Not me. I am not on Audiophile Style and have not yet heard the Holo Audio May (any version).
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The May DAC arrived this morning. So far itās amazing. Iāll give further impressions after I get more time with it.
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To those who own the May, does DSD play at a higher volume level than PCM? I thought I read the opposite here in this thread or another.
According to the AS thread 6db down.
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The same is being reported in the Conrad Johnson Owners forum but that was only the initial impression of the poster who will continue to test. That having been said the poster reported that he nevertheless preferred DSD so far.
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Yeah thatās the only thing Iāve found strange is that PCM plays at a much lower volume than DSD. Iāll probably test this tonight objectively with a sound meter.
DSD is 6 db lower than DSD in volume I believe, someone else please confirm
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In Roon, when converting DSD to PCM, the default option is to add +6db. This says something.
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I confirm a lower volume with DSD in my system.
I just checked in the manual, and the voltage output is indeed 50% lower in DSD.
I hope this helps.
By the way, what dac are you potentially replacing with the May?
Iām not sure if you were asking me but the May is replacing the DSD. Sound quality on this DAC is higher than I expected but I think there might be something wrong with it. I ended up testing with a sound meter and PCM is about 10db less than DSD. I reached out to kitsune to figure out whatās going wrong.
Sorry to hear that. I suppose that you have checked and itās not something upstream, like the volume in Roon or something like that.
DSD allows for more volume than PCM; DSD can go above 0dBFS (0 dB full scale).
A number of players allow one to set the output 6dB lower when playing DSD to avoid overs as DSD is converted to PCM. As everyone here knows, PCM above 0dBFS is dreadful.
In re the discussion of DSD on the May, I can also confirm that my May KTE is lower in dB for DSD than PCM.
Iāve been primarily using the NOS PCM setting on the May to date, but I experimented with DSD over the weekend when listening to some rock and metal albums. DSD made these recordings sound less abrasive and fatiguing than they do otherwise w/PCM. Everyoneās mileage may vary, but I was pretty happy with the discovery.
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Very interesting observation, thank you for sharing.
Itās in line with what John Atkinson wrote in his review. He tried the 4 modes of the dac, including the DSD oversampling mode. He liked DSD oversampling better for some recordings. You must have Ā« golden ears Ā», like John 
.
Another possibility is to oversample to DSD upstream, in Roon, HQP, or somewhere else.
I have only used NOS so far. No incentive to try anything else 
I tried briefly the 4 modes, and I agree with you : for badly recorded, overcooked CDs, OS DSD makes them sound smoother.
On well recorded music, I prefer NOS: more transparent, a much better feel for the recording location, in a word more like live music.
It wasnāt very scientific, I didnāt adjust the volume like John Atkinson did.
Has anyone else compared the 4 modes?
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How are things @goblue ? Wishing you well ā¦
Things are going well. I actually headed out on vacation the day after I got the May, so I havenāt done much troubleshooting. I have been chatting with Tim at Kitsune about it but Iāve been trying to take it easy while on vacation.
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I use NOS almost exclusively. I will say the KTE trumps my old Terminator+ with Gaia DDC by a nice little bit. Great sounding DAC.
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Thanks and congratulations 
So there is absolutely nothing wrong with my May. I ran into a bug with Roon, which was pointed out by Tim at Kitsune. To resolve the issues I had to turn it off of fixed volume then I turned it back on. Now PCM is playing at a volume level that I would think given what I had my preamp set at. I also confirmed that DSD plays at about 6 db lower than pcm.
I know some people in this thread commented about concerns getting support from a Chinese product. Even though this was the first time I contacted them I have to say that I was impressed. If your in the US you contact the distributor, which is a US based company called Kitsune. Tim sent me nearly a full page email with a bunch of troubleshooting steps and one of those steps was the resolution.
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