Holo May KTE vs Meitner MA3

Ok-- now having had the chance to go back and forth for the last few hours with 4 or 5 different albums on actual speakers instead of the headphone system... utilizing what seems to be the Meitner’s preferred method of music making, which is ethernet streaming (preferred over AES and USB to my ear) vs. the more input-agnostic Holo May KTE (I used my preferred method-- Audirvana studio via AQ Carbon USB from a mac mini), I have a bit better sense of what’s what-- at least in my own mind. I should note both DACs have been on/warmed up for days.

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.

The MA3 is indeed an extremely interesting listen (I kept thinking ’interesting’/ ’engaging’ as I listened) mainly down to the textures and ’air movement’ and detail it has on offer. But also due to its obvious speed-- yep. It’s an engaging listen.

The Holo KTE for me so far is perhaps the more ’relaxing’ listen of the two, albeit at the expense of less ’stuff out there to see’ and fewer textural gradations. These are of course all relatively minor distinctions I discerned on the basis of 3-4 (5?) hours listening to 4 or 5 different (mostly classical - one Charles Mingus) albums and switching between them so far, so certainly subject to change but at least I think i have the Gestalt of the differences.

And let me tell you, upon switching off, they are easy to hear-- but not monumental. I could listen (and have) to either at length and if you dont switch back and forth to refresh your mind every so often, you might settle happily into the couch with either one playing. Maybe these ’subtle’ distinctions though could be important if one, say, feels their system lacks a little detail and is a bit warm or vice versa... Perhaps it's the nature of some of these distinctions (weight/separation etc) that made them easier for me to hear via loudspeakers than headphones- or perhaps it's the nature of my headphone system (tubes and older Senn HD600s). Dunno.

So for me-- still preliminary and still have no idea which I’d sell if forced (and if anyone around here gets clued in and finds out I have two relatively pricey things here that do more or less the exact same thing-- I might be).

I really love both of these DACs so far and it has been really instructive having them together, at least in so far as I previously thought my KTE May was it-- over and done. But now I see by contrast it actually may have it’s own sound (perish the thought) and the MA3 is certainly a different, though perhaps equally valid take on things.

Hopefully these (preliminary!) words are helpful for those considering either of these great DACs. Lets see what else I can discover about them through further listening.

I am doing so right now. Let me tell you, preliminarily it is quite close! Closer than I expected for sure given the significantly different DAC architectures/concepts. A/B’d via my headphone rig (with ALO studio six head amp/Senn HD600’s-- both DACs run single-ended into it, using a mac mini/audirvana or U1 mini/Quobuz as source with May vs. MA3 with internal streamer), There is really little between them at this time (havent spent many hours as yet...). Both superb tonally, both pacey, both spacious etc. This again was a bit shocking to me as a long time fan/owner of the May. Maybe- just maybe so far, the KTE May is a bit more ’watercolor’ and warm in NOS mode perhaps evident more in the mid-bass region (havent switched modes as yet) -- is the only thing that ’grabs’ me so far. Only thing I can report so far, is that if anyone says one of these ’smokes’ the other (and inevitably someone will;) , well they have some pretty impressively forthright preferences for what are (very preliminarily) minor differences, at least tonally. I’m not sure which I’ll keep by a long shot yet-- I love the KTE May! But the MA3 appeals with it’s all-in-oneness whereas the Holo is only the Holo with external sources connected etc. Of course, I can also use the MA3 as a preamp- which I’m doing right now and that’s a trick the May cant pull off. (Yet? :)

So the MA3 is a ’sleeker’ package and a beautiful/smooth thing to operate/engage with, with faster lock to sources and that pretty display. So I can maybe try more and with different headphone setups and report back... (I have a THX 887 head amp and some Shure headphones as well to try). We’ll see...

You’re welcome Branislav. I wanna stress these are really preliminary thoughts based on a couple of listening sessions so far with headphone set up only, so keep that in mind. As for the price differential, as you know the MA3 is a three-in-one unit-- dac/streamer/preamp, so I guess it isnt really a pure 9500 dollar dac against a pure 5600 dollar dac (though I recall reading the MA3 dac portion is heavily based on or very similar to their super pricey DV2 dac) but once you are playing in the league of the May and the MA3, I dont think there’s a bad choice-- probably just preferences for this or that tonality or synergy. I actually bought the MA3 at the behest of an audiophile friend (who loves his) to use as a preamp with my amp due to a scarcity on the used market of matching preamps for it, so that’s why I cant directly A/B the May against MA3 into my amp and speakers right now-- I dont currently have a preamp to hook up to the May!

So for now-- headphones will have to do. The ALO studio six is a great head amp for such testing, because it accepts like three (or is it 4?) sources and also isnt too ’tubey’ sonically-- pretty even handed with a bit of warmth. Wish the ALO were balanced also, but just single-ended.

So it’s easy to hook up, say, the May and the MA3, match the volumes with the MA3 volume knob, and play the same track through both and simply switch the input knob back and forth on the ALO. When I queued up some Mozart (the well recorded piano/violin Mozart Palatine sonatas on Quobuz and the Leif Ove Andsnes album titled ’1784’ on same), similar spaciousness, tonality, delicacy/decays and separation were in evidence via both the May and the MA3. Same goes for the Bill Evans trio stuff I tried.

I also preliminarily think the internal streamer in the MA3 may have a slightly warmer tonality than when I play the same tracks via AES input from my Lumin U1 mini streamer (a great streamer which I just sold after acquiring the MA3 in the hopes I could reduce the box count:) Of course, that could be down to the AES input on the MA3 or the nature of the Lumin itself-- not sure.

I’ll confess I have always loved Audirvana software via my mac mini sonically, and via USB into the May, with no cleaners/converters etc, it really does turn in a ’streamer level’ (or close to it) performance. Perhaps that owes to the May’s excellent jitter reduction/PLL circuitry and other such things beyond my comprehension. But nonetheless there it is sonically.

So Mac mini/May vs. MA3 (with internal streamer) doesn’t in my ear, handicap the May too much at all. Until I got the Lumin, that was my favorite setup.

It may still be-- hopefully will get a chance this week for a few more hours of headphone A/B’ing with different genres (ambient/jazz-- even Diana Krall!?? No! etc) and I can then report back if you like, either just how wrong my initial impressions were and what was I smoking -- or that I’ve confirmed them to myself ;)

Ok, thanks Lord. I sorta thought I’d compare a ’best use case’ (for me anyway) of how I felt each was optimized/at its relative best sonically (having tried various inputs with both with the Mac mini and previously a Lumin streamer - now sold). Fwiw, I did have a slight preference for the MA3 ethernet over its USB/AES input from Lumin/Mac; but not major. Its USB/AES inputs were almost as good and my conclusions would likely be- in general-  the same. I did listen ta while to those, I just mostly used ethernet to really optimize it (since that's how I'd mostly use it). And the May’s USB input is absolutely superb and that's how I use it. But if you feel it’s utter nonsense then so it is and that’s that. Cant win ’em all. Have a good weekend.