Holo Audio May DAC

@dvdboulet

So with that in mind... is there an affordable preamp or "analog volume attenuator" that is affordable? It would seem that in its most pure sense all I’m really after is a way to attenuate the sound without degrading the quality (i.e. what’s basically happening with the volume control of the wavelight)... any such device? Or is an audiophile stuck having to buy a $$ preamp to basically serve that purpose? Any input appreciated :)

If that’s all you want then why not just use the digital volume control in Roon or HQPlayer?? That’s what I have successfully done while testing the May into the pre-in of my Line Magnetic amp. It has provided an incremental gain in SQ over the somewhat basic/mediocre pot volume attenuator in my integrated. The May's extremely low noise floor combined with 64 bit volume control provides for tons of headroom.

I should provide an update after another 10 days of testing the May alongside my Lampizator Amber 3. In straight head-to-head comparisons there are pros and cons to each. But where the May has shined for me is with HQPlayer upsampling and digital volume control. It’s extremely low noise floor certainly allows for a lot more flexibility and tuning in this regard and obviates my desire for a better analog volume control/pre-amp in between DAC and amp. But the Lampizator is absolutely no slouch at all and I would still like to hear the new Baltic 3.

One other factor is that my amp is single ended and after some reading and talking to others about the Holo architecture and such, I am convinced that I am not getting the most out of the Holo May. The May actually only uses the output of one side of the R2R ladder for RCA outs, and Jeff Zhu even says the balanced outputs sound better. To this end, I have ordered a quality balanced to SE transformer, the Black Box from AmpsandSound. It is basically designed for this exact problem with many current DACs and the recently updated version Justin is sending me has an additional stepped attenuator to dial in the excess gain. Will update with my observations once it’s in the chain this week.

@nquery... I too am using the MAY single ended.  Do report back on your experience with the Bal-SE solution differences I am very interested.

@nquery I have the Pass Labs XA25 which is single ended aswell, but honestly, it's sounds beyond superb to me. No chip dac I've heard has what the May has. Also, I ditched HQplayer, as it didn't do anything for me, personally, but that's just me.  At the moment I control the volume with Roon and derive just as much pleasure, naturalness, uncanny realism, and all the micro/macro detail I've ever heard in 25 years. 

Now my new Legacy Whisper XDS speakers are arriving in late July and they come with the newly upgraded Wavelet 2 ( It's bespoke premium preamp, 4 way dsp active crossover, it handles room/speaker correction, and has a built-in DAC (which I'll only be using via its USB input for "Tribe Virtual DJ", an Oculus VR app that I'm addicted to 😁, which should suffice for EDM genre music I mix), the May will be going balanced into the Wavelet 2, but then back to single-ended to the XA25. I never thought I'd be a Bluegrass fanatic, but the way the May handles acoustic instruments is nothing short of amazing and has me listening anything acoustic. 

Good luck with your changes and I hope you gain an improvement. 

@jcarcopo I go back and forth with HQPlayer - not all of the filters are better than pure NOS. I am really loving the recently added sinc-mx with LSN15 upsampled to 768hz pcm. I also have a $140 intel pc stick arriving this week that I will use as an endpoint so I can try 1.536khz. Really trying to see how much I can wring out of this dac.