Holo Red impressions

It’s all good. Not in a hurry.

Frustrating…but at least its on this side of the ocean.

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PSA for my fellow Holo Red Acolytes:

I am back in my listening chair and I can now confirm the RAL HDMI/I2S cable* “throws” the Pre-Emphasis flag on the DS DAC MK I with the Holo Red and the Pink faun Interlink I2S cable does not.

:man_shrugging:

FYI.

*RAL now relegated to DMP connection only duty, where it plays just fine.

PS

…and it does not matter if the Holo Red is being connected to I2S-1 or I2S-2.

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Mine is now in LA and is due in Northern CA by Friday…

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Scott

E-mail Brad and see if there is something you can do short of sending it to him.

I guess I could, but really no need in my case.

When I acquired the RAL and the Pink faun (don’t remember which came first at the moment), my critical listening at the time did not allow me to consistently declare one was “better” than the other.

Thanks.

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My i2s (I think it’s an AQ) does throw the preemphasis flag redbook, PCM 96 and 192 and on DSD. Since the flag doesn’t affect anything on the DSDAC Mk1 for non-redbook formats, haven’t bothered with it much.

Glad to know the pink faun didn’t throw it. But It’sa but too dear for me. Anyone have any cheaper i2s suggestions for non-preemphasis?

Thanks

It’s a fantastic holiday. Both fantastic cities. Maybe Boston will be next.

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I had never heard of, nor seen this “pre-emphasis flag” before I got the Holo Red. Previously, I was using a Sonore Micro Rendu/Matrix-2 combo.
I can tell you that an inexpensive Pangea cable throws it consistently. I have also tried every option for switches 1 and 2. They all do it. And they all do it whether you select DOP or Native DSD.

For me, the bigger issue is DEFINITELY the popping when changing from DSD to PCM. But my guess is that I am the RARE USER (on this forum) who is using SqueezeLite and LMS (Logitech Media Server). If I can’t get rid of the pops, the RED will need to go back.

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This worked well for me

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The pops happen only when manually selecting from DSD to Flac. Pre-emphasis flag bothers me only if I let it bother me.

That pop/scratch sound is pretty bad at volume.

I wonder if is something Holo can “program out”, so to speak?

Do you notice and problems with the sound with tracks playing with the Pre-emphasis flag on?

At first I thought it might have accounted for the pretty poor performance I was getting initially.

Now not so sure…

Plus one here (I haven’t got a Red), very pleased with LMS/Squeezelite, I feel no need whatsoever for paid-for music server or streamer software, and probably shouldn’t get a Red anyway given the number of Pi streamers I already have :slight_smile:

Are you running the supplied Red firmware?
I wonder how e.g. piCorePlayer would cope with the different output hardware compared to a regular Pi?
Might not click and pop, ya never know!

Did you develop any preference for sound quality (not sure if it could matter, in theory) b/t DOP or Native DSD?

TIA.

I’m going to give MoOde player a try when the new SD card gets here in a couple of days just to see what it offers different from the Red OS. It’s free so worth a try.

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Should be interesting :slight_smile:

Trying to get back the FLAC radio features that are part of the Zen Stream software without having to use Airplay. Appears they are in the MoOde player as it looks like most of these packages are based on some form of Volumio.

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I know LMS has lots of radio plugins (and Tune-In support), just means every (squeezebox-based) streamer automatically gets the benefit.
I’ve not trued Moode yet, but RoieeepiXL supported lots of different types of endpoints without having any built in player functions at all.
I have always assumed the “norm” was to have a local music server (that can then do whatever it can do in terms of radio, plugins, airplay support, local files, whatever) and then simple “endpoint” type streamers wherever required (some with a screen etc. if wanted).

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Never used a dedicated music server or NAS. Always just used a dedicated streamer for over the Internet. I have thousands of hard copies in either vinyl or CD if I want to play them so never found the need to rip and store. If I do download something from places like Bandcamp or Nugs.net I just store them on a large USB stick or portable HD and plug them directly into the streamer. MoOde seems to be fairly close to Volumio 3.0 in layout with the fee. Will still have to use mConnect for now to get to Qobuz and Tidal which I don’t use that much in this setup. Next step after MoOde is to try the new JPlay for IOS. It has access to the major streaming services plus a radio feature similar to Roon Radio.

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What Anthem prepro do you have?