HOLO Audio Spring DAC – R2R DSD512 – COMPLETED

**Real Holo Spring Measurements

DA Stereo – 23 Jan 17

Physics and lyrics of the R2R matrix

A visual aid for the beginner “NOS gadfly”. Audio purists and the easily impressionable are asked to leave the bar. I am recording a signal on RCA. I’ll say right away that the bass is all right, 10 hertz is already on the shelf. It starts playing at 1 hertz. Everything is cool at the bottom. ...

Drivers

Download XMOS Signed Drivers 3.40.0 Win7/Win8 (10/7/2016) https://kitsunehifi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/HoloAudio_DriverSetup_v3.40.0_Win7_Win8.zip

Download XMOS Signed Drivers 3.40.0 Win10 (10/7/2016) https://kitsunehifi.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/HoloAudio_DriverSetup_v3.40.0_Win10.zip

You can look at this more broadly, not at the launch of another STEREO TOUR with an interesting DAC, but as an example of a Chinese company entering the international market with an interesting, new product. How does product promotion work through forums, review sites, and that’s all. We did not have time to observe how the Metrum company entered the market and slowly became famous. Now Metrum have released the flagship Metrum Pavane and they look quite respectable.

Tour Dates

Moscow @Atmosphere - detailed review / great review with Wadia 15 and Berkeley DAC 1. @Rad - review / review with Naim DAC + PSU, two. @ZAG - review / review with Metrum Pavane @PlanA - review / general review @PlanA - comparison of the base and top version / base and top model review @bogatovandrey - review / review + @Kirillizza + @art_zoyd review / review @simpleart - review / review with Audio Note DAC 3 @chsas75 – preview / preview, review / review

Tula @yurivv69 - review with beautiful photos / review with beautiful photos

Peter @smfoto — Spring vs Naim NDS+552 PS preview 1, preview 2, preview 3, final review

Severodvinsk @VladShumilov MOST CRITICAL REVIEW EVER

Ekaterinburg @DmitryMak - review/review @Jonh-1 - review-comparison HOLO vs HILO/review

LIVE from China @wehr-wolf - taking Spring apart/Spring de-construction @wehr-wolf - about the difference in the sound of capacitors and part 2 @wehr-wolf - tube exhaust

Tyumen @Sergey72vw – review/review

Novosib @DMITRISSD - in its system @DMITRISSD - in the system @Alveec @Alveec - review / review @Altex - review / review @anon21728400 @yakkii

Blagoveshchensk @dimian

Volga region @Narayan - announcement/preview and review/review Spring here @MyXEL

Lap of honor in Moscow @zil.ab45 - video/video @Genady - review/review @firewheel - review/review @Vlad_Nik - review/review

If it is possible to organize a group audition and save time, then let it be. 3-4 days, I think, is enough to do everything rhythmically. Postage costs are paid by the receiving party. Treat them like your own, blow off specks of dust

Reviews in English / Other English reviews

Headphone Reviews and Discussion – Head-Fi.org

Holo Audio Spring DAC – Level 3 – “Kitsune Tuned Edition”

Patented R2R technology. This is the first discrete DAC that has linear compensation and this…

Super Best Audio Friends

Holo Audio – Spring DAC – Level 3 – “Kitsune Tuned Edition” – Impressions…

Thank you Torq for this well thought out writeup. It's refreshing to see overhyped product to actually live up to the reputation. Keep those…

Metrum Menuette vs. Holo Spring - https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/holo-audio-spring-dac-level-3-kitsune-tuned-edition-impressions-reviews.3172/#post-93843 The author of the DAC turned out to be not Wildism Audio, but HOLO Audio

HOLO DAC was released by an unknown company Wildism Audio HK (from Hong Kong). All that is known about them is that they have a Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wildismaudiohk. Everything there is in Chinese, it’s not very clear. They have an interesting amplifier in their lineup,

Wildism Audio HK also sells lamps, USB cables, and power cables.

I wonder what will come out of this experiment

II. Let's move closer to the sound

Holo Audio Spring Dac is designed on a fairly young and currently promising multibit R2R technology. I will not describe in detail the essence of this technology, I will give only one important property - in addition to other other advantages, in theory, resistive matrices should be less jitter-dependent, and jitter, as we know, is one of the most important technical parameters affecting the naturalness/integration and analogue sound delivery, you can also add here a shorter audio signal path, fewer time conversions and resampling. But at each such step the naturalness of the sound suffers, it becomes flatter and more synthetic or, as they say in everyday life, “digital”. After listening to the device a little on several compositions, you can clearly form the characteristic features that differ from the traditional and popular delta-sigma technology. The first distinctive point is the high timbral authenticity of live instruments combined with acceptable timbral fullness (saturation). Further, in the sound delivery of Holo Spring, we notice a certain liveliness and spontaneity, as if an extra transmission link in the “listener-musician” or “listener-orchestra” perception system was removed.

A common mistake of many audio lovers who build a certain metric for assessing sound, in my opinion, lies in the attempt to immediately and simultaneously divide the timbral presentation of any device into small fragments-substances and, then, look for various accompanying shortcomings in them, be it somewhere - a slipping lack of bass or, for example, excessive brightness in another place. Applying this approach, as a rule, they forget to analyze the overall organicity, stability and consistency of the musical flow. It is in this aspect that, in my opinion, the presentation of Holo is very different from most other very diverse DACs, to a greater extent, of course, representatives of the delta-sigma ideology. I’m not even afraid to suggest that, for me personally, Holo Audio Spring Dac can easily compete with some more expensive DACs having one undeniable advantage: this DAC does not immediately bombard the listener with a million small details per second, instead, it’s like , first of all, tries to preserve the general structure or framework of the musical canvas and only then carefully and gradually fills it with the necessary timbral textures in strictly designated proportions. Agree, this is a very rare quality for modern devices, which often suffer from an overabundance of detail. Perhaps someone, when reading such conclusions, will get the false impression that Holo Spring is a muddy DAC that is not capable of reliably reproducing most of the information contained in the recordings, but in fact, we get the opposite: recordings that seemed to me poorly mixed or excessively poor in timbre, with Holo they played with new colors; the DAC raised the technical level of these recordings to a completely acceptable level - on par with other more or less high-quality recorded works. The second point that proves the very good detail of “Spring” is the ability to produce reliable rich timbres on brass sections in a wide frequency range. Very often it (copper) is either supplied too loudly, for example with a lack of low-frequency harmonics, or, conversely, too dimly with a lack of necessary high-frequency components. To verify this, I listened to the beginning of the finale of Bruckner's 8th symphony. As a result, my McIntosh MHA-100 DAC built into the amplifier immediately lost out to Holo in this aspect, although the McIntosh DAC itself is very good. For reliable reproduction of live or academic music, the issue of quality of processing of high frequencies remains very important, including the presence of any impurities, synthetics and other “digital” artifacts in them. First of all, due to the abundant presence of pseudo-high-frequency harmonics around the fundamental tone, as a rule, the timbres of wind instruments suffer: piccolo flutes, bassoons, and clarinets: their unnaturally bright sound causes rapid fatigue, and characteristic timbres arise around each note. airy ponytails - trains. I didn’t hear anything like that in the sound of “spring”. The fundamental tone of the woodwinds is well defined and there is no digital mud. But from the standpoint of directly assessing HF resolution, I am ready to admit that the HF range in Holo Audio Spring Dac is sometimes presented in excessively large strokes, it slightly lacks multi-layeredness, information content and very subtle gradations. There’s nothing to be done, the “NOS” mode makes itself felt. I’ll make an important addition - the DAC was connected via the AES interface from the SoundAware D100 Pro Deluxe (Femto) solid-state player, and a high-quality digital source, as we know, plays a crucial role in transmitting the high-frequency range in any audio system. Another interesting feature of Holo’s sound signature is the peculiar transmission of attacks of notes of various instruments in the middle, in the first, second and third octave. On Holo Spring, these attacks are faster and more lightning-fast than, for example, in the Lynx Hilo DAC. With Hilo, brass sections in Sibelius symphonies have smoother amplitude increases. Is it good or bad? - a matter of taste. Despite this feature of “Spring,” there is no feeling of roughness or chopped-off sounds, since the decay phase of each note still sounds for a long time and does not die out before the time allotted to it. The piano, in my opinion, only benefits from this. In the complex and very fast and technical final part of Shostakovich's piano concerto in Holo Audio Spring, every note is clearly audible. No porridge. The expressive, explosive dynamics that are characteristic of our renowned pianist Denis Matsuev will be well emphasized in this R2R DAC.

Let's see how the Holo Audio Spring Dac plays on a macro level, i.e. Let's test the ability to reproduce large symphonic compositions. “Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts Mendelssohn & Schumann” (LSO Live: LSO0765) https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/LSO%2BLive/LSO0765 I was amazed by the immediacy and ease with which I can perceive the solo piano and orchestra, which absolutely does not interfere with the soloist. The orchestra plays in a semicircle around the pianist in full accordance with the actual seating arrangement on stage. At the same time, there are no voids between the musicians that would be filled with incomprehensible pseudo-musical harmonics. Everything is strictly and clearly military.

There is one test that is very indicative for me, which I have been using for a long time and often in my audio path. I feed all my devices the same section from the 4th movement of Elgar's 2nd Symphony conducted by Daniel Barenboim (Decca: 4786677). At the 4th minute there is a moment where there is a slight change in the rhythm and character of the performance. The timpani enter simultaneously with the bass and all other groups of instruments. If we do not place proper emphasis on the drums and bass and move it to groups of strings or winds, then we will not hear a change in the tempo and character of the performance. Not every device at such a subtle micro-level is capable of depicting the conductor's and composer's intent. The slightest compression or softening of the dynamics by the device simply will not allow us to see all these subtle intonation changes, which is what happens in most cases in practice... But not in the case of Holo Spring! “Spring” easily passed this test: the DAC was able, like a professional musician, to feel and grasp all these musical nuances and play the specified moment impeccably, carefully and clearly, correctly placing the accents in the right places.

I can summarize - the entire lower range, dynamics, and refinement of the nuances of rhythm and percussion are transmitted very reliably in this DAC, without any coloration, hiding intonations, softening or, conversely, adding excessive rigidity.

Traditionally, multi-bit delivery is also strong on operatic vocals. Scriabin's first symphony. Gergiev. The final part. (LSO Live: LSO0770) https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/LSO%2BLive/LSO0770 The soloists sing: In that dark and cold hour, When the soul is full of confusion, A person finds in you The living joy of consolation.

What can you say after listening to Holo? Incomparable! The vocals give you goosebumps. The soloists are clearly positioned. The images are large, there is almost a complete illusion that live performers are singing in front of you. The orchestra, as before, is positioned separately from them - behind them in a semicircle - without running over or blocking the performers.

The last question to consider is: how good is Holo Spring at shaping space? If we talk about the actual dimensions of the virtual stage (width, depth, etc...), here, unfortunately, “Spring” does not show the best results. Very modest compared to other devices even in its price segment. However, despite this, the perspective, echeloning and geometry of the sound stage in Holo Spring are more or less consistent, depth is not lost in difficult moments, small nuances and after-sounds do not disappear against the background of loud main sounds. The distance from the listener to the foreground is present. My headphone system had the necessary layer of air that carried the musicians from the head line to the frontal plane.

DAC configuration in Tour

Standard configuration of HOLO Sping DAC with the following changes

• Jensen Caps
• Silver Plated Power Transformer
• silver output transformers Audio Note TRANS-280.

Photo inside

HOLO Audio Spring DAC – R2R DSD512 – Stereo TOUR COMPLETED

Here it is, almost ready and on the road! [image] [image]

About comparing the extended version (with index 2) with the maximum version (with index 3):

DA Stereo – 15 Feb 17

HOLO Audio Spring DAC – R2R DSD512 – COMPLETED

Yesterday we managed to compare two versions of Holo: extended (with Jensen capacitors) and maximum (plus a silver transformer). I took both devices out of the boxes and placed them on the table. Outwardly, both versions cannot be distinguished from each other, so when I...

I. Appearance

A black, solid and heavy metal object was removed from a double cardboard box. For some reason, analogies immediately arose with the mysterious monolith from the 15-minute introduction of the famous and cult film by Stanley Kubrick.

I clearly liked this design - strict, classic and, at the same time, not devoid of individuality: the bronze sides give the device a premium look, adding some sophistication and aristocracy to its external image. The case design is well thought out from an engineering point of view. Simple, minimalist and with a bit of a vintage twist. It seems to exist outside of time, since, based only on appearance, it is impossible to unambiguously answer the question - when and in what era was this DAC designed, at the end of the 80s, 90s or 2000s? A similar concept can be seen, for example, in the DAC in M2Tech Young. On the front panel in the left corner we notice the manufacturer’s logo in the form of incomprehensible, at first glance, hieroglyphic pictograms. In fact, the icon of a water tower or a barrel on three legs is translated from Chinese the name of this particular DAC model “spring”, which has several variant meanings of translation - spring, source, key. The manufacturer clearly did not skimp on the thickness of the metal. The case is made very well and durable: not even in all more expensive European devices you can find such quality of processing and polishing of materials. The DAC is small in height, very wide and flat, which makes it possible to use it as a stand for other audio components (which I later used). By the way, the device looks much more interesting in real life than in the photo. The display constantly displays the sampling frequency. Using the buttons located on the front panel on the right, you can change the operating mode of the upsampler, switch digital inputs and also change the intensity of the screen.

DAC prices and where to buy

Now I know 4 ways to buy Holo Spring

1. You can buy in Mother Russia from the official dealer @PlanA From 107,000 rubles - https://hi-audio.ru/id/cap-holo-audio-spring-268.html
2. On Chinese TaoBao through an intermediary (VERY LONG AND TERRIBLE!). The price is 8890 yuan, about 83,000 rubles for the basic configuration, and 9980 yuan ( 94,000 rubles ) for the version with Jensen capacitors in power supply. Versions with a silver-plated transformer and Audio Note are not sold on TaoBao. Purchasing on TaoBao requires the participation of an intermediary, who will definitely add up all sorts of interest, but the intermediary https://kupinatao.com has a 20% discount on purchases, it’s worth waiting for it.
3. Wildism Audio is one of the customizers. My DAC was purchased from him. Price in full configuration, delivery to Russia, different percentages - $2200.
4. In America, such a customization dealer is Kitsunehifi. They have now become the official representative of Holo Audio in the States. As far as I understand, they buy a basic DAC in China, and do all the customization in the States. In the States, the top trim costs $2,399 without shipping

III. Features of integration with the audio path and interaction with the environment

For the Holo Audio Spring Dac, the system displays a “high air content” system. The stage of this DAC, as noted earlier, is not the deepest and widest, and in order to maintain its virtual dimensions, other components of the system (interconnect cables, network cables, etc.) must be as neutral as possible and also combine good transparency and detail. I use a hybrid cable made of silver and copper as an interconnect. “Spring” is not friendly with components that have certain colors, smoothing of high frequencies, phase or timbre shifts. Another nuance that must be taken into account is to pay attention to vibration isolation. Experiment with hard cones and the surface on which Holo stands, or at least try to remove the rubber pads from the metal legs. I didn’t bother with this, but simply ordered 8 spikes - I installed 4 of them in Holo, and installed the rest on the “roof” of the DAC, as supports for my headphone amplifier. This is the picture we got: Since my audio system is completely headphone, the Holo Audio Spring Dac worked well with the Sennheiser HD-800 headphones of the early series, known for their “stadium” effect when building a virtual sound stage. However, in collaboration with Holo, the HD-800 stage has become more or less traditional, similar in its parameters to such top-end headphones as the He-6 or AKG K812. The pressure of power and dynamics in the low frequency range was enough to compensate for the typical HD-800 lack of bass, even with the stock silver-plated cable.