Worth noting that this might not be true in the case of the spring 3 due to how the preamp inside it works.
They’ve not given full details of course, but it seems that instead of being attenuation done in/after the output stage, the preamp module is part of the DA converter itself.
It’s actually altering the reference voltage fed to the resistor ladder, which then affects the amplitude of the converted result.
It’s quite a clever way of doing it to be honest which could only be done in an R2R DAC. The preamp is technically BEFORE the signal path in a way.
I don’t think there have been any direct measurements or subjective comparisons of a pre vs non-pre Spring 3 though so can’t know for certain whether performance is affected and in what way
I’ve had a variety of nice DAC’s and the Holo Spring 3 KTE is the by far the best so far. Really remarkable equipment for the money.
The biggest variable now for me is quality of the software. The recording material is far more of a limitation than the hardware and especially this Spring 3 KTE.
Has anyone been following Holo long enough to know their release history? I understand they’ve only been around for a few years, but notice they’ve released incremental upgrades to the Spring twice already while the May seems to still be the OG. Why would that be? It seems unlikely they’re making incremental upgrades to their mid-tier dac that they aren’t making to their flagship. Did the Spring come first and chronologically it’s been something like Spring 1 > Spring 2 > May > Spring 3 (as a pared down version of the May)?
Rough release dates, from memory (so may be off by a month or two here and there):
Spring - August, 2016
Spring II - January, 2019
May - August, 2020
Spring III - April, 2021
Time between the first Spring release and the 2nd is longer than the May has been available. And it’s harder to find meaningful upgrades the higher up the performance ladder you go (empirically speaking). So, not very surprising that it hasn’t been updated yet.
The Spring III can be thought of as a trickle-down May, with the biggest differences being in the PSU and the fact the Spring III has no on-board OS capability. If you want OS replay via the Spring III it’s HQPlayer, PGGB, Roon, SoX, r8brain, an M-Scaler or some other oversampling tool.
This is gonna murder my power bill but damn I can’t wait to hear it. The Serene was the best sounding headphone amp I’d heard behind only the HM1. If this basically sounds like Serene (or better) but with more power I’m hyped
Hey you! I sold it a few weeks ago, so miss it more than enjoy it these days lol but got some different gear I needed. Still my favorite solid state ever.
Because its a nice feature to have. Many people enjoy the effect that higher output impedances can have with dynamic driver headphones due to how it alters the frequency response
Other products like the Singxer SA-1 and Cayin IHA6 have had similar options
