Yeah, the hp out on the Hilo serves well for a feature of a digital interface. Being able to monitor your mixing in the field would be a pretty handy function. Not so important for the audiophile but it offers a pretty good amp for a minimal solution to desktop organization. I use mine to feed two 125 w monoblocks for my HE-6. When you get a chance to listen to the XLR out, you will grin all over again.
Yeah, the hp out on the Hilo serves well for a feature of a digital interface. Being able to monitor your mixing in the field would be a pretty handy function. Not so important for the audiophile but it offers a pretty good amp for a minimal solution to desktop organization. I use mine to feed two 125 w monoblocks for my HE-6. When you get a chance to listen to the XLR out, you will grin all over again.
In my case, having the HP out on here will be an important security blanket-- I'm thinking the Master 8 will be too powerful to use with IEMs, so having another SE output available will be handy. And I have the XLR line-outs running my speaker setup (Hilo > W4S STP-SE > W4S SX500 monoblocks > ATC SCM7s), and although that setup isn't currently fully optimized in my room, it's already quite apparent how excellent the sound is.
And honestly, although all the usual provisos about not having done an in-depth A/B comparison are in play, I found the HP output to strike me as easily superior to my dedicated M^3 amp. I'll need to sit down and really dig in and make sure that's borne out by a more substantial listening experience, but thus far I'm impressed. I had hoped-- but not expected-- that the Hilo would best the M^3 in that regard, so there might be some expectation bias in play, but honestly it seems different enough that I'm thinking it won't take much A/B listening to declare the Hilo the winner, easily.
As an aside: I believe I've read every review or impressions written on Hilo pretty much anywhere (I tend to obsess about these types of things before I drop $2k), and I cannot recall reading a single bad review anywhere. The pro audio guys at Gearslutz all seem to hold it in the highest regard, and everyone in the audiophile community that I've come across has conceded that it is an elite bit of kit, even if they liked something else better. Even with some other gear that was appreciated in both professional and audiophile communities (Lavry, Benchmark, etc), it seems there were those who simply didn't care for them for one reason or another, but I've yet to see that with the Hilo-- which is quite the accomplishment IMO.
One additional aside: I believe I recall you mentioning that the USB port was powered by the 5V USB input on the Hilo, HC, is that right? If so, I'm curious if something like the Offramp Short Block or iFi iUSB Power would offer any improvements-- anybody try something like this yet?
As an aside: I believe I've read every review or impressions written on Hilo pretty much anywhere (I tend to obsess about these types of things before I drop $2k), and I cannot recall reading a single bad review anywhere.
One additional aside: I believe I recall you mentioning that the USB port was powered by the 5V USB input on the Hilo, HC, is that right? If so, I'm curious if something like the Offramp Short Block or iFi iUSB Power would offer any improvements-- anybody try something like this yet?
Hilo is also highly regarded in Chinese headphone hifi forums. a quick translation of the info from there:
"
- The only product that's similar (a little bit higher) priced, and offer same or better listening experience is Prism Sound Lyra 2. But this is subject to personal preference, Lyra is more emotional, Hilo is truth.
- External linear DC power and battery power will enhance Hilo quite a bit. Such as KIKUSUI PAN35-5
- A good usb interface will greatly improve Hilo. Cheap and good USB interface: Goldenwave Pearl 2
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/new-universal-serial-bus-industry-standard-cables-connectors-and-communications-protocols-between-computers-and-electronic-devices-spdif-interface-goldenwave-pearl-32-192-a-18476/
- Another option to replace USB is by using Lynx AES16 sound card, and make sure connects clock cable, let Hilo use AES16's clock, this option can beat great external USB interface. - Combine Hilo with good usb interface and external power, it becomes the 'King', almost nothing can shake it.
"
I haven't tried any of these 'add-ons' for Hilo, will quite some involve $ and time.
- External linear DC power and battery power will enhance Hilo quite a bit. Such as KIKUSUI PAN35-5
- A good usb interface will greatly improve Hilo. Cheap and good USB interface: Goldenwave Pearl 2 - Combine Hilo with good usb interface and external power, it becomes the 'King', almost nothing can shake it. "
I haven't tried any of these 'add-ons' for Hilo, will quite some involve $ and time.
When I get my LH Labs Geek LPS4 I'll try to feed my Hilo with two of the 12V outputs in parallell. Da Vinci LPS technology with Hilo...
I haven't tried to use my (unused) Concero as a USB to SPDIF converter for Hilo, maybe I'll do that. Then I can also use the Resonnessence upsampling with Hilo.
@yfei: I hadn't heard of GoldenWave before, but that certainly looks interesting. It's intriguing that someone else reported a different experience with a battery power source, as the first thing I read about it (in this thread, I believe) was that the net effect on the sound quality was negative. Always good to get other data points!
Additionally, it seems that some people think the USB input on the Hilo is exemplary, and others think it is a weak link in the performance of the unit. I guess we'll need to wait until a few members have the ability to try the Hilo with various USB awesomifiers and see if something resembling a consensus emerges. Once I finish reading Purrin's 21 DAC comparison thread, if he hasn't already tried his OR5 with the Hilo, I might ask if he'd have an opportunity to do so. Might be enlightening!
@CanDude: Awesome man, let us know how it goes. I personally am more interested in USB isolators and the like than USB-to-SPDIF converters, but of course that could change if there's something truly spectacular out there-- especially if it doesn't cost as much as the device itself (looking at you, Empirical Audio).
I guess the whole USB modifiers thing brings about a greater question: has anyone tried any particular tweaks or upgrades they felt impacted the sound of the Hilo for better or worse?
Of course when I get LPS4 and the Lightspeed 2G split USB cable I will be able to feed USB 5V from LPS4 and only get the data part from my PC.
Once I connected Hilo to HDP, used as an amp (with its own switched power supply), and then I got noise from the switched power supply for my laptop, which disappeared when I switched to battery power, so the noise is there.
It'll be interesting to hear how the LPS4 affects the sound (assuming it does, of course). It looks like there are a number of similar devices that are hitting the market (or getting close to doing so), and I'm excited to see if any of 'em can make the already ludicrously-good Hilo even better!
Of course when I get LPS4 and the Lightspeed 2G split USB cable I will be able to feed USB 5V from LPS4 and only get the data part from my PC.
Once I connected Hilo to HDP, used as an amp (with its own switched power supply), and then I got noise from the switched power supply for my laptop, which disappeared when I switched to battery power, so the noise is there.
Hmm, something is not right with the test or provided info. I think covering cable pin 4 (5v) with tape on PC side would provide definite answer, you can also cover ground line (pin 1), the mod seems to be working with Vega and DA8 (at least does not make things worse )
Confession time: when I mentioned before that the headphone out on the Hilo was a bit on the bright side (as a compliment, btw!), I didn't realize I still had a slight treble boost in DSP Studio in JRMC. So, uh, disregard that.
In other news: the more I listen to the Hilo, the more I love it, the more awed I am by the levels of detail it unearths while still remaining smooth and fatigue-free. Unreal how good this thing is...
Direct Link To This Post Posted: November/26/2013 at 8:18am
Should this get read, a question has come up about the USB power. Is the USB receiver powered by the USB bus or by the Hilo's power?
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David A Hoatson View Drop Down
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Thanks (0) Thanks(0) Quote David A Hoatson Quote Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: November/26/2013 at 9:18am
By Hilo.
David Hoatson is the designer of the Hilo at Lynx.
HC, I'm not sure I understand your post... You mentioned earlier that you had confirmed with Lynx that the Hilo's USB receiver is powered by the USB connection, is this confirmation of that?
This was a copy of my post about the USB receiver being powered. I asked in the Lynx support forum if they could tell me if the USB chip was powered by the computer USB bus or if it was powered by the Hilo power supply. David's response was the Hilo. So while there may be a 5v connection to the computer USB bus, it's not used by the Hilo.
One of the things that's under-appreciated about the Hilo is that it can receive up to 8 channels of hi-rez audio through the USB input. It also has separate DACs for Line Out and Monitor Out. So you can get up to 4 channels out of it easily.
In my computer-based system with speakers, the Hilo helps integrate the sub. I set up JRiver to send a high-passed signal to channels 1 & 2 and send the bass to channels 3 & 4. In the Hilo, I send channels 1&2 to the main speakers via Line Out, and 3 & 4 to the sub via Monitor Out. The Hilo's front-panel volume control tunes the sub level as needed.
This is a great feature! It's a lot easier to integrate a sub this way than with only 2 channels available.
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