Holo Audio May DAC
This DAC is amazing. Fed native pcm and dsd (no up or over sampling), in NOS mode, it wipes the floor with my PS Audio Directstream, with almost zero break in. And the PS Audio is a very good dac. Simply wonderful. Thank you Holo Audio and Jeff Zhu !! |
I too went from the PS Audio Direct Stream to the Holo May KTE. I kept both in my system for a few weeks and in my particular system the May absolutely trounced the Direct Stream in almost every way. Frankly I was shocked at the magnitude of the change. I initially purchased the May just to check it out knowing the demand was high I could easily sell after re-affirming the Direct Stream... but the Day trumped the DS. |
Here is a link to a very thoughtful (and glowing) YouTube review of the KTE MAY DAC. Very informative as well. https://youtu.be/Wa3sOSRa-U0 |
May absolutely trounced the Direct Stream in almost every way. Frankly I was shocked at the magnitude of the change. I initially purchased the May just to check it out knowing the demand was high I could easily sell after re-affirming the Direct Stream... but the May trumped the DS. That is the difference when converting PCM recordings 16/44, 24/96 or DXD via R2R Mulitibit conversion vs Delta Sigma conversion. R2R will convert it "bit perfect" where Delta Sigma can only give a "facsimile" of it. Great video BTW https://youtu.be/Wa3sOSRa-U0 Cheers George |
That video on the Holo May was great. The best example of objective and subjective evaluation I've seen. It's was troubling to see on his part 2 video that he mentions that the Denafrips Ares II does not do real NOS but "linear interpolation" instead (if I remember it correctly). Makes me wonder if all of Denafrips line up do that instead of actual NOS. All the best, Nonoise |
I'm still months away from a new DAC, and now the May has moved into my sights which were previously fixed on the Wavelight. In my system I have no preamp (just feed my current dac with volume control direct to my Hegel amp) so one thing that attracted me to the Wavelight, besides the organic/analog sound-quality accolades, was the fully analog volume control that was also well-praised. If it had the May I'd need to get a preamp (and another set of XLR cables). So with that in mind... is there an affordable preamp or "analog volume attenuator" that is affordable? It would seem that in its most pure sense all I'm really after is a way to attenuate the sound without degrading the quality (i.e. what's basically happening with the volume control of the wavelight)... any such device? Or is an audiophile stuck having to buy a $$ preamp to basically serve that purpose? Any input appreciated :) |
@dvdboulet So with that in mind... is there an affordable preamp or "analog volume attenuator" that is affordable? It would seem that in its most pure sense all I’m really after is a way to attenuate the sound without degrading the quality (i.e. what’s basically happening with the volume control of the wavelight)... any such device? Or is an audiophile stuck having to buy a $$ preamp to basically serve that purpose? Any input appreciated :) If that’s all you want then why not just use the digital volume control in Roon or HQPlayer?? That’s what I have successfully done while testing the May into the pre-in of my Line Magnetic amp. It has provided an incremental gain in SQ over the somewhat basic/mediocre pot volume attenuator in my integrated. The May's extremely low noise floor combined with 64 bit volume control provides for tons of headroom. |
I should provide an update after another 10 days of testing the May alongside my Lampizator Amber 3. In straight head-to-head comparisons there are pros and cons to each. But where the May has shined for me is with HQPlayer upsampling and digital volume control. It’s extremely low noise floor certainly allows for a lot more flexibility and tuning in this regard and obviates my desire for a better analog volume control/pre-amp in between DAC and amp. But the Lampizator is absolutely no slouch at all and I would still like to hear the new Baltic 3. One other factor is that my amp is single ended and after some reading and talking to others about the Holo architecture and such, I am convinced that I am not getting the most out of the Holo May. The May actually only uses the output of one side of the R2R ladder for RCA outs, and Jeff Zhu even says the balanced outputs sound better. To this end, I have ordered a quality balanced to SE transformer, the Black Box from AmpsandSound. It is basically designed for this exact problem with many current DACs and the recently updated version Justin is sending me has an additional stepped attenuator to dial in the excess gain. Will update with my observations once it’s in the chain this week. |
@nquery I have the Pass Labs XA25 which is single ended aswell, but honestly, it's sounds beyond superb to me. No chip dac I've heard has what the May has. Also, I ditched HQplayer, as it didn't do anything for me, personally, but that's just me. At the moment I control the volume with Roon and derive just as much pleasure, naturalness, uncanny realism, and all the micro/macro detail I've ever heard in 25 years. Now my new Legacy Whisper XDS speakers are arriving in late July and they come with the newly upgraded Wavelet 2 ( It's bespoke premium preamp, 4 way dsp active crossover, it handles room/speaker correction, and has a built-in DAC (which I'll only be using via its USB input for "Tribe Virtual DJ", an Oculus VR app that I'm addicted to 😁, which should suffice for EDM genre music I mix), the May will be going balanced into the Wavelet 2, but then back to single-ended to the XA25. I never thought I'd be a Bluegrass fanatic, but the way the May handles acoustic instruments is nothing short of amazing and has me listening anything acoustic. Good luck with your changes and I hope you gain an improvement. |
@jcarcopo I go back and forth with HQPlayer - not all of the filters are better than pure NOS. I am really loving the recently added sinc-mx with LSN15 upsampled to 768hz pcm. I also have a $140 intel pc stick arriving this week that I will use as an endpoint so I can try 1.536khz. Really trying to see how much I can wring out of this dac. |
Not 100% sure on this but it looks like my May DAC will be here next Monday. Less than 3 weeks from purchase date, Received this from DHL. Can anyone confirm this is the DAC? StatusProcessed at HONG KONG - HONG KONG SAR, CHINA: Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 9:27 PMShipperPARCEL FROM HKShipper addressROOM 709 7/F LINGNANDUHUI HUAYING R OAD NO 18 JIA HE WANG GAN VILLAGE IF RTO PLS RTN TO HKG FOR SHPR INST OAD NO 18 JIA HE WANG GAN VILLAGE TSING YI nonePick up23 Jun 2021Estimated delivery28 Jun 2021 by End of DayPieces1 I have no other items I've purchased from China recently... Thanks |
This KTE MAY DAC has really caught my eyes. I would have 3 questions for the people on this forum: 1) [ Canadian citizen only]: Has any Canadian citizen ordered a MAY DAC, and how much did you end-up spending for shipping, duties, broker fees, and any other fees on top of the DAC itself? 2) Has any of you owners or ex-owners of PS Audio DSD Sr. had the chance to compare the KTE MAY DAC against the DSD Sr. + Edcor XS4400 mod? 3) Has any owners of the KTE MAY DAC had the chance to compare it against the Aqua La Voce S3 DAC, and if so, how would summarize the difference in sound quality (bass, mid, highs, image) ? |
brge1 I'm in Canada and I ordered my MAY KTE in the last week of May. I received the DAC in about 3 weeks, half the time predicted by Kitsune. I think shipping came to about $280 US and DHL brokerage fee were less than $50 CDN. So far, I have not been charged duties or taxes but, of course, that could change. The MAY is an amazing DAC! |
@cleopatra52 , thank you very much. I must say that you seemed to have been lucky avoiding the duties - good for you: they should have been ~15% of the cost of the MAY KTE (which is $USD 5000 from I understand). It is good to have a break once in a while :) ... Do you have past experiences with other DACs (including may be the La Voce S3) and if so, which aspects of the KTE DAC makes it a superior DAC compared to the others you have owned? |
Just got the May DAC. 15 days after order - must be a record! Make the mistake of listening right out of the box (after an hour or so). Sound is just ok. Not in the same league as PSA DSD. Bass is bloated. Image is diffuse. Has trouble locking onto different sample rates. Using USB maybe that’s part of the issue. Had been using I2S with Matrix/Uptone PS w/Aurender streamer. Thought I’d start with USB as I’ve heard so many positive comments (not much of a fan of USB usually) Thinking... hoping it’s got to get much better with break - in. We’ll see... |
cudfoo5, No, the MAY will not get much better with break-in. If you don't like it now, you are unlikely to like it in the future. However, your description of "bass is bloated" and "image is diffuse" is the polar opposite of my experience with the MAY. There must be something wrong with your particular MAY DAC or something else in |
brge2, I have limited experience with other DACs in my system. I had the Denafrips Terminator for a long weekend last summer (2020) and I thought it was good but not great. I like the MAY considerably more. I have listened extensively to the dCS Bartok and the TotalDAC in a friend's system and there is a chance we will be comparing the MAY to one or both of these highly regarded DACs. |
The PSA DSD was not great out of the box either. Actually if my memory is correct - it was pretty crappy also. Seeing as most people are saying this thing needs 100’s of hours of break in I’m thinking it will get a lot better. My experience with the DAC is similar to most new equipment I’ve tried too soon - uneven at best. I’ll give it a few days before a serious listen. |
Looks like I do have a bit of an issue. This DAC does not play nice with my Curious USB cable. Both my Aurender streamer (
USB DAC ERR Detected message from time to time) and the May seem it have trouble locking. The USB cable that came with the unit seems to be ok. Anyone have this issue? Any recomendations for a USB cable for this unit. Is that the best input to use with the May? |
@nquery did you tried the EC modulators as well? do you still like the pure NOS over EC mods with HQPlayer?@luisma31 I have not yet as my current core server is not powerful to do it justice and I also want to stick with PCM upsampling first to dial in the sound before making comparisons to DSD. Right now, I am really liking the new poly-sinc-gauss-long filter that Jussi just added. It’s a filter that he has been working on for 6 years, It’s supposed to be the best of both worlds. It sounds fantastic, better than pure NOS. I am also using a cheap intel pc stick as my endpoint so I can do 1536kHz. This was also a test of the May’s USB input to see if it can back up claims that a fancy USB chain is no longer required. I have had a Sonore OpticalRendu and Allo USBridge Signature in place before this. So far, I can’t tell a difference which is great. One can not worry about USB source as much anymore. That said, I still went with a low-power endpoint and am using an LPS with it. The other change I made (and mentioned above) was to get a quality Balanced XLR to Single Ended RCA transformer (cinemags) and see if that improved the sonics on my SE amp. I think there is an incremental improvement but haven’t really A/B’ed it yet. Along with another 400 hrs of burn-in and ability to do digital volume attenuation, I am now much happier than when I first plugged the May in a few weeks ago. I do sometimes miss the organic mid-range and spatial depth of my tubed Lampizator but in most other aspects I am getting better sound from the May. |
I don’t think USB cables should be making a difference given the May’s implementation unless they are simply out of spec. I use a Supra USB cable without issue. And again, I have not noticed a difference between 3 low-powered (and LPS powered) endpoints. They do. I went from a Shunyata Sigma to Omega, and yes there is an improvement. It’s not subtle. |
Hi All, I currently have 2 box setup; Simaudio Moon 390 to power amp. I feed 390 via eithernet connection using Roon to play music files on my PC. If I go with Holo May DAC, I will need to sell 390 to fund for the DAC and would not have enough fund for a new preamp. So given that constraint, I think I have a couple of options: 1. Connect May directly from PC via USB and use Roon's volume control. Problem here is that my PC is about 20 ft away from where the DAC would be, so will need a long USB cable. 2. Buy Bluesound Node and connect it via eithernet (like the current setup) and connect Node to May via either optical out or USB. Use either Roon or Node volume control. Does anyone know any advantage of using Roon if I have Node? Overall, which option will yield a better performance? Thanks! |
philippe0: Did you like
usb to matrix spdif to dac on the May? With the DS this was the way to go for me. With the May it's not the same level as the USB input (with curious usb - started working for some reason) Would love to try the Chord cables you mentioned down the road. Better USB cables seem to make a big difference with this unit. At least with the limited selection I have. Tried the USB cable that came with the May - not too good... I2S crushed USB on the DS. |
Hey Phillppe - Thanks for getting back - nice setup... I really want to simplify if at all possible. Since the USB implementation on the May is so good want to sell my Matrix and Uptone PS w/WW Platinum Silver Starlight HDMI and put the funds into a high level USB cable. The May is starting to burn in and open up now - looking forward to the journey. By the way I have the P20 also it’s awesome. thx again... |
This guy has good measuring equipment: He like the May a lot and shows you around inside. There is this one and a second. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa3sOSRa-U0&t=703s&ab_channel=GoldenSound |
