Holo Audio May DAC

@redwoodaudio as per my prior posts above, I have been comparing the May against a Lampizator Amber 3. In pure NOS mode with no external upsampling I generally would agree with you - the Lampizator held its own and was better in that natural/organic way that is obviously part of the tube output, even if not strictly neutral. However where I have found the May to shine is with the ability to feed it better upsampled/filtered audio via HQPlayer and the huge SNR = headroom for digital volume control and DSP. There is a ton of flexibility/tuning available there. With the Lampi the gains of upsampling weren’t as obvious and they generally have very poor noise levels. Bass was definitely not as good. My current pipeline to the May now sounds better than the Amber 3 in most aspects. That said, the organic/natural sound is still slightly missed and I will probably give a higher end Lampi a tryout at some point - Baltic 3 or Atlantic TRP. 

@redwoodaudio

I don't see in my post any comment of tube flavor or inferior electrically to transistors

My system currently have 54 tubes and I don't think these are inferior 

You are entitled to any opinion of course, I just stated mine 

I just pulled the trigger on a May KTE edition today.  This will potentially replace my PS Audio DirectStream DAC which I'm currently very happy with.  (The new Sunlight firmware update is great.)  I'm looking to move on from the DSD DAC because I don't want to be stuck long term with a discontinued product, but I won't hesitate to hold on to it for longer if the May KTE doesn't work out.  

Question for existing May KTE and/or DSD DAC owners who also have the Matrix X-SPDIF 2... I have the Matrix now and haven't noticed any difference in sound with my DSD DAC when running my Roon Nucleus to the Matrix (USB) out to the DSD DAC (HDMI/i2s) versus just using the network bridge in the DSD DAC.  Is that based on the streamer limitations in the Nucleus?  And would/does the May KTE really benefit from the Matrix/i2s connection?

@nquery - I never upsampled anything though my holo may.  So you may be right that’s where the may excels.

Oczed - 

Recently purchased the May to replace DSD. Unlike some others my initial impressions were not favorable. 1st day was a mess. Usually is though. Over the next couple of days things started to improve dramatically, after a week I was able to understand what all the fuss was about. The May is not just better than the DSD, it’s ground breaking at this price point. I can’t imagine anything under 10K coming close. It’s high end turntable/analog good and I’m only a week in. As far as the Matrix goes I found it to be better than USB direct. I switched from USB direct early on so I’d like to give that another shot soon. Would love to simplify and use USB if it equals Matrix\I2S. I doubt it will be better. Good luck.