp-2s and ploy-sinc-ext2 bit rate 44.1k x 256. I'm using Roon as my output. I noted something in my settings. I assumed that the device driver should be the Holo audio driver but it shows missing. Is this driver necessary when using HQP?

 

I noted too, no matter the setting, music was flat, with very little bass and simply uninvolving. What happened? Something had changed so I checked to see if perhaps I had hooked something up incorrectly. (of course that usually means no output!). What I did find was this. I have an assortment of pretty good power cables.  2 of my power cables look nearly identical and  are unusual looking as they have twisted braids. One is a Maze cable, good for the money ($130 dollars) and the other a Lessloss C-Marc entropic cable at 20 times the price. I had the Maze plugged in feeding my integrated. I swapped out the Maze for the Lessloss. My music was back and wife was happy.

 

Problem as always with complex systems is that there are so many variables. Power cables especially drive me crazy. To add to my variable is my BPT 2KW transformer. Do I go through the transformer straight to the wall and which cable to use on the BPT. 

 

And about that driver?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, MichaelHiFi said:

And about that driver?

 

Windows PC?

 

You need to have ASIO backend selected in HQPlayer and the Holo Audio driver as output device.

 

In Roon audio settings make sure you have only HQPlayer enabled, and make sure the Holo Audio driver is not enabled there.

 

[MichaelHiFi]

Yes Windows PC running HQP 30.12. In Roon, Holo Audio driver is disabled and athough shown as an option, is missing. 

 

In HQP, NAA selected and of course the Rendu. I did NOT have a backend device selected. I can select the Holo Audio driver however. I was under the idea that backend should be equaled to none. Not having a backend device music flowed. What was missed?

 

And thanks for the help!

[MichaelHiFi]

Looks like the Holo audio driver doesn't wish to be seen. I deleted, reinstalled Holo May driver software, checked the device manager and saw that it was not installed. Checked the system32 folder and noted the AMD files but not the INTEL 3012 files. Checked DriverStore in registry and noted the same.

 

This was working but perhaps making the etherregan mod (reversed to utilize JS-2) may have caused the driver to disappear to the May.

 

But I'm playing music well. The cost of a complex setup..

[MichaelHiFi]

1 hour ago, MichaelHiFi said:

Looks like the Holo audio driver doesn't wish to be seen. I deleted, reinstalled Holo May driver software, checked the device manager and saw that it was not installed. Checked the system32 folder and noted the AMD files but not the INTEL 3012 files. Checked DriverStore in registry and noted the same.

 

This was working but perhaps making the etherregan mod (reversed to utilize JS-2) may have caused the driver to disappear to the May.

 

But I'm playing music well. The cost of a complex setup..

Thanks to Alex at Uptone Audio who clued me in that having the ultraRendu in the chain does not need the Holo Audio driver as Linux takes care care of the role of that driver. First time I ever quoted myself :)

[xllms]

New owner of a 3-month old L3 Holo Audio MAY L3 (KTE Kitsune). Finally I get a first hand experience of the much appraised amazing spatial positioning of voices and instruments. So clear and revealing without any hint of harshness. 

[87mpi]

On 9/6/2021 at 1:46 AM, luisma said:

Went to 30.12 to be able to do PCM 1536, it plays at like half speed when upsampling PCM and distorted, I am assuming this is because of older gen 6th gen Intel renderer NAA device.

 

Anyone care to recommend what to use as NAA to do PCM 1536? sometimes small cheap and simple?

Try to set DAC BIT to 16 in HQP. 

 

This worked for me on Gentooplayer, I think will work on AL or Euphony too

 

I don't think it has anything to do with intel nuc or usb version.

I have a Spring 3 KTE with firmware 30.12.

I tried with NUC8 but the sound is distorted at 1536, while it works fine on 768.

Same with Euphony OS (Linux).

I tried to change different kernels on Gentooplayer (rt and not) but it doesn't work.

The same happens with PC i9 9900k with direct usb motherboard (asrock z390m phantom).

It only worked to set dac bits to 16 in HQP. 

 

PCM 1536 Only works with Jussi's HQP OS image (with default dac bit 0 or greater than 16)

I can't understand why. 

Same hardware.

HQP os image use a personalized 5.10 rt kernel.

[GoldenOne]

On 9/6/2021 at 12:46 AM, luisma said:

Went to 30.12 to be able to do PCM 1536, it plays at like half speed when upsampling PCM and distorted, I am assuming this is because of older gen 6th gen Intel renderer NAA device.

 

Anyone care to recommend what to use as NAA to do PCM 1536? sometimes small cheap and simple?

This is likely your Linux install. 

Linux cannot do 1.536mhz stock. 

 

You either need to replace the kernel with Jussi's modified one, or use the hqp naa x64 image. 

 

HQP naa image is the easiest one. 

Kernel install can be a bit of a hassle but is handy if you want to be able to use roon Bridge and hqplayer without changing os. 

[87mpi]

35 minutes ago, GoldenOne said:

This is likely your Linux install. 

Linux cannot do 1.536mhz stock. 

 

You either need to replace the kernel with Jussi's modified one

I did not know!

 

It would be nice to understand what to change in Linux to make it compatible with 1536.

 

It would be nice to be able to integrate Jussi's custom Kernel on GP / AL / Euphony

 

@Miska

[GoldenOne]

4 hours ago, 87mpi said:

I did not know!

 

It would be nice to understand what to change in Linux to make it compatible with 1536.

 

It would be nice to be able to integrate Jussi's custom Kernel on GP / AL / Euphony

 

@Miska

You have to replace the kernel with the appropriate modded one from miska.
 https://www.sonarnerd.net/src/

Unfortunately this is not too straightforward so the easiest option is use the HQP OS image if possible.