HOLO Audio MAY DAC

[87mpi]

1 hour ago, GoldenOne said:

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.

@antonellocaroli

Could you help me please? 

[ted_b]

87mpi, this is a public forum to ask and answer questions about the Holo May.  If you need someone's specific input on something, please PM that person.  Your response, although not intended, sounded like you dis'd GoldenOne.  We are ALL here to help. 

 

BTW, setting dac bits in HQP will have no effect on whether 32fs works...but regardless, set it to 20 for the May.  That's it's most linear setting. 

[87mpi]

14 hours ago, ted_b said:

87mpi, this is a public forum to ask and answer questions about the Holo May.  If you need someone's specific input on something, please PM that person.  Your response, although not intended, sounded like you dis'd GoldenOne.  We are ALL here to help. 

 

BTW, setting dac bits in HQP will have no effect on whether 32fs works...but regardless, set it to 20 for the May.  That's it's most linear setting. 

Ok.. Next time I'll send a pm.. 

 

No, not so .. To work 32fs in Linux (and apparently also on Mac) in addition to firmware 30.12 (or the new one just released 31.xx) you must necessarily set 16 in bit dac.Any higher value does not work. Tested.

 

A dac bit> 16 works only and only with Miska's Hqp / NAA image, because he modified the Kernel to remove the limitation.

[57gold]

Heard that Holo may be offering a volume control/attenuator module for its DACs.  

 

Anyone have any knowledge of this?  

 

Thanks.

[toddrhodes]

That would be cool. Would be nice if they'd allow for power to come from the May PSU too, if one has it. That said, I just went through a quick exercise to eliminate my Freya+ for the digital side and will be using HQP and "adaptive gain" volume through Roon, to control volume through May. 

 

No real listening impressions yet other than - it works.

[GoldenOne]

33 minutes ago, 57gold said:

Heard that Holo may be offering a volume control/attenuator module for its DACs.  

 

Anyone have any knowledge of this?  

 

Thanks.

This is just on the spring 3. It's not just an attenuator though it's an actual class A preamp module. Spring 3 max output with the preamp at max is 11v I think. 

 

For the may though the intention is to pair it with serene

[KenMoreira]

Which is best for SQ.  spring 3  kte

DSD64X 
{filter Wide)  ( suggestions here would be great too}
with Sinc  L  and ASDM7EC 

or 
1.5 Mhz PCM with Sinc L and LNS15

my i5 cannot do higher than 64x without cut-outs. 

[KenMoreira]

Follow up : Why when i set my output source to be forced from the Desktop player, some albums just do not play at all.,  The play button flashes and thats it.  timer shows 0:00. 
regardless of pcm or dsd being forced. 

sometimes i can work around this by having main hq player client set to PCM or DSD that I want to convert too. 

[ted_b]

32 minutes ago, KenMoreira said:

Which is best for SQ.  spring 3  kte

DSD64X 
{filter Wide)  ( suggestions here would be great too}
with Sinc  L  and ASDM7EC 

or 
1.5 Mhz PCM with Sinc L and LNS15

my i5 cannot do higher than 64x without cut-outs. 

You tell us. There is no bigger DSD fan than me but on the May I love PCM staying PCM and playing at 32fs. Ymmv

[Ozan Bolat]

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

You tell us. There is no bigger DSD fan than me but on the May I love PCM staying PCM and playing at 32fs. Ymmv

I'm looking forward hearing @GoldenOne's findings : does this holds true for the S3 as well in his opinion. Not in mine's or Miska's as far as S3 is concerned

[Ozan Bolat]

3 hours ago, KenMoreira said:

Which is best for SQ.  spring 3  kte

DSD64X 
{filter Wide)  ( suggestions here would be great too}
with Sinc  L  and ASDM7EC 

or 
1.5 Mhz PCM with Sinc L and LNS15

my i5 cannot do higher than 64x without cut-outs. 

The one thing I would sacrifice first is Sinc L that I don't like anyway and that probably accounts for the issue you state of tracks taking forever to start and for eating all your cpu. You should aim for at least DSD 128 even if that means choosing 5EC instead of 7EC. BTW I have to do so with my M1 for DSD sources going 256 with convo and it's not really frustrating while it was with other DACs I tried. I use sinc S as much as I can (typically with well recorded classical with space cues), ext2 otherwise. This might be assuming too much but maybe what you appreciate in the beefy and slow sinc L would be better addressed by convolution.

[KenMoreira]

I did try m Sinc that was good too I haven't tried S.  How is that 

[KenMoreira]

with Sync M 1x and Sync M NX Modulator adm7  i can run 44/1 x256 smoothly.  Must just be L sinc sucking up the processing power .

[KenMoreira]

Some albums still refuse to play back when the file format is forced to change .  Cause? 

[toddrhodes]

Granted I don't have a terribly convenient way to try PCM 1.5 except for a 3M dual head USB cable directly from my HQP PC via ASIO driver to May - it's pretty good. Far better than I remember a "direct PC to DAC" connection sounding prior, at least.

 

That said, I still prefer, by no small margin, DSD256 + 7EC + gauss-long from my Zen Stream to May KTE.

 

I just went through a few filters on Chocolate Chip Trip:

All filters assume DSD256/7EC modulator:

EXT2 - very exciting filter, lots of snap, but doesn't layer like I prefer

Sinc S - better than I remember. Been awhile since I revisited this one but it's a great filter for minimal overhead but nice slam, good layering, and good detail

Sinc M - to me, just more of what I like about Sinc S, but with a little performance penalty

Sinc Mx - on my setup I have to have CUDA fully checked to use this one without a severe penalty at DSD256/7EC. But it does sound great. Probably my favorite overall sound, but I don't use it much if I'm hopping around tracks because it takes some power to wind up and play

Gauss-Long - still my goto. To me it's everything I love about Sinc Mx - detail, slam, layering, sparkle and startling dynamics - but with very little performance penalty. However, it does push my 9900kf pretty darn good. Apparently I should be looking at watercooling this setup at some point... Temps are getting a little toasty.

 

Either way. For me, I still prefer DSD through the May and I enjoy gauss-long for its performance and quality proposition.

[KenMoreira]

3 minutes ago, toddrhodes said:

Granted I don't have a terribly convenient way to try PCM 1.5 except for a 3M dual head USB cable directly from my HQP PC via ASIO driver to May - it's pretty good. Far better than I remember a "direct PC to DAC" connection sounding prior, at least.

 

That said, I still prefer, by no small margin, DSD256 + 7EC + gauss-long from my Zen Stream to May KTE.

 

I just went through a few filters on Chocolate Chip Trip:

All filters assume DSD256/7EC modulator:

EXT2 - very exciting filter, lots of snap, but doesn't layer like I prefer

Sinc S - better than I remember. Been awhile since I revisited this one but it's a great filter for minimal overhead but nice slam, good layering, and good detail

Sinc M - to me, just more of what I like about Sinc S, but with a little performance penalty

Sinc Mx - on my setup I have to have CUDA fully checked to use this one without a severe penalty at DSD256/7EC. But it does sound great. Probably my favorite overall sound, but I don't use it much if I'm hopping around tracks because it takes some power to wind up and play

Gauss-Long - still my goto. To me it's everything I love about Sinc Mx - detail, slam, layering, sparkle and startling dynamics - but with very little performance penalty. However, it does push my 9900kf pretty darn good. Apparently I should be looking at watercooling this setup at some point... Temps are getting a little toasty.

 

Either way. For me, I still prefer DSD through the May and I enjoy gauss-long for its performance and quality proposition.

Do you use two filters or the same in both drop downs  (1x and nx) 

[toddrhodes]

Just now, KenMoreira said:

Do you use two filters or the same in both drop downs  (1x and nx) 

 

I just use the same filter in both areas. 

 

I will say - when you're doing DSD256 - Sinc L is using a ratio based on what you're converting from and to. And that conversion ratio generally results in a LOT of taps. I don't know the exact math, but I gave up on that thing a long time ago. I think Sinc Mx does a great job filling the gap with it, anyway.

[KenMoreira]

1 minute ago, toddrhodes said:

 

I just use the same filter in both areas. 

 

I will say - when you're doing DSD256 - Sinc L is using a ratio based on what you're converting from and to. And that conversion ratio generally results in a LOT of taps. I don't know the exact math, but I gave up on that thing a long time ago. I think Sinc Mx does a great job filling the gap with it, anyway.

OK I'll try Sinc MX instead of SincM.  Are you guys isn't the standard ec7 or the longer named one? Don't have it loaded up to see off hand 

[KenMoreira]

These seem to be the best I can do with my i5 for now. But it sounds very open, and detailed and natural so thanks 

[toddrhodes]

I just use "ASDM7EC" - the other one is for 512+ rates, which no PC on the planet can do right now, so that's more HQ Player Pro territory I believe.

 

That said, if I were you, I'd gray out "Multicore DSP" and also "Adaptive output rate." On my setup, I have Multicore DSP gray, Adaptive Rate checked, CUDA checked. 

 

It may have changed but at one point, having Multicore DSP checked like you have, caused poor performance/skips and such. Graying it fixed that and allowed for a higher rate and better modulator on my end.

[toddrhodes]

This is my setup:

 

[Ozan Bolat]

4 hours ago, toddrhodes said:

This is my setup:

 

DAC bits can (should ? it probably doesn't matter but) be left to default with SDM that is your sole output I understand

[toddrhodes]

4 hours ago, Ozan Bolat said:

DAC bits can (should ? it probably doesn't matter but) be left to default with SDM that is your sole output I understand

Good deal - I'll update that now. I sometimes flip back and forth from PCM so I would just leave it but I think I'm pretty settled that for me, DSD is the way. Thanks!

[KenMoreira]

What is 48K DSD.  You both have it checked 

[toddrhodes]

5 minutes ago, KenMoreira said:

What is 48K DSD.  You both have it checked 

For both DF and Holo DACs (and probably others, these are just the ones I'm familiar with), they will accept DSD at 48k rates, which I believe, in conjunction with "Adaptive Output Rate," makes for an easier load on HQPlayer to convert sample rates. I would be willing to bet that you'll see better performance if you check or gray Adaptive Output Rate and check 48k DSD, then set your DSD rate to 48k 256.

 

Basically what you're telling HQPlayer right now is that if you are playing 24/96, then it should resample to multiples of 44.1 (but in the DSD range, which is much higher but I'm lazy and don't feel like doing the conversion math right now) only. But really, it should be able to do 44.1 rate families in even multiples, and 48k families in even multiples (96, 192, 384 - but again in DSD rates). Checking Adaptive Output Rate allows for this "keep it in the family" feature. There is nothing to be gained by taking 88.2 and converting it to 96, or vice versa - just more work for the machine which might just add unnecessary noise.

 

This reduces the work your machine has to do to resample one rate family to another, which your current settings are forcing it to do :)

 

And without 48k DSD checked, I don't think it will even try to use that rate family for DSD conversion since not all DACs support it. But ours and yours do.