Level 1 ($1698) & 2($1998) looks the most interesting to me. The KTE version looks expensive or risky to me taking into account that there is little warranty that chi-fi Holo Audio will exist in a few years.
Holo's new R2R KTE Spring-2 Dac
New R2R KTE Spring -2 dac from Holo promises to be something, a month ago they said this is going to be a cracker, fully locked and loaded.
"The KTE spring2... specs.
Hand picked dac modules for KTE models
Mundorf caps used in power supply circuit and also improved power regulation
Silver o type transformer, silver solid core 4N wiring and direct to pcb soldering with mundorf supreme 9.5% silver solder
Silver rhodium faston connectors at the iec inlet. Fuse type is now ultimate SHD beeswax fuse
Pure Copper KTE emblems
New improved front panel display with more data to be displayed all at same time. Such as input and mode (nos/os) while retaining the classic dot matrix white display the spring1 is known for.
Same dimensions and same control buttons as original. Same unique chassis design which sets our company image of products. Copper and black
The spring2 now comes with a remote control by popular demand!
Also lower freq performance is improved around -40db and compared to the already great sounding spring1 we have further improved sound quality.
The dac is the first discrete linear compensation network dac and also first to support dsd1024 over discrete network. As well as pcm1.536M
And we have ditched lvds for i2s! Now using custom 4way circuit it isolate each signal and further improving sound quality of i2s! I’m very happy for this feature alone. As many know I use i2s and recommend this.
The usb module has all the code completely rewritten custom and improved with low latency performance.
femto clocks are now implemented for dac
I’m confident that our customers will love the improvements we have implemented to this already great dac! I’m happyto bring a KTE model to be available to our authorized sellers. It will be the only official modded version of the spring dac. No other versions are authorized by HoloAudio.
So those over in Europe or China can buy from their authorized dealer of holoaudio products and get support from those dealers. Or of course they can still buy direct from Kitsunehifi and get our excellent customer service too ;)"
Cheers George
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Anyway, we have to wait and see how the second encarnation performs.Well the first was a cracker, even Stereophile’s review and bench tests were outstanding and they don’t even advertise there. (if you get my drift) https://www.stereophile.com/content/holoaudio-spring-kitsun%C3%A9-tuned-edition-level-3-da-processor and if this new model "is" better, it will be hard to come close to. Cheers George |
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