2. digital
  3. 129752-15866

Holo Audio Spring (Kitsune version)

Anyone bought this and have compared it to comparable dacs within the 2K - 4K range? I've never owned a NOS Dac, and as I've been reading up a lot on the Holo technology, a lot of it is starting to make sense to me.  I only owned/heard delta-sigma DACs so far, and honestly haven't found anything to complain, but then again, I have no basis for comparison.

Currently few of the DACs I am interested in are : Mytek Brooklyn, Holo Spring Kitsune edition, T+A DAC8 DSD, Matrix X-Sabre Pro.
nitewulf
4hannons's avatar
4hannons
187 posts
 

I haven't owned all the dac's you mentioned, but I own the Spring Kitsune lv 3. plus a few other dac's. Right now chi-fi has clouded the picture on price/performance; meaning that there are some very good sounding dac's for under $1000 from companies such as Audio-GD and Denefrips that compete at 3-4 times their price. Also, someone could argue the lineup from Soekris (Dutch) competes way above the price.

I suspect that the 2K-4K range offers similar performance/different flavor kind of thing, then 4K-8K similar performance/different flavor, and so on.

You could do much worse than purchase a Spring.

falconquest's avatar
falconquest
1,108 posts
 
Have to echo 4hannons here. I have researched this until my brain is fried. Everything in this class boils down to individual taste I believe (if you can listen to them somewhere). The Kitsune level 3 is the unit I decided on but haven't pulled the trigger yet. The Soekris seems very interesting for the price.
1markr
592 posts
 
I owned the L3 Kitsune Holo Spring DAC for a short while. When I got it a few months ago, it was fully broken in, with some 400+ hours. At the time, I also had a ExaSound E12 that has been my daily DAC for the last couple of years. 

I was really disappointed with Spring. It was like "meh".... really kind of boring and uninvolving compared to what I was getting from the ExaSound. Note that I only tried the USB input, and I decided not to buy the seemingly necessary Singxer SU-1 ( and hearing that the power supply needs to upgraded) and HDMI cable.

I have since upgraded to an exsSound E32, and love it! It's quite a bit better than my previous E12 it replaced, thanks to a generous trade-in from ExaSound. It's  fantastic DAC that makes my digital music (Tidal, Roon, HQPlayer, Music HD) sound real, natural, involving, etc. 

BTW, I power it via a 12v SLA battery all the time. No need for fancy power supplies unless you feel the need to spend another $400 to $800.

A ton of people love the L3 Spring. I wasn't one of them...
More to discover