I've been living with the May KTE for over a month now....not quite broken in by some standards, but not cold out of the box.
Regarding the impact of the DAC to a system: At this level, rules of thumb should go out the window. If bits its bits, then there's one hell of a placebo, wish-fulfillment thing going on. A close, much-loved relative is in a position of some influence at a major, mega-buck audio company; he also has great ears, exquisite taste, and is both quite a snob, but understanding of the compromises he and others have had to make on the way to audiophile nirvana. He, owner of a top-line dCS DAC and peripherals, the overall system being in the half-a-million area, has been lost in a world of metaphor and metaphysical speculation about the nature of time, beauty, truth, and the challenge of audio engineering, vis a vis his few hours rapt in music translated by the May KTE; it was his uncharacteristically romantic comments which sold me on scraping the college fund for "just one more" expensive purchase.
I had been using the Bryston BDA 3.14, just over a grand less. The Bryston is a TAS best-buy choice in its $4195 range. Indeed, feeding Meze Elite, Abyss 1266TC, Susvara, and Grado GS3000e and PS500e (Grado continue to have their very own claim to live-music verisimilitude, for me, at any price), the chip-based Bryston was head and shoulders above the Schiit Gumby and Yggy, two sort-of R2R, deeply musical DACs. Resolution, groove, naturalness....the Bryston was by far the best I've had in my system (feeding Woo WA5-LE, Bryston BHA-1, or Schiit Mjolnir).
The Holo May KTE is that much better, in all the ways which matters to me, than the Bryston. And I would be happy to have never heard it. I prefer NOT to be a connoisseur, or at least to think like one. But, with well-matched cans and amps, the May KTE is so friggin' full-bodied, deeply resolving, organic in its timbre and dynamics, I confidently say that, with this piece of bit-processing gear, a DAC can be as essential to the character and quality of an excellent system as a whole turntable/arm/cartridge/phono-stage.
The "veils lifted, hearing picks and oboe squeaks and spit and control-room farts, never heard those details before" thing doesn't suffice. It is qualitatively different, and subjectively Better, Betterer than other digital devices have ever been. plus all that detail. Strangely, mediocre recordings sound BETTER, not like better-resolved badness. Probably because the May KTE's most outstanding virtue, its GRIP, makes the "you are there, in 4D" element of music - the hardest to achieve, time being what it is, for the time being - stand out, so that there is more redemptive awareness available that music is a good thing, even if recorded in a misguided way. Not via classic euphony, but by seeming to access what is most worthy about music qua music.
To my ears. It really makes me happy. That's the bottom line. Still love the Bryston. I don't know if anything at 25K is necessarily better at all. I may never know. But this is a comfortable place to stay, maybe for good.
Anyone want the Bryston DAC and amp? Tell me, I'll place a proper ad.