[Bobji]

Previously my Spring 3 was connected to a Windows laptop. Now it is connected to an older MacBook Pro.

When playing songs on the internet (YouTube, bandcamp, etc.), from the MacBook Pro, for some reason the sound will suddenly stop. The time tracker on the song will keep moving forward, but there is no sound. So it seems the Spring is losing its lock on the signal?

Rebooting the Spring solves the problem each time and I get sound, but this happens once or twice each day. I never had these issues when the Spring was connected to my Windows laptop.

Anyone experience anything similar or have any ideas?

TIA

Try turning of PLL. Sometimes it has a delay locking in. I have found no SQ loss doing so.

 

[Mahoro]

Thanks for this heads up! I picked it up - might be selling my Spring1 L2 if I feel it’s worth the upgrade!

If you gonna upgrade, please do a comparison between spring 1 and 3.

So far I am pretty content with my spring 1 level 3 (wildism extreme). I wonder how far better can get over the upgrade.

 

[soulrider4ever]

If you gonna upgrade, please do a comparison between spring 1 and 3.

So far I am pretty content with my spring 1 level 3 (wildism extreme). I wonder how far better can get over the upgrade.

Yeah man definitely! My local dealer is also going to have me demo the XI AUDIO Sagra DAC - so it will be a 3 way throwdown. I can do a headphone comparison but my main use case is my 2.0 stereo setup (Pass Labs XA30.8 powering Magico A1 speakers) - so plenty of resolution

 

[FooFighter]

Hi folks
First of all Happy New Year to everyone!
I am currently out for Christmas vacation but impatiently awaiting my new Spring 3 KTE by end of the coming week.
In order to prepare myself for checking firmware (am on MacOS and would have to misuse my company WIN10 laptop), eventually updating to newer versions I wanted to seek advice about any best practices as I couldn't find any reference in the downloaded manual like
- physical button shortcuts / initial boot information about the currently installed firmware or do you have to launch setup.exe of any current firmware to find out?
Actually I hope that a newer firmware is pre-installed anyway - my main use case will be running Audirvana, evt Roon later on + HQPlayer out of my MacBook Pro 2018 using Titanis 2.1 USB input

 

[Bobji]

Hi folks
First of all Happy New Year to everyone!
I am currently out for Christmas vacation but impatiently awaiting my new Spring 3 KTE by end of the coming week.
In order to prepare myself for checking firmware (am on MacOS and would have to misuse my company WIN10 laptop), eventually updating to newer versions I wanted to seek advice about any best practices as I couldn't find any reference in the downloaded manual like
- physical button shortcuts / initial boot information about the currently installed firmware or do you have to launch setup.exe of any current firmware to find out?
Actually I hope that a newer firmware is pre-installed anyway - my main use case will be running Audirvana, evt Roon later on + HQPlayer out of my MacBook Pro 2018 using Titanis 2.1 USB input

Two things
Check out the 'read me' file in the firmware update. It is about an odd little thing to do in the Windows Sound Control Panel.
Do the driver update to get the HoloAudio Control Panel if necessary.
Had my Spring two weeks. Took 4 weeks to arrive.
It really sings. More than pleased.

 

[FooFighter]

Two things
Check out the 'read me' file in the firmware update. It is about an odd little thing to do in the Windows Sound Control Panel.
Do the driver update to get the HoloAudio Control Panel if necessary.
Had my Spring two weeks. Took 4 weeks to arrive.
It really sings. More than pleased.

Just read the Readme file.
Indeed very odd procedure but fortunately doesn't need to be applied every day

 

[ShangriLa]

This may not be a DAC-specific question, but I'm trying to set up Roon/HQPlayer to play with up/over-sampling on my Spring 3 KTE and find the process to be very complicated. Is there any guide I can follow? Thanks.

PS - according to here, the latest HQPlayer is supposed to be able to stream Qobuz natively. But under 'album view' I dont see the option of Qobuz.

Or would Audirvana be easier to set up for Oversmapling, how is the quality? Btw why does all this have to be so complicated. I'm ashamed of being an engineer in the tech industry.

 

[mmwwmm]

I am reading almost every comment posted about the Spring 3 over the web and It seems there are more "shadows than lights" in its performance specially compared to the Spring 2... Except for the couple of youtubers we all know there are almost no "pro" reviews and there are several comments from new S3 KTE owners that seems a bit dissapointed to say the least (remember, it´s a +3000$ unit and I expected a lot more nice first impressions).
When I read an owner must burn in this or that audio device for 500-750-1000 hours to reach full potential I raise an eyebrow.
By the way brand new units have showed in the second hand market quickly (it´s true that those units are sold quickly too)
By the way I would love to hear from someone who compare the Spring 3 without preamp module vs a Spring 3 with Preamp module. As far as I know nobody have compared both versions and I think there must be a sonic difference between them. I think the version without preamp must be cleaner and purer sounding no matter how transparent the preamp module would be.
At the end is an active stage and every active stage has an impact on final sound no matter how expensive or sophisticated it is.
Please, don´t get me wrong. I really want the S3 KTE to be a stellar sounding machine cause I´m looking for the kind of sound the manufacturer of the Holo advertises but reading all these comments makes me a bit reluctant to blindly spend more than 3000$ cause there are very few places where appoint a demo of these units.

 

[Marutks]

This may not be a DAC-specific question, but I'm trying to set up Roon/HQPlayer to play with up/over-sampling on my Spring 3 KTE and find the process to be very complicated.

It is not complicated:

• Start HQPlayer.
• Select Spring 3 as your output device.
• Choose your favourite upsampling settings.
• Select "Allow control from network" in the menu bar.
• In Roon add HQPlayer and enter IP address of computer where your HQPplayer is running.
• Select HQPlayer audio zone. click play and enjoy !

 

[Marutks]

I am reading almost every comment posted about the Spring 3 over the web and It seems there are more "shadows than lights" in its performance specially compared to the Spring 2...

GoldenSound said Spring 3 is much better than Spring 2.
I have had only delta sigma DACs before and my Spring 3 sounds better than Topping D90.
I was afraid there will be no audible difference ( because of what Z-review said about May DAC ).

I think the version without preamp must be cleaner and purer sounding no matter how transparent the preamp module would be.

Go for no-preamp version then. Many headphone amps have preamp outputs.

I really want the S3 KTE to be a stellar sounding machine

I bought my S3 after watching youtube reviews (by GoldenSound and some others). I am very happy with my S3.

 

[davide256]

I am reading almost every comment posted about the Spring 3 over the web and It seems there are more "shadows than lights" in its performance specially compared to the Spring 2... Except for the couple of youtubers we all know there are almost no "pro" reviews and there are several comments from new S3 KTE owners that seems a bit dissapointed to say the least (remember, it´s a +3000$ unit and I expected a lot more nice first impressions).
When I read an owner must burn in this or that audio device for 500-750-1000 hours to reach full potential I raise an eyebrow.
By the way brand new units have showed in the second hand market quickly (it´s true that those units are sold quickly too)
By the way I would love to hear from someone who compare the Spring 3 without preamp module vs a Spring 3 with Preamp module. As far as I know nobody have compared both versions and I think there must be a sonic difference between them. I think the version without preamp must be cleaner and purer sounding no matter how transparent the preamp module would be.
At the end is an active stage and every active stage has an impact on final sound no matter how expensive or sophisticated it is.
Please, don´t get me wrong. I really want the S3 KTE to be a stellar sounding machine cause I´m looking for the kind of sound the manufacturer of the Holo advertises but reading all these comments makes me a bit reluctant to blindly spend more than 3000$ cause there are very few places where appoint a demo of these units.

The worst I've seen is "its not a May" or "its sounds shallow" compared to their $10K DAC

burn in time is a real thing, I've had it even with headphones. Not a bad practice to leave new electronics on for a week before you get serious about listening

Anyone out there tried an SRC-DX as DDC with the Spring 3? Its made a huge improvement for my Metrum Octave, so much so that I'm questioning whether I would
even use the USB input on the Spring DAC for PCM.

 

[mmwwmm]

GoldenSound said Spring 3 is much better than Spring 2.
I have had only delta sigma DACs before and my Spring 3 sounds better than Topping D90.
I was afraid there will be no audible difference ( because of what Z-review said about May DAC ).



Go for no-preamp version then. Many headphone amps have preamp outputs.



I bought my S3 after watching youtube reviews (by GoldenSound and some others). I am very happy with my S3.

Of course I would expect that the Spring KTE clearly outperform the Topping D90. It´s more than 4x price.
The S3 KTE would need to be compared to Denafrips Venus 2, Hugo TT2, etc.

 

[FooFighter]

Of course I would expect that the Spring KTE clearly outperform the Topping D90. It´s more than 4x price.
The S3 KTE would need to be compared to Denafrips Venus 2, Hugo TT2, etc.

There are people in this thread who have both TT2 and Spring3 - matter of preference from what I understood.
The same goes for Venus - I think there's a comparison even in this thread some time ago.
From what I understand KTE is needed mostly for the USB module which saves you the extra re-clocking, galvanic isolation devices.
The USB module is very often told to make these superfluous and I remember also GoldenOne suggests to run May / S3 KTE through USB.
SQ wise S3 Level 2 and 3 are told to be very close despite this USB feature.
As another reference point I remember a review (I think it would was also GoldenOne) stating that the difference between Spring 2 and 3 is bigger than between Spring 3 and May...

 

[mudguardiain]

There are people in this thread who have both TT2 and Spring3 - matter of preference from what I understood.
The same goes for Venus - I think there's a comparison even in this thread some time ago.
From what I understand KTE is needed mostly for the USB module which saves you the extra re-clocking, galvanic isolation devices.
The USB module is very often told to make these superfluous and I remember also GoldenOne suggests to run May / S3 KTE through USB.
SQ wise S3 Level 2 and 3 are told to be very close despite this USB feature.
As another reference point I remember a review (I think it would was also GoldenOne) stating that the difference between Spring 2 and 3 is bigger than between Spring 3 and May...

I don't have a wide amount of experience with other R2R days, but my Spring 3KTE replaces a Qutest, it is in a different league as you would expect at 2.5 times the price. I have borrowed the TT2 twice & tried the M-Scaler with the Qutest also. In my opinion, the Spring 3 is better than either of these by some margin. The Chords are very good but for me the Spring sounds more real, lifelike. It is not a DAC the gives instant gratification or forced detail, it allows the music to do it's thing in a very natural manner. As with most audio equipment, it will come down to personal preferences, but I cannot see me selling the Spring for a long time. I feel I get more insight to the musicianship of the bands playing & their relationship to each other more so than any other DAC I have listened too. The burn in process does seem protected & still changing to some degree even after two weeks of use.

 

[BlakeT]

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