“The Holo May DAC is cheaper and considered better.”
”In sum-- a shocker-- the NOS R2R DAC is sounding more and more like... an excellent NOS R2R DAC. The KTE May is a bit warmer and more spacious all around. In contrast, immediately apparent upon switching is the slightly more lit up sound of the MA3.
It presents to my ear as more detailed and thus less ’homogeneous’ with instrumental sections/groups and the textures their instruments produce. Specifically, there seems to be more overall instrumental texture on offer and instruments in groups seem a bit more discernible as individual players with their own air and space around them.
The MA3 also seems somewhat pacier and more micro-dynamic. It’s quite the foot tapper! Even to Bach. There seems to be more contrast between instantly softer and louder/start and stop. The MA3 is on a hair trigger with this stuff. I think some youtube reviewer calls that ’alert’ sounding.
While, as i say, the MA3 seems to separate instrumentalists on the stage a bit more and gives them their own air, the Holo seems to paint more abstractly with a bit broader brush, The MA3 also seems to have a bit more ’scale’ for me i.e. the proceedings seems slightly grander in terms of the size of the players and stage. MA3 bass seems a bit more defined and possibly a bit deeper (though my system sure wont plumb any depths).
It also does a nice thing I don’t think I’ve heard my prior DACs do to this degree (mostly NOS R2R to be fair) which is pressurization-- like the sense that the bow is digging into the strings and there’s pressure/corporeality/weight (it was striking with a great violin recording like the complete Schubert Sonatas played by Naaman Sluchin and Piet Kuijikenor) and with strings en masse like in ’Simon Rattle conducts Haydn’, on which album the lower strings -- cellos/basses-- seem with the MA3 to be moving more air than with the Holo while seeming a bit less plump and one notey as well. In other words,with the MA3, it hits you a bit more that there’s a big lot of people out there (albeit individuals) bowing away furiously.
You get this sense of weight/pressure- of air moving- with the MA3 on lots of recordings though- not just with strings.”