Holo Audio Spring DAC LEVEL 3 Vs. iFi Audio Pro iDSD DAC and Music Streamer

A couple other options you may want to consider or compare to the Holo and iFi DACs:

SW1X DACs have gotten good feedback here and they offer a trial period, which is really nice.  Uses a tube and reported to have excellent tone and soundstage, but maybe not the last word on upper-octave detail if that's important. 

In solid state the Metrum Onyx is worth a look.  Probably trades some tonal bloom for added detail up top compared to SW1X.  I think HiFi Heaven may offer a trial period that you could take advantage of. 

Both of these are R2R non-oversampling (NOS) DACs, which some find more "natural" sounding while others consider them to be less accurate than the more common delta sigma/OS DACs.  As always, it comes down to what sounds best to you in your system, which is why I think a trial period is critical.  Best of luck. 

I was not going to argue 4hannons post because it was just an invite to a flame war, but if you read my statement, I clearly stated that "I suspect" it would sound more bright/clinical when compared to the iFi tube DAC.  The OP was trying to figure out possible sound differences between these two devices.

The statement was not intended to describe the Holo DAC as sounding particularly bad.  However, I have had lots of experience with silver product used as interconnect, speaker wire, terminations, fuses, fuse clips, internal components, etc. etc. etc.  In my experience, silver does indeed increase the conductivity and speed, but it has a by-product of increasing the upper mids/highs and can sound bright/sterile in some systems and if used too much.

I own the Holo Spring 2 KTE version and to describe it as suspecting of being bright/clinical could not be farther from the truth. It is the most smoothest DAC I have ever owned. Very detailed and transparent with the best bass. Another words extremely musical.

The original question never got answered?