I have plugged in the Holo Audio May DAC and I am listening to it right now. For months now I have been using my Gryphon Kalliope DAC which is really a very expensive piece. It seems nice. Right now it’s not connected the May is. Out of the box, in NOS mode it sounds pretty danged Analog. I had been listening to vinyl for seven hours straight so I mean this to be praise. High praise.
The May is a great looking and very solid piece. It shipped to me with no manual so I didn’t get a chance to not read it. After setting it up and beginning to listen I went to the Website and looked at the manual.
It is sounding really nice out of the box. So much bottom! I am going to let Roon Radio break it in while I sleep.
So now I have my DSD Sr., my Gryphon Kalliope, and the May DAC on one rack. When I get the Gryphon Pandora Preamp I’ll be able to connect all three to it. But my streamer just has one USB output. Bah. Perhaps I need two more streamers. Hmmmmmm.
A Bridge III, and a Aries G1 or a Lumin something or two more Signature Rendu Optical thingys.
I do seem to have issues. Especially when it comes to DACs. What troubles me most is having just received yet another DAC yesterday I do not yet own one of my favorites, the MBL N31. I borrowed one with the upgrade Roon interface and I thought it was remarkable. Perhaps better than my Signature Rendu…
I have DAC envy so while I decide between Holo Audio, DSD, new DSD, etc., I ordered a Black Ice DAC to play with. Mostly because I’ve never had audio equipment with tubes.
I have the Jolida-badged version in my office system. I bought it before they changed their name and came up with the new (ugly as sin, IMO) logo and badging. To each his own.
I can only compare it to the DAC built in to my Denon DVD 2900 “Universal Player” I use to spin CDs, as I have never taken it home to try it in the “Big Rig”. I think its a really nice sounding DAC and offers a bit more performance than the long in the tooth DVD 2900 DAC.
Let us know what you think after you have a few miles on it.
I bought the a Black Ice DAC after reading the legendary test articles. I had to hear the $650 DAC that left the DSD Sr. In the dust. I am driving it over to a friends house tomorrow to let him use it for a while. It is quite a nice little DAC. It could easily be all the DAC someone might need.
After a week and 2 days of breaking intensively about 100 hours, My rocket 44 starting fuller and deep with bass, vocal is more appealing , i hear the vibration on the voice of the singer which i did not before. So seem like the sounding are almost ready to go, but i’m still not seeing the details of high note, it’s kinda thin and fraigle , i suspect the issue is from both new Gold 200 and Rocket 44 cable not breaking in enough.
How long does your breaking take to get the full and smoother sound ?
I’m with Serhan. The Audioquest speaker cables take a lot of time. The AQ interconnects seem to break in fairly quick as do the power cords but in my experience the speaker cables are the most time demanding!
I got the rme adi-2 dac fs a couple weeks ago; my LCD-X’s arrived today…! I still gotta read the massive War & Peace sized manual!! I sent a message to RME inquiring about an app or PC software that might be in the future for controlling RME functions by ease of mouse (trackball) but the response was a sad no with no plans of future implementation. Maybe if you send them a request for one as well they might get on it! Odd seeing they have PC apps for much of their other gear…
Slick lil piece. Especially for tweak geeks.
Sometimes things just grab my attention/eye. These are well reviewed, different/kind of neat aesthetically (not everyone’s cup of tea, I am sure), seem to offer something truly “different” in terms of their design, and I think they would be a perfect fit for my office system.
