šŸ”· Holo Spring 2

Wouldnā€™t bet on that a lot of High end DACā€™s use off the shelf USB implementations because they expect people to connect via AES/SPDIF or I2S

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Okay, so in your example a ā€œbridgeā€ can be a Roon endpoint or a source to feed into your DAC or directly into an analog chain if itā€™s a bridge/streamer?

Yes, I use a couple of Pi2AES/Pi endpoints, one feeds a Lampizator Amber 3, the other a BiFrost2.
I do that as much for convenience as quality improvement, but the difference is noticeable on the Lampizator.

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Not that anyone cares or Iā€™m sure has purchased this DAC but orders are at 5.5 weeks.

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Thatā€™s awesome man! What level did you get?

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I was looking at getting one so I was checking in the current wait times.

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Iā€™m about to hit my 4th week of waiting on the Cyan, so I guess the delays are across the board.

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Super curious to hear more about that DAC. Iā€™m trying to be patient and pull the trigger on the Spring 2 because the Cyan is at the perfect price point of impulse buy personally. Please do share your thoughts after some time with it!

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Will do, believe me I WANT to provide the feedback. :slight_smile:

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Iā€™ve got an ex-demo Spring 2 KTE shipping on Monday that Iā€™ll be comparing directly to my Cyan - Iā€™ll be sure to post my impressions here.

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My Spring 2 KTE is in house. Itā€™s absolutely massive. Unfortunately it has a noticeable scratch on the front panel that the seller didnā€™t tell me about, and while I did buy it at a discount, it wasnā€™t big enough for me to put up with it being damaged. Luckily, heā€™s kindly ordering me a new one, so Iā€™ll keep this one until that one comes in, then Iā€™ll send this one back to him and pay the difference.

Iā€™ll still use this one in the meantime. Itā€™s been thoroughly burned in at the showroom and has the latest firmware, so Iā€™ll let it warm up until this evening and then Iā€™ll have a listen.

Update: I canā€™t get it to work. As soon as I install the USB drivers from the Holo website, I get no sound in windows. Iā€™ve tried uninstalling/reinstalling and it doesnā€™t make a difference. The DAC works until I install the drivers, but if I donā€™t install them it shows up as an unrecognised device. I wonder if itā€™s because Iā€™ve previously used the Cyan on the same system. Firmware on the Spring 2 is up to date. Iā€™ve emailed Kitsune.

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I remember reading about problem somewhere elseā€¦ perhaps on the headfi threadā€¦ if you donā€™t get a quick response maybe peruse over there.

Even after a restart no sound?

Nope. If I uninstall the drivers and restart, it works (I get sound) but Windows doesnā€™t know what it is. As soon as I install the newest Holo Audio USB driver it stops working, and a restart doesnā€™t make a difference.

Iā€™ll have a look at the Headfi thread as per @rmsangerā€™s suggestion.

Hmmm so yeah that sounds like a firmware issue for the usb in the holo itself, most likely messed up and needs to be reflashed/updated, will be curious to see what kitsune tells you, good luck on getting it functioning properly :+1:

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@M0N @Phil_B It could be an unsigned drivers issue. I had the pretty much exact problem with my Gustard A18 DAC that I just recently hooked up.

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I guess a way to check would be to look in device manager and see what driver got installed, if it wasnā€™t signed there is a good chance windows just overrode it with the default windows driver

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I tried doing a quick search of the thread and couldnā€™t find anything under drivers or firmware. So donā€™t spend too much timeā€¦ I remember reading it but canā€™t pinpoint the exact locationā€¦ Sorry!

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Everything looks good in device manager. The firmware and USB driver versions are both correct and up to date. I donā€™t think Iā€™m going to solve this one. The only thing I can think of is that this system has had the drivers for the Holo Cyan installed on it at one time, and maybe thereā€™s a vestigial remnant of those left somewhere thatā€™s causing an issue. Will wait on Kitsune.

Thankfully, the guy I bought it from has basically said to try it for a couple of days and if I donā€™t like it I can just send it back and he wonā€™t order me a new one, so if these issues turn out to be too much of a pain Iā€™ll just get an Yggdrasil instead. Would really like to get this working properly though, or Iā€™ll always
wonder.

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Just to try some random things that might work, make sure the dac is plugged directly into a 3.0 rear motherboard port, try a different cable, try setting the sample rate and bit depth to 24/96