[]eep]

I forgot to mention... with all that you tested, the Denafrips Terminator plus is sorely missing. It has the same name but is a different and improved model. So it would come again closer to the May or surpass it.

A few years ago I saw what i thought was my dream Dac, the Holo Spring. After I had (re)discovered the true strenght of R2R 10 years ago with a 4xTDA1543 dac that could decode up to 24/96, started modifying it I got convinced of the qualities of R2R. Here's why:
That summer during a fair in our village centre our old 12th century gothic church was open to the public and played an acoustic live classical concert. When I sat down I started listening with my 'hifi ears'. While I sat in the pew I looked at the individual musicians but I couldn't place them like I thought I would. But this was real. No microphones. I could hear some cues, the great ambiance, the hall, decay and not fatiguing at all. Then it struck me: this is what my €45 R2R with the old Philips chips sounds like. Not my tweaked to the hilt AK D/S with tube output stage. That was a major paradigm shift for me. So I started tweaking that little R2R, and I'm still using it, and started questioning 'WHY'? Then I found temporal behavior has been severely neglected. And NOS-R2R-filterless was what gave me the cleanest transients. This gives me the truest transient behavior, real detail, no fatigue, great decay and ambiance. Later I bought the more expensive Teradak 8x TDA1543 with usb and still use in my workshop. Also max 96kHz, slight output mod so as to mirror the little one.

So when I saw the picture of the Spring and the inside I was excited but also put off by the price. I'm not that wealthy. Later I found out about the Denafrips and was pleasantly surprised by price and performance. So when I had the headroom last year I bought the Ares II and I'm very pleased. I miss a little bit of the openness of my previous modded R2R's but its very quiet and performs very well with DSD. I am glad I chose Denafrips and not Holo. But I am curious about the relative performance of Denafrips newest model.

 

[driftingbunnies]

Here's where I come to the 'Kitsune tuned' part. Yes, it has all the appearance of 'snakeoil', but its not. It's like D/S dacs put all their effort into algorythms and brute force aproach to technology. Because chips are cheap. And R2R, is... well... too simple. An anomaly, old tech, quaint. But since there are less parts in the signal path you can give more attention to just the parts that matter. Every part adds a sonic signature. In a tubeamp there are just a handful of parts (6) in the signal path and just changing tubes makes a difference, but what most dont look at are the coupling caps. Who cares because they all measure the same so they all sound the same and thats an easy point to 'save money'. Nobody looks inside at the caps but the tubes are in view. Someone who ever substituted those caps for better types will know what a huge difference they make! The same goes for those caps in the output stage of an R2R dac.

I understand every part does something to the sonic signature. The thing that I'm not thrilled about is how Holo provides all these different levels that basically prey on our feelings of not wanting to lose out on the last few percentage points. Like GoldenOne said, who knows why the "Kitsune" caps are better than stock? When I asked Kitsune, this is how he described the quality of the components.

" Nothing is “bad” persay with L1 and L2. But all dac modules are tested. Some vary up to 3% better and all the top measurements are saved for KTE models. And moderate level ones are for L2 and the lower ones for L1. Yet the listed measurements are “worst case scenario” which means all L1’s will meet this specs. And L2 and KTE will surpass them of course. "

What does it mean to "meet this spec" and how does measuring up to 3% better mean sonically? Does it basically mean that L1 and L2 parts are just binned parts and the actual product is the KTE model? Or does it mean that the KTE model is just meant to upsell and it really doesn't make a difference.

Like I've said before, I think the Holo Audio dacs sounds good. I actually got to test a Spring 1 lvl 3 myself. The thing that irks me a little is the levels. Like would the May lvl 1 be better than the Dave or do you need to go to the highest level?

 

[Loquah]

Wonderful write-up! Thanks @GoldenOne

Your findings are very similar to mine re Qutest + M-Scaler vs TT2 in my case, but reading your opinions on the May was quite eye opening. Thanks again!

 

[zorilon]

Hi, congratulations @GoldenOne for your professional reviewing style!
I also think that the best reviews are made when using fast A/B comparison tools.
I am interested to buy the May because I have the Spring 2 KTE that I really love. I made some comparisons myself with the Chord Dave a couple of weeks ago (using Susvara headphones) and although Dave is the most clean (accurate) sounding DAC I have ever heard, it didn’t have the spacious and deep bass that Spring 2 KTE has. I hope that May will have the same thing but with better clarity.
Don’t get me wrong, Spring 2 KTE is clean also, the difference is scary minor.

 

[sns109]

I appreciate the love for r2r dacs, Holo May was on my short list of dacs to purchase based on the great reviews. Instead I took risk and purchased Musetec MH-DA005, another value high end Chinese dac. This one dual 9038pro sabre chip based. I purchased based on prior purchase of LKS MH-DA004, another 9038 dual chip dac, 004 extremely high resolution, with the typical sabre chip coloration. My plan was to mod it out, in the end I thought too much work, so gone. I purchased 005 based on parts quality, nice clocks and usb implementation (also has I2s input for my Singxer SU6), discrete output devices and nice film caps in analog section, power supply seemed really well engineered.

Few weeks into listening, I believe this dac could change some minds about sabre chip dacs inability to sound natural. High resolution seems to be given with sabre dacs, this one utterly natural timbre, mass violins that sound like the real thing. Problem is 005 has yet to be reviewed by high visibility reviewer, or any reviewers for that fact. I'd love to see this dac reviewed in the context of other high end dacs such as May, Mola Mola, Aqua Formula, Totaldac, etc.

 

[rkt31]

Problem is that r2r dacs as start measuring better, they sound like a good measuring ds dac. So don't worry about good sabre ds dac you have.

 

[GoldenSound]

I appreciate the love for r2r dacs, Holo May was on my short list of dacs to purchase based on the great reviews. Instead I took risk and purchased Musetec MH-DA005, another value high end Chinese dac. This one dual 9038pro sabre chip based. I purchased based on prior purchase of LKS MH-DA004, another 9038 dual chip dac, 004 extremely high resolution, with the typical sabre chip coloration. My plan was to mod it out, in the end I thought too much work, so gone. I purchased 005 based on parts quality, nice clocks and usb implementation (also has I2s input for my Singxer SU6), discrete output devices and nice film caps in analog section, power supply seemed really well engineered.

Few weeks into listening, I believe this dac could change some minds about sabre chip dacs inability to sound natural. High resolution seems to be given with sabre dacs, this one utterly natural timbre, mass violins that sound like the real thing. Problem is 005 has yet to be reviewed by high visibility reviewer, or any reviewers for that fact. I'd love to see this dac reviewed in the context of other high end dacs such as May, Mola Mola, Aqua Formula, Totaldac, etc.

The 9038 chips do seem to have fixed much of the previous 'ess glare' that many (including myself) disliked.

I've currently got a soncoz sgd1 which I'm doing a review for and it's very good for the price.

Dual lps, all film caps, selectable filters, super nice build too.
It sounds really good.

Seems like ess is heading in a good direction, at least in some of the products which have had some proper thought put into components

 

[koven]

Your YT reminds of me Zeos, but more upscale and polished. Good luck with the channel. I recently got the May. Some notable previous DACs I used were Terminator, Wavelight, DAVE, and M1SE most currently. M1SE has been my favorite, but May could dethrone it for me. Still getting familiar w/ the May sound but am quite impressed so far. I haven't tried feeding HQP yet but plan to play with that soon.

 

[GoldenSound]

Your YT reminds of me Zeos, but more upscale and polished. Good luck with the channel. I recently got the May. Some notable previous DACs I used were Terminator, Wavelight, DAVE, and M1SE most currently. M1SE has been my favorite, but May could dethrone it for me. Still getting familiar w/ the May sound but am quite impressed so far. I haven't tried feeding HQP yet but plan to play with that soon.

M1se was absolutely lovely, but for me may takes the crown.

Definitely worth trying hqp with the may. Both pcm and dsd (I prefer pcm on the may but they're just slightly different). It makes quite an impressive improvement, though I do find myself enjoying nos quite a bit too.

And thank you! I've been having quite a lot of fun making the videos!

 

[VintageAudio]

very interesting review! A comparison like this is not something you see everyday. Not a lot of people have the opportunity to do so and its hard to get any good information comparing top tier units with different technologies.

There are certain sites with zealous believers in the scientism cult that think they can decide from a few measurements how much a dac is capable of conveying something very complex as emotion. Which is the main purpose of music. They hijack science, strip it down, claim it as proof for their theories and reject anything that does not follow the worldview they wish to be true. They go intrude into threads like this and claim the 'moral' highground to 'save' everybody from these 'alternate facts'. Why do they feel the need to ruin other peoples work and pleasure? Why are you here? Flamebaiter. Go make your own topic, so we can avoid misers like you.
Stop hijacking real science and stop twisting it into religion. And stop telling people what to think (actually; not to think and just follow dogma) and consuming other peoples time answering your pre-conceived questions.

For others, and Goldenone; best advice is to ignore . Don't read their questions so you don't get baited and lose even more time and energy. Focus that on the good things you are doing. Discussion is good but they're not here for that. No argument however logical or true or unavoidable can ever convince them.

I've done my own research into Dac's for over 10 years now, comparing, testing, listening, modifying. I came to the conclusion that there's something inherently wrong with oversampling, delta sigma dac's and right with ladder dac's. Also delta sigma dacs are incredibly noisy, they contain loads of non-harmonic HF noise that has to be filtered out. And most important; they have temporal artefacts that do not occur in nature; pre-ringing,that can't be filtered out.

R2R is much better and cleaner in the timedomain. While testing with pilot-tones at 0dB i could hear all the 'bad' side frequencies and artefacts on a filterless NOS R2R. That is why they are lambasted for their 'bad measuring' performance. But the raison d'etre of a dac is NOT measuring it. It is meant to facilitate listening to music. With harmonics, echoes, reverb, and correct natural transients. When listening to my R2R NOS dac with the filter stripped i heard none of those stray tones or noise, just more unexaggerated clean details, great sense of ambiance and great tone.

Here's where I come to the 'Kitsune tuned' part. Yes, it has all the appearance of 'snakeoil', but its not. It's like D/S dacs put all their effort into algorythms and brute force aproach to technology. Because chips are cheap. And R2R, is... well... too simple. An anomaly, old tech, quaint. But since there are less parts in the signal path you can give more attention to just the parts that matter. Every part adds a sonic signature. In a tubeamp there are just a handful of parts (6) in the signal path and just changing tubes makes a difference, but what most dont look at are the coupling caps. Who cares because they all measure the same so they all sound the same and thats an easy point to 'save money'. Nobody looks inside at the caps but the tubes are in view. Someone who ever substituted those caps for better types will know what a huge difference they make! The same goes for those caps in the output stage of an R2R dac.

So I have no doubt the 'Kitsune tuned' edition sounds better. Only, do the premium parts justify the extra money? And why let them decide what is best? I like to flavor my own food to my taste but not everyone can cook. So you go to a restaurant and pay premium. I don't ever hear those 'techies' moaning about restaurant pricing. Probably because out of principle they will never set a foot over the threshold because hamburgers and fries measure just the same...

Wow tough crowd. While I do believe many of us are susceptible to hifi myths and that there is a ton of snake oil out there, in the end, what sounds good is in the eye of the beholder.

In many cases, a great spec sheet or measurement can explain nuances we hear in music - that is for sure, but it is not the end-all be all.

If you hire a candidate based on purely qualifications without an interview, you might not know if they will be a good fit in your company.

For most of us music gear is a hobby, not a profession.

It's art. At the end of the day if you like the way it sounds that's all that matters.

Can you measure a Da Vinci or Michelangelo painting?

Just because a new camera can take 50 megapixel photos, doesn't mean the photos you take with it will be look good, they may just look accurate so I guess to each their own.

If pure accuracy is your thing, that's cool, but we should also respect if people who have their own opinion on what sounds good - even if it's not the utmost in accuracy.

Personally, I value both pieces of data. The measurements give me an idea of the quality fo the piece, and increase my chances of trying or buying.

It sounding good to my ears will determine whether or not I keep it or sell it.

 

[wenbinbin2010]

Appreciate the well-designed and thorough comparison @GoldenOne! I don't have the May, but do have the Spring 2 KTE, so it still gives me some perspective. Disappointing that half the thread was derailed by a couple of trolls...

Anyhow, would you happen to have your HQP settings you used with the May? I'm relatively new to HQP upscaling, and I was already using the sinc-M and closed form-M filters before reading your post. But curious to see if I'm missing any settings that would make a difference.

 

[GoldenSound]

Appreciate the well-designed and thorough comparison @GoldenOne! I don't have the May, but do have the Spring 2 KTE, so it still gives me some perspective. Disappointing that half the thread was derailed by a couple of trolls...

Anyhow, would you happen to have your HQP settings you used with the May? I'm relatively new to HQP upscaling, and I was already using the sinc-M and closed form-M filters before reading your post. But curious to see if I'm missing any settings that would make a difference.

These are the settings that i'm usually using with the may:

Few things to note:

1) Keep DAC bits set to 20
2) Default output mode can be swapped to SDM if you'd prefer to use DSD. I personally prefer PCM on the may however. (additionally DSD is MUCH more taxing on your PC)
3) If you have the 3012 firmware and an intel PC, you can change the sample rate/limit to 1.536mhz PCM. However if you have an AMD pc or are using a network endpoint, you'll need to keep it to 768khz.
4) Try changing "Filter 1x" and "Filter Nx" to 'sinc-L' or 'poly-sinc-XTR-lp' as well. Those are both good filters.

 

[Bonddam]

I was so happy with the Spring 2 KTE, it's a very clean DAC whatever that means it just sounds really good It was used with my BHSE and Euforia. I sold it and now a couple weeks later I ordered the May KTE. I was thinking how the KTE caps could be better then Mundorf caps? I didn't like the Denafrips Ares 2 so I stayed away from their Terminator. I have found that I am fond of the ess9038pro which is used in Wells Audio tube dac and Manhattan 2. I gave up on Chord as the TT2 didn't sound right when compared to the Spring so I'm hoping for a big improvement with the May.

 

[GoldenSound]

I was so happy with the Spring 2 KTE, it's a very clean DAC whatever that means it just sounds really good It was used with my BHSE and Euforia. I sold it and now a couple weeks later I ordered the May KTE. I was thinking how the KTE caps could be better then Mundorf caps? I didn't like the Denafrips Ares 2 so I stayed away from their Terminator. I have found that I am fond of the ess9038pro which is used in Wells Audio tube dac and Manhattan 2. I gave up on Chord as the TT2 didn't sound right when compared to the Spring so I'm hoping for a big improvement with the May.

As far as i'm aware the KTE capacitors are simply binned/hand selected stock ones (with a fox logo )
Personally i'd go for level 2, but no matter what its going to be great (the capacitors are not in the signal path, and given the insane jitter and power performance anyway, I doubt they'll make much difference).

I'd love to hear your thoughts on Spring 2 vs May once it arrives!

 

[ctop]

I went with the May level 2 as well...sticking to the Holo Audio design compared to the tweaked or modified Kitsune version.