Holo Audio May: owners’ impressions

Owners of the Holo Audio May R-2R DAC describe the step up from the Spring series, the long burn-in, and the quality of system it needs before the difference becomes clear. Below we summarise the sound by range, their comparisons with the Spring 3 KTE, Chord DAVE, Chord QBD76 HDSD and Audio-GD R-7HE, and their reservations.

These impressions are summarised from owners’ posts on an audiophile forum. They are the subjective views of their authors, not measurements or claims of Demograf Audio.

Sound, range by range

Bass

• Deeper and more precise than the Spring: tight, fast and detailed, with far more information in the low end. One owner recommends it to lovers of double bass, cello and large percussion.
• Another heard the bass become much more controlled, dense and taut, and has no further questions about it.

Midrange

• One owner heard a large improvement in male and female vocals, which combine softness with detail.

Treble

• Clear and soft once burn-in is complete.

Soundstage and imaging

• A wide, tall and above all deep stage, with instruments well separated and layered in depth. One owner felt he had become a participant rather than an observer.
• Sounds emerge from deep in the stage against a dark, quiet background.
• Localisation is more distinct than with earlier Holo DACs, noticeably so even on headphones. One owner heard a slightly narrower stage than from the Spring KTE, but better localisation.

Resolution and detail

• Much higher resolution than the Spring 3, with small details and reverberation tails that owners had not heard before.
• Two owners place its resolution and separation close to the Chord QBD76 HDSD.

Dynamics

• Wide dynamic range and good speed. One owner credits the selected modules of the KTE edition, and finds that low-volume listening loses nothing.

Tonal balance

• Close to neutral, with body. One owner describes a clean, soft, analogue sound on a darker background.
• Two owners find it brighter and more accurate than earlier Holo DACs, with less of their honeyed colouring.
• One heard a hump in the upper mids at first, which burn-in largely smoothed out.

Music

• Despite the resolution, owners find it non-fatiguing: the detail serves the music rather than distracting from it.
• One owner misses the viscous charm of earlier Holo models: decays are shorter and the sound denser.

Compared with other DACs

vs Holo Audio Spring series

Against the Spring 3 KTE, owners hear the same character with every aspect taken further: a much deeper stage, better separation, higher resolution, deeper and more precise bass, and better speed, which one owner considered the Spring 3’s weak point. Against earlier Spring versions, one owner found the May far more technical, more neutral and brighter, but missed some of the old honeyed sound. Another considered the Spring 2 KTE, with its unusually wide stage, close to ideal for him, and found the Spring too soft with the HiFiMAN Susvara.

vs Chord DAVE

One owner says he knows of DAVE owners who switched to the May. He suggests the DAVE may resolve slightly more but tire the listener sooner, though he has not compared them himself. Another owner sold his DAVE, along with a Hugo M Scaler and a Wave Storm, because the Holo suited him better.

vs Chord QBD76 HDSD

Two owners found the May close to the QBD76 in detail and separation, if not level with it.

vs Audio-GD R-7HE and R-7HE Mk2

Owners who considered both describe the May as technically ahead.

vs dCS Bartók and MSB Discrete

One owner preferred the Holo to both.

vs SW1X DAC 3 STD

One owner sees two different philosophies. Listeners who love the SW1X’s tube output may not warm to the May’s new direction.

What owners report

One owner of the May KTE wrote a long report after extended use. His first listen, before any burn-in, impressed him deeply. Compared with his previous Spring 3 KTE, he describes a startling realism of voices in the first days and a cleaner, softer and more analogue sound. He also found it handles recordings of varying quality well: mediocre recordings become enjoyable, and good ones reveal their artistic and engineering decisions. Differences between resolutions were clearly audible to him: moving from 16/44.1 to 24-bit removed harshness, and higher sample rates sounded softer still. He found replacing the stock fuses with SR Purple fuses a significant improvement. Borrowing a camera analogy from the reviewer at New Record Day, he likens older DACs to a lens focused on the vocalist with everything else blurred, and the May to a picture in focus everywhere at once.

On burn-in, the same owner reports roughly 850 hours before the sound surpassed his first impression; the usual guidance is 1,000 hours, and some say 2,000. As with the Spring 3, the sound first turned harsh and muffled; the treble then turned gritty, the mids went dead and the bass almost disappeared. They recovered in the same order: the treble first, then the mids and finally the bass. Another owner used a Yulong D100 as a reference while he listened to the upper-mid hump subside.

He also addresses the claim that the May KTE is only five to ten per cent better than the Spring 3 KTE. In his view that holds only when the rest of the system is not of a similar standard. As an example he lists a Holo Serene preamplifier, a Benchmark AHB2, a high-quality source, matching loudspeakers, and good power and cabling. Although the May KTE costs almost $2,000 more than the Spring 3 KTE, he considers it the better value.

Another owner compared the May only from memory with earlier Holo models, which he had sold, and stresses that his impressions are personal. The two-box unit is heavy, and a front-panel power button has been added. He relays Holo Audio’s description of the changes: a new programmable-logic USB module with lower latency and jitter, an upgraded power supply, a dual-mono layout with a separate hand-made flat-wire transformer per channel, Crystek clocks, discrete regulators and a new PLL that also lowers jitter on S/PDIF. He heard a more technical, transparent and refined DAC with tighter bass and better localisation, and a sound closer to the original recording. He also misses some of the honeyed Holo character. In his system the Level 2 version is the right choice; he expects the KTE would be too bright for him. Through USB he heard no loss against an external converter.

Reported problems

• Less of the honeyed Holo character of earlier models.
• An upper-mid hump at first, mostly gone after burn-in.
• Brighter than one owner wanted in his system; on an earlier set-up the Level 2 sounded too bright and less smooth to another.
• Not melodic enough for one owner’s taste.
• A very long burn-in.
• Waits of up to two and a half months for delivery.

Summary

Owners describe the May, especially the KTE edition, as a clear step above the Spring 3: a deeper stage, higher resolution, better speed and deeper, tighter bass, without listening fatigue. It gives up some of the honeyed character of earlier Holo DACs.

It needs a long burn-in (around 850 to 1,000 hours by one account) and a system of matching quality before its advantage over the Spring becomes obvious.