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HOLO Audio MAY DAC


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So the ALSAmixer volume might not actually address the hardware's inbuilt vol control I don't think.

I'm not actually sure what the best way to do it on linux is.
I've had a few dacs where the volume was not 100%, so in roon I had to change to 'device volume', set to 100%, then go back to 'fixed volume' and it was fine.

(Or on windows just adjust vol to 100)

I'm using a linux streamer atm and vol on the spring 3 is fine

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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  • 2 weeks later...
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. 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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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.

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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  • 2 weeks later...
4 hours ago, Zauurx said:

You can try this :

spacer.png

 

Or this :

17088087818270.jpg

Simply... Putting distance between electrical appliances that can pollute each other.
(electric field decreases with the square of the distance)

An extension cord/physical distance would only potentially help emi. 

 

But it could make ground/rf noise worse due to... Well... Much more wiring to pick up the noise :P

 

And will not help a dc offset. A dc offset has to be addressed with a dc blocker. (or ignored if its minor enough) 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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  • 4 weeks later...
4 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Curious. Denafrips specs only say 384 for I2S out. Do you have a link for where this has been tried and found to work? An i2s DDC supporting 768khz out would be 

more widely useful than the SRC-DX with its Chord proprietary dual SPDIF/DX mode. Of course there may still be the same issue with i2s that USB has... there is unbroken electrical connectivity between source-DAC-pre whereas SPDIF acts like a moat.

The other DDCs from Denafrips might not support 768khz but Gaia definitely does (with USB input and I2S output)
20211030_165749.thumb.jpg.211357bc5717aeac195befab6612e2fc.jpg

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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6 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Of course there may still be the same issue with i2s that USB has... there is unbroken electrical connectivity between source-DAC-pre whereas SPDIF acts like a moat.

AES is galvanically isolated by spec but SPDIF is not so will not always have isolation.

Depending on the DAC though they may offer galvanic isolation on other interfaces.
The Holo May for example has fully galvanically isolated USB

 

The Gaia also has isolation between the input side and output side, so with I2S the dac will still have a direct connection to the Gaia but not the host device/PC

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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1 minute ago, davide256 said:

Sadly I've learned through equipment destruction on a shared DC power supply that USB to RCA out has electrical circuit connectivity, USB to SPDIF does not or provides so high a resistance that equipment will not be harmed.

If you're specifically meaning OPTICAL spdif then yes, that is an optical, not electrical connection and so there is no direct electrical path.
If you're meaning BNC or Coaxial spdif then that is a direct electrical connection.
Optical has the disadvantage of having inherently higher jitter though.

As to USB, it'll depend entirely on the DAC. but if it has galvanic isolation then it will usually be quite a high rating. (though protection is not the main aim, elimination of noise from the source is)

Standalone products like the intona 7055-D for example have a 5kV isolation rating.

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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4 minutes ago, barrows said:

Ummm....  It depends: many DACs (not all), and many DDCs devices use transformer coupling on their SPDIF/AES inputs/outputs.  Components which use transformer coupling are then galvanically isolated. 

Transformer coupling isn't quite the same as optical isolation though as AC noise can still be passed through.

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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9 hours ago, mushi said:

 

I used a dc blocker yesterday and unfortunately nothing has changed. I wonder what's next..

Out of curiosity was it the ifi one? 

Have seen a couple people saying that the ifi dc blocker only reduced their dc offset but didn't fix it. 

 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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Generally speaking any decent ddc will have very very low noise anyway so it's not much of a concern. 

 

USB is the main connection where noise is likely to be an issue as a pc is almost always an inherently noisy device. 

 

But a decent optical isolation setup will solve this issue. Either internally like the may, or an external solution like the intona 7055 series which the manufacturer has posted lots of measurements of. 

https://forum.intona.net/viewtopic.php?p=31#p31

 

I've got measurements of noise on various ddcs on my site too https://goldensound.audio

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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14 minutes ago, Foggie said:

I am seeing similar behavior on a S3 KTE (PCM significantly lower volume than DSD).  I'm sure its a setting somewhere, but have tried the following:

  • I am using an OpticalRendu as HQP naa (roon core on ubuntu server 20.04 LTS headless wkst and HQP on its own Win wkst both located in util room). 
  • HQP player volume settings are set to -3db min and max.
  • In roon is shows naa as fixed volume. 
  • When I set naa to device volume (on the HQP icon in roon, per @GoldenOne) it does set it to device, but cannot change volume values in the settings (says device limits max / max values set -3, -3), so I can't set to 100%, then back to fixed.
  • I did power down DAC, plug it into a Win10 laptop (USB), set volume to 100%.  Powered off and hooked OR back up.
  • Balanced out of DAC to preamp
  • Not sure what firmware is installed on DAC, its a new unit.
  • This is the DAC diagnostics in from the OR (not sure what the "Set DAC to max Volume" means/does).  Although DSD is already "loud"

OR DAC diag.JPG

As the thing there shows, the DAC is set to 69% volume by the OS that the opticalrendu is using, which is why PCM playback is quiet.
Click the 'set DAC to max volume' button and it should be set to 100

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 minute ago, ted_b said:

What is this "new version" of the May??

There isn't a new version of the dac. 

 

The usb card received a revision. But it wasn't intended to be a quality upgrade. It was intended to address limitations when using XMOS on non-Intel systems. (no 1.536mhz support) 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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1 minute ago, mrwiggles said:

A bit confused. A hardware usb card update or a firmware update for existing MAY owners? If the former, what are existing owners supposed to do?

A hardware update. 

If you purchased your dac within the last 3 months (or more likely 4 given as it started a month ago) you can contact your dealer and get the new usb card for free and you'll need to send your old one back. 

 

If you purchased before then its $100 for the new card. 

 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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36 minutes ago, ArcticSapien said:

My bad... more like an update, not "new version" in 2021. Apparently it was also for AMD compatibility ...perhaps to deal with the newish Ryzens?

"The USB module has completely new code written to optimize performance and reduce latency significantly. Low frequency performance (-40db) is also improved."

 

As for firmware update, I believe this is the latest Holo May driver 5.27:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xMGYIrHGAu1fzJ52Z9lIpz90SbtKu4Xc/view?usp=drivesdk

 

Those update notes are in regards to the enhanced 2.0 usb vs original 1.0 usb. 

 

Not the 2.1 revision vs 2.0 revision or the dac itself (which has not changed) 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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18 minutes ago, mrwiggles said:

Still confusing. Is there a new hardware USB card for existing MAY owners or not? I don’t use Windows so the main issue is non-Intel USB devices like a RPI4, Mac, or other transport such as a Rendu which runs on Linux. Just seeking clarity on exactly what Kitsune is offering and recommending here for existing MAY owners. Thanks.

Yes, but the only difference is that it enables 1.536mhz support on non-Intel devices whereas previously you needed Intel for that. 

 

In terms of actual performance/compatibility there are no improvements. 

 

If you want the upgrade you can contact your dealer. Its $100 for those that bought more than 3 months ago. 

(also you have to have a l2/kte may. You can't get it for a l1 may cause that never had the upgraded USB anyway) 

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/29/2021 at 7:04 AM, Extreme_Boky said:

The twisted pair is for differential data transmission, so we have two wires here: USB D+ and USB D- data.

 

The third wire is +5 V DC used to power up the USB card. Its return is, in fact, the shield, which is the fourth wire. Sometimes there is a separate fourth wire which may appear as a separate wire to the shield - but it is not... the fourth wire (sometimes called the drain wire) is in direct contact with the shield.

 

So the shield is used as the RF interference noise suppression for data differential pair and as a common return for the USB +5V DC supply.

 

You also have to gain a good understanding of noise decoupling. The noise present on the USB card ground fill can not magically disappear, even if the Vcc and the Vee IC pins are perfectly decoupled. That PCB ground fill noise needs to be connected (AC or DC coupled) to something that will actually drain the PCB layer (ground fill) nose somewhere. It CAN not be the close-by May ground... because that is the whole point of the exercise - to prevent ground coupling between the source ground (PC/laptop/streamer) and May's motherboard ground layer (ground fill).

 

So, after all this discussion, I think it is more than obvious that the switching noise (the frequency and the switching amplitudes - the lower the Vcc and Vee - the better) should be kept to an absolute minimum on this small & isolated ground fill, as found on the USB card. 

May has sophisticated PLL mechanisms (4 crystal oscillators, two of which are indeed the lowest phase noise oscillators currently available - this combination of 2 standard and 2 high-quality oscillators is probably by far the best PLL implementation currently used in the audio industry) to reduce jitter, but the noise at the input is certainly not desirable. 

 

My whole point of this discussion is that for that minute benefit of 1.536MHz PCM / 1024DSD with a non-Intel USB controller IC, we are paying too much of a price. This should particularly be of interest to those of us who do use Intel USB controllers and simply do not care about other controllers and possible incompatibility at the very highest of the data rates. 

 

Also, I am just throwing a few facts here, so that we can hopefully obtain an official response from Holo distributors. They stated that the magic has happened and the new USB card sounds much better than the old one. I need to see the photos first; I reserve the right to question things/statements. More than anything, I want to see what the new card looks like, before I decide to upgrade.

 

Of course, I am not forcing anything on anyone. So, if you want to believe what you heard and know a priori that the new card sounds much better - knock yourself out and grab & install the new card.

 

 

 

I don't think holo ever said the new usb card sounds better. 

 

In fact Tim has explicitly said that the card revision is to address functional aspects in particular with non-in tel systems. And that unless you use hqplayer and have an Amd pc, the new card would make no difference to you

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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  • 4 weeks later...
2 minutes ago, Reg19 said:

 

I'm afraid that if I do so, it shall NOT last long. I can fry an egg on it right now. A $5k DAC should atleast last 7-8 years.

The caps in the may are all rated for tens of thousands of hours at temperatures much higher than what the DAC runs at. 

Going by the normal '10 degree drop is 10x lifetime' rule for caps even the quickest dying ones are going to last 10+ years. 

 

Not to mention, repeated thermal cycles are MUCH worse for hardware than being warm for long periods of time

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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1 minute ago, opus101 said:

 

The rule is 10 degree drop doubles the lifetime.

 

So for example you have a 2,000 hr rated cap at 105oC and its run at 65oC internal temperature that will give you 2^4 (=16X) the life, therefore 32,000 hrs.

Ah sorry, messed that up. 

 

The lowest cap in the may I think is 10,000 at 85C.

 

Which at the ~55C internal temp means it'd probably be about 80,000 hrs or 9.15 years if left on the entire time

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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15 hours ago, opus101 said:

Its the internal temp of the cap that determines the lifetime. For the cap's internals to be at the same temperature as its environment it'd mean its got zero ripple current. Which seems rather unlikely. However caps running at 50/60Hz mains frequency aren't working as hard as caps in SMPSUs.

 

Have you measured the internal temp? If the lid can fry an egg (I'm assuming an exaggeration) then perhaps its at ~50oC which would indicate internally the ambient temperature's going to be higher than 55oC based on my experience.

Internal temp is 40C. I used 55C to give a bit of headroom

https://youtube.com/goldensound

Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara

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