Holo Audio May DAC

@cudfoo - if your usb cable does not have the standard 5v line going through it, the may dac will not see it. I had to pass up a fancy usb cable that was designed without it (because it does not help sound quality).

Hi all, 
I posted in this thread a while ago after purchasing my level 2 may.  It was a good step up from the qutest and I enjoyed it for awhile.  But it really is not the greatest dac out there, even at its price.  I went to a wells audio cipher tube dac (much more realistic sounding - you could say analog or natural too).  $5k retail, made in California.  Now I’m running a lampizator Atlantic trp, also a tube dac, about $8k with volume control made in Poland.  Takes everything up several notches.  Holo May is a great and flexible dac, but it can’t match a well designed tube output stage.  R2R is not the most important spec for a dac, I have found out.

R2R is not the most important spec for a dac, I have found out.

Agree, SD DACs can be very good as well

but it can’t match a well designed tube output stage

This could be if you don’t have any other tube equipment in your chain, I personally think a tube has no business whatsoever within a DAC but that’s just my personal non professional opinion (tubes are a source of incoming RFI / EMI something you would like to avoid if possible inside a DAC)
My specific chain has a tube preamp and tube amps, I don’t really need a tube DAC but a good well implemented DAC
Many designers I respect have build these tube DACs, I know if fulfills a need but I don’t personally like it.
but I totally respect your opinion @redwoodaudio

EDIT: R2R's can be good as well and even tube DACs, it is all about the implementation

@luisma - I personally think that’s a misconception about tubes, that’s it’s just for ‘tube flavor’ and electrically inferior to transistors in all important ways.  Plenty of designers use tube output stages these days and some only tubes.  MHDT, lampizator, wells audio, wavlength audio, audio research, line magnetic, primaluna, totaldac, line magnetic, jolida, nagra, audio note…

@redwoodaudio as per my prior posts above, I have been comparing the May against a Lampizator Amber 3. In pure NOS mode with no external upsampling I generally would agree with you - the Lampizator held its own and was better in that natural/organic way that is obviously part of the tube output, even if not strictly neutral. However where I have found the May to shine is with the ability to feed it better upsampled/filtered audio via HQPlayer and the huge SNR = headroom for digital volume control and DSP. There is a ton of flexibility/tuning available there. With the Lampi the gains of upsampling weren’t as obvious and they generally have very poor noise levels. Bass was definitely not as good. My current pipeline to the May now sounds better than the Amber 3 in most aspects. That said, the organic/natural sound is still slightly missed and I will probably give a higher end Lampi a tryout at some point - Baltic 3 or Atlantic TRP.