[Happy Camper]

I will get Hilo after so many research, pretty much I had on my list.

• Mytek 192 DAC
• Yulong DA8
• Anedio D2
• Fostex HP-A8
• Wyred4Sound DAC-2 DSDse

I was going to get W4S DAC2 DSDSe but I Hilo is $1850 vs $2549, so decide to save some money

Question is, BLACK or SILVER ?

Did you get your new toy and how (if purchased) do you like it?

 

[jcx]

 

  I may be miss-informed by few people here that Sabre ES9018 is the best DAC chip available today, but more I read it's the implementation that matters.

 
I heard 'Sabre ESS 9018 is the best DAC' from many occasions as well.  But read this multi-DAC review:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/693798/ranking-of-21-dacs-and-dac-configurations-and-why-chocolate-ice-cream-must-die
From this review what I see is that ESS 9018 chip has a critical flaw, which prevents anyone from making a perfect DAC using this chip.
 
(Hilo ranked #6 on the list, they were using the v5 firmware and USB.    From my ears the v6 firmware enhanced the USB performance quite a lot, totally a different DAC. So I would expect Hilo to move up a level or two with the v6, or using AES input instead of USB)

care to point to the killer evidence? - do you mean the 2nd hand reference to "...saw something posted on a Chinese site"?
 
choose to ignore the Ayre "endorsement"?
 
is this how "consensus" is constructed on head-fi?

 

[fzman]

so, I updated my driver and firmware, and installed the remote software.  However, I cannot get the remote to control the headphone output's volume - there's no controls to do it, and i thought that was one of the features they demo'd at NAMM.
 
It plays fine, but I have to manually adjust volume, and the encoder "jumps" a bit some times, i.e., i turn it clockwise and the volume jumps down, then goes up.....
 
 
any thoughts?

 

[PleasantSounds]

Headphones volume control shows on the remote only when they are plugged in. Works fine for me...
 
Regarding the volume jumps - I never noticed anything like that.

 

[fzman]

  Headphones volume control shows on the remote only when they are plugged in. Works fine for me...
 
Regarding the volume jumps - I never noticed anything like that.

 
Thanks for the reply.  Turns out that I had only updated the firmware for the USB card, not the Hilo itself.  Apparently the webroot antivirus software I use on my laptop was blocking the update tot he Hilo itself.  Once paused, the update went smoothly, and the firmware updated (took a bit longer than the failed attempts -- go figure!).
 
Then the only problem was finding that one setting that was keeping the coax spdif input from playing through the headphone jack - I love my Hilo, but the feature-richness sometimes gets in the way of simply using it to listen to music.....   It does sound amazing though.
 
 
 
And yes, the phones volume works via the remote, and the quirky knob behavior seems to have fixed itself as well - 

 

[Happy Camper]

Good deal. I was going to suggest reloading but all is well.

 

[kawaivpc1]

Hello guys.
Is there anyone using Hilo as an audio interface for DAWs such as Cubase, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, etc???
 
If so, can anyone tell me if Hilo's ASIO driver is good enough to work with diverse software synths and samplers?
I'm not sure if Hilo's ASIO driver can work without much latency with soft synth and sampler such as Kontakt, Massive, etc. 
I think Hilo is perfect as a hardware but nothing is known about its ASIO driver.
I have a handful of USB powered MIDI keyboards here. Will I experience latency when I use them with Hilo's ASIO driver?
 
Thanks in advance!

 

[Mike-48]

  Hello guys.
Is there anyone using Hilo as an audio interface for DAWs such as Cubase, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, etc???
 
If so, can anyone tell me if Hilo's ASIO driver is good enough to work with diverse software synths and samplers?

I suggest you get to the Lynx web site and connect with the forums there. From what I can see, there are plenty of professionals using Hilo for such things, but better ask the question there -- plenty of folks using DAWs there. 
 
I can say that the ASIO driver does have settings for low latency.
 
HTH,
Mike

 

[kawaivpc1]

  I suggest you get to the Lynx web site and connect with the forums there. From what I can see, there are plenty of professionals using Hilo for such things, but better ask the question there -- plenty of folks using DAWs there. 
 
I can say that the ASIO driver does have settings for low latency.
 
HTH,
Mike

Thanks. I posted this question on that forum as well.
I know about its low latency setting... but it's really different when it comes to soft synth and plug-ins.
I had Axe FX II from Fractal Audio and POD HD PRO from Line 6. They all come with ASIO drivers of their own but none of them worked well with soft synth and samplers on DAW. I had no problem recording my guitar with them. There was no latency for that yet other soft synth and plug-ins seemed rather buggy with their ASIO drivers. Also, my MIDI keyboard was getting latency issue.
 
Usual audio interfaces such as Steinberg UR22, Native Instruments Kontrol, M-Audio MBox resolve all software latency issue with their ASIO drivers. It seems like other pro audio companies aren't interested in this matter.
DACs sound much better than Audio / Midi interface headphone out but we can't use them well on DAWs due to their poor ASIO drivers.

 

[PleasantSounds]

Try also gearslutz.com - lots of pros hang out there and Hilo is used by many of them.

 

[kawaivpc1]

Thanks guys. I confirmed that Hilo can work well with DAW and software synth without latency issues.

 

[Happy Camper]

If interested, in the body of the thread is a link to a good deal for Head Fi customers.

 

[Theogenes]

If interested, in the body of the thread is a link to a good deal for Head Fi customers.

 
Indeed there is .

 

[kawaivpc1]

A quick question to you guys:
 
Universal Audio Apollo headphone out VS Hilo headphone out...
Which one sounds better?
 
UAD Apollo is in the same price range. If you buy UAD Apollo, you will get UAD plug-ins as well.
I'm not sure UAD's audio interface's sound quality is comparable to Hilo's.
The majority of audio interface companies don't understand or know about reference quality DAC and headphone amps.
They're not interested in implementing DAC chips to their audio interfaces. My steinberg UR22, MBox, Native instrument Kontrol sound a lot inferior to my Zodiac Plus DAC.

 

[PleasantSounds]

I have no experience with Apollo but the Dangerous Music Source is about half of Hilo's price and has a very good headphone amp. It's DAC performs very well too.