Out of curiosity i turned off the PLL in my Spring 3, just to see if i notice any differences. And to my surprise, i noticed the opposite of what would be expected.
I have slightly more clarity but noticeable more air. But most surprising was the positioning inside the soundstage. It is more “layered” now.
Again, i’m very surprised about that.
To other Spring / May owners out there:
Have you compared the two settings? What are your findings?
Would be very interesting to know.
(My source chain: Mac mini M1 → Audirvana Studio (Qobuz) → USB (Supra) → Spring 3)
That might depend on your source. I know there are drivers that I do not have to download to my Mac that I would have to if I was using a PC. Not sure how that would relate to the Holo May, though I’ve got both Holo May and Mac…
I turned PLL off on the May for different reasons. I was getting an annoying pause when switching optical inputs (via a separate 3-in 1-out toslink switch) with PLL on. With PLL off sound is switched instantaneously.
I did a comparison in sound quality and couldn’t discern any meaningful difference, but I’m glad you’re hearing an improvement!
When I first got my Spring 3, I decided not to share any in-depth sound impressions as I had nothing around the same tier to compare it to otherwise, it would just be me gushing about how natural I think it sounds. Fast forward a lot of months later, I ended up scoring a very sweet deal on a balanced lampizator amber 3. Even though they aren’t really on the same level performance-wise, I was pretty excited to write up some thoughts between the two and now here we are (had a lot fun)…
TLDR:The overall presentation of the Spring is fairly smooth and pleasing with a micro-focus lean. In addition to its expansive, albeit slightly exaggerated, stage it conveys a very black background and prioritizes a forgiving nature over a more neutral accurate profile.
The Amber and the Spring are both very different in sonic presentation. The Amber, overall, goes for a fun and very engaging presentation, while the Spring goes for a relaxed and smooth overall approach.
You might enjoy trying HQPlayer with the Spring 3.
Given as it is NOS that contributes a large amount to the overall sound, and it sounds very different with some good OS.
Personally I like NOS and HQP OS for different reasons and enjoy having both as options but it’s 100% worth trying.
Just ordered a Spring 3 kte with pre amp and got a few questions.
Does having the pre amp mean I can volume control without losing dynamic range unlike dacs without pre?
At what volume do I start losing dynamic range?
Another reviewer mentions that the voltage output of the Spring 3 is not the usual standard of most dacs (4V I think) and is very high so it makes all amps you connect to it have less volume control.
Has anyone had this problem? Would having a preamp mitigate this issue?
This is my first NOS dac. Do I just leave the amp in NOS mode all the time, I then use HQ PLAYER in NOS mode (kind of what you do why any other amp) or do I need to change modes when using HQPLAYER?
Technically, since dynamic range is the ratio of the quietest to the loudest elements of a signal, all volume controls reduce dynamic range as they apply more attenuation. The moment you apply any attenuation, you’ve lowered the maximum output and therefore changed the lowest:highest signal ratio.
What an analog attenuator or volume control/pre-amp will get you vs. digital is that you won’t (assuming a competent implementation) lose “dynamic resolution” or “amplitude granularity” as you apply more attenuation.
The first step under maximum output.
DACs (or any other source) with higher output levels (Spring 3 is 5.8V instead of 4V) can cause several issues.
The first, which is what you’re talking about, is that they will result in your amplifier outputting a louder signal for a lower volume setting. This is really only a problem if it doesn’t give you enough range of volume settings in your listening scenarios and/or if it means you have to turn the volume on your amp down so low that you wind up in the “channel imbalance” region of the pot.
The second, is that some amplifiers don’t have a lot of input stage headroom, and higher input levels can cause the input stage to clip … which means heavy distortion and is very audible.
Yes.
You’d just use the pre-amp to lower the output volume level until you have the range of control on the amplifier you desire.
The Spring 3 DAC ONLY operates as NOS. Unlike the earlier models, it does not have any built-in upsampling/oversampling capability.
Any upsampling/oversampling has to be done by the player or operating system.
In HQPlayer you’d be running in “passthrough” mode if you wanted actual NOS output from the DAC. Otherwise, HQPlayer will be do upsampling, filtering and modulation per its current settings.
At what volume would I be lowering the dynamic resolution etc?
In other words at what volume would I be causing a loss of quality in the sound?
Possibly unrelated but: Someone previously commented in this thread that you need to put volume to 94 to have the same volume of the stock Spring 3 without pre amp fitted?
That shouldn’t change at any setting with analog attenuation.
There shouldn’t be any audible effect at any setting.
Strictly speaking, just having the pre-amp in the signal chain means there will be some degradation, and it’ll be measurable, but it should be so far down below audibility as to not matter at all.
Assuming that the published specs for the Spring 3 are accurate, and the maximum volume setting is 100, then per their 1 dB per step specification, and the fact the pre-amp equipped unit has double the output level of the raw DAC, then a 6 dB reduction would yield a setting of 94, yes.
Bear in mind that that setting of 94 is giving 5.8V output via XLR. At 100, it’s 11.6V, which is nearly 3x the “standard” line-level output.
Assuming full-range content fed to the DAC, as setting of 45 on the Spring DAC 3 pre-amp would yield under 0.02V output … so it’s not surprising that things don’t sound good. All the information is still present, but that’s not leaving the amplifier very much to work with vs. a 4V signal.
It’s likely more of a reflection of the amp than it is the DAC when feeding the amp such a low-level signal.