Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE DAC review
(& comparison with Denafrips Venus II)
INTRODUCTION
Everything you will find in the following review applies to my own stereo setup in my listening area and pair of my own ears. I have not tested these dacs on any other setup and it is possible that the results of the comparison may be different in another setup or/and in another listening space.
Here is my setup:
4x4m acoustically treated room
Power filter: Shunyata Hydra Triton v1
Source: Aurender N100H streamer via internal HDD library
DAC: Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE, Denafrips Venus II
DDC: Denafrips Gaia, Matrix Audio X-Spdif 2
Amp: Simaudio Moon 600i
Speakers: Diapason Adamantes III 25th
Cabling: Siltech Classic Anniversary
HOLO AUDIO SPRING 3 KTE
I like appearance of Spring 3 a lot. Great build quality, nice, not too big but heavy, all metal chassis. Decent connectors on back panel, nice and responsive front buttons and display nicely readable from my listening position. Remote is also nice. The only thing I would like to change would be dedicated button for each input on remote and dimmable display (there is only on and off option).
Before I start talking about sound quality I must mention that this dac really needs quite a long time to burn in. And the difference before and after burn in is in my opinion a big one. I let it burn for 500 hours with continuous 24/7 signal from the streamer, which consisted of playlist with the same amount of frequencies based on 44.1 and 48KHz. Differences during burn in process were most notable in bass region (from “no bass” to “great bass”). For better understanding of specific burn in progress of Spring 3 I created following graph.
After 500 hours of burn in I began with listening to each input except for optical (I have no decent optical cable). Inputs are definitely not equal in sound quality. Spdif Coaxial is good, same with AES/EBU. I2S is quite better than both Spdif, but for my surprise, in my current setup best sounding input is USB (directly connected with streamer).
As my streamer is USB output only, other inputs were tested using Gaia or X-Spdif 2 DDC. Unfortunately I am still not able to test I2S input via I2S output from Gaia, because, as I already mentioned in previous post, none of four Springs I2S pinouts are compatible with Gaia. There is I2S pinout function on Gaia with newest firmware, but I am still unable to flash this firmware to my unit and still resolving this issue with Vinshine Audio. So for testing of I2S input I used X-Spdif 2 DDC, which is pity, because Gaia is far better sounding DDC.
From the moment I realized USB is best sounding input (for now) I have further tested and compared Spring 3 using only this input.
EDIT: PLL function was enabled all the time on Spring 3.
Spring 3 KTE sounds really good. Very good dynamics with great details and nice soundstage. No region is emphasized. Separation of individual instruments and voices is exceptional. Voices are very real and very tightly focused. Sound character is right in the middle between analytic and euphonic. But in my opinion this focus on neutral sound character goes sometimes little bit against overall fluidity of sound as whole. There is no apparent flaw in sound quality, yet in my setup I still feel like I'm missing a little bit of smoothness. Which allegedly was not the case with previous model Spring 2. But I have not compared the two in my setup, so this is just a guess. See more detailed explanation of this in following comparison.
COMPARISON WITH DENAFRIPS VENUS II
Denafrips Venus II is exactly in the same price and quality range as Spring 3 KTE. You can consider these two as direct competitors. And indeed, in many areas these two DACs are surprisingly close in sound quality. All comparison was made in NOS mode on both devices (I have to mention I don’t care if Venus II is “true” NOS or not).
Firstly I will name the areas and characteristics which are almost the same on both:
-great dynamics and punch
-rich harmonics
-very good and similar sized soundstage (little bit wider on Venus II)
-great timing (Spring 3 little bit quicker)
-very good detail retrieval
-VERY realistic rendering of human voices
-no sign of brightness or dryness on highs
And now I'll try to explain the differences. Venus II is definitely smoother and overall sound is more fluid. At first I thought it was caused by over emphasize lower midrange and mid-bass region on Venus side. But after long listening session (and dozen switching between Spring 3 to Venus II with the same music material) I realized that it is not the case here. The amount of bass, mid-bass and low midrange is the same on both DACs, but bodies of acoustic instruments (double bass, violin, Spanish guitar) and human voices are bigger and fuller on Venus II. On the other hand same instruments and voices on Spring 3 are in better focus. So maybe more focused individual instruments (may be even too focused) and voices lead to lack of overall smoothness. On more complex recordings this is not apparent after first listening, but on recordings where there is only one or two acoustic instrument (solo double bass for example) Venus II sounds full bodied, filling all listening place, while Spring 3 sound little bit thin, but with better pinpoint location of instruments.
So this effect gives Venus II noticeable more amount of sweetness, but at the same time little bit less of transparency.
CONCLUSION
There is no clear winner between Spring 3 and Venus II. Both are excellent DACs. Venus II is more full bodied and sweet sounding, but never too sweet (as for example my previous DAC Simaudio Moon 380D was). On the other hand Spring 3 is bit more transparent, which is very useful quality for future changes of any gear in your setup. Another advantage of Spring 3 is fabulous USB input, so there is no need to use DDC. Both DACs share many great sound characteristic and differences are not big enough to name the winner.
All this of course, as I wrote at the beginning, could be system dependent, because amplification, speakers and not least - listening room plays a big role in final quality and character of sound.
