Hi all. You must wait little bit more for my impressions and Spring 3 KTE / Venus II comparison.
I had some technical issues with Spring 3, which I had to solve first, so actual burn-in period started just yesterday. Here is a short recap of what happened.
After my unit arrived, I noticed two issues.
- Transformer hum
There was hum coming from inside of unit, most likely from transformer. Hum was audible from around 1,5m distance from unit when power is ON. I was sure that this was not DC offset related problem. Other devices in my setup have no hum (Simaudio amp, Simaudio DAC, Denafrips DAC, Denafrips DDC are completely silent) and I also have decent DC filter, Isotek Syncro Uni, in chain - before Shunyata Hydra Triton power filter. I have tried several power cables with same result. I also tried another power filter (Isotek Aquarius) and direct to wall power setup with same hum detected.
- Standby issue
I have experienced recurring issues with Spring display. At first, I thought the device is unable to turn ON from standby mode, because when I long pressed power button display was still OFF and power led was still red/orange. But after that I noticed that despite red led after long press of power button relay click from inside indicates that unit is ON. And indeed, in such case I really could hear the music, but display was OFF (regardless clicking display button on remote) and power led was still red/orange! This issue occurred quite often, when I wanted to turn unit ON from standby mode via front power button (long press). The only way to bring display and green led normal behavior back was to power unit off completely via rocker switch on the back panel, sometimes several times in a row.
In first one and half days of having unit, it occurred 7-8 times randomly, as I have experimented with hum removal (swapping power cables and power filters) so I had to turn unit ON/OFF many times. After discovering problem, I tried to power unit ON from standby on purpose and discovered that it was common issue.
I had informed Magna Hifi about this and after short email communication I packed my unit and sent back to Magna. In the meantime, I found out that the problem allegedly occurred on several Spring 3 units (but not all) and Holo audio is aware of it and is working on solution, probably of a software nature. Jos from Magna HiFi is very supportive, acted quickly, so I agreed with him that I would not discuss this issue in the forums for some time and spread unnecessary panic.
Allegedly Holo already solved issue with new Holo Spring 3 firmware, so “radio silence” is broken now.
Magna sent me new Spring 3 unit with new firmware, which arrived yesterday (quick swap, kudos to Magna Hifi!).
Good news first, hum is gone. However, standby issue is not 100% gone. Just the second attempt to switch unit from standby ended with the same error as before. This was right after I left configuration mode (I needed to setup I2S). I was not able to replicate issue again in normal mode, so that is sort of good news too. Maybe this time it occurs only after “configuration mode”, or it is far less frequent, who knows. Will test it further and let you know. Same with Magna Hifi, Jos promised to run some tests too, but for now he was not able to replicate issue on some L2 unit (info from yesterday).
I consider it as minor issue right now, but anyway I will keep eye on that in following few days and let you know. For now, I will focus on initial burn-in and after few days finally some in depth listening!
Radoslav.
PS:
What to say? I understand that ANY unit in any price range could have issues. At the same time, I am quite disappointed because I was completely convinced of the perfection and reliability of Holo Audio products based on excellent references. Holo Audio would probably save itself a lot of trouble if they didn't rush to release Spring 3 and hold it a few extra weeks to properly test and debug the software and finish new USB module as well... However, as once was said in good old movie: “...nobody is perfect”
