Atriya

I have the Cyan 2 and did some initial listening with PCM1.5 and DSD512 & 1024. All sounded great of course. I found myself preferring often preferring PCM for some reason, but this should be taken as a first impression only. Between 512 and 1024 I couldn't really choose. Recently @GoldenOne, who has been doing some testing of the Cyan 2, informed me that the DAC performs better from a technical standpoint with DSD512 than with 1024.

So PCM is not converted to DSD internally? In any case, I assume if anyone got this DAC to use with PGGB, they'd be aiming for DSD512.

Is there any oversampling going on here, or is this by definition a NOS DAC?

@Zaphod Beeblebrox Topping just released something (D90 III Discrete) that's a discrete 1-bit DAC and not a chip DAC. Is this anything that's likely to be interesting from a PGGB perspective?

So, that website has some albums that are both in PureDSD (say Pure DSD128) and in DXD. Do you know if that means the tape was transferred twice - once in DSD and once in DXD - or whether the DXD is just converted from the DSD recording? I asked them this question and got no response.

It looks like the new Laiv Harmony DAC is creating quite a splash. 768Khz, DSD256 is the max. I hope someone here buys it and tries PGGB with it. Not going to be though! 🤣

Yes, I have "only" 64 GB right now, though I plan to buy another 64 GB soon.

Comparing between DSD512 and DSD1024 on the Cyan 2 (9th-order on both), I find them to be very close. I think I do prefer DSD1024 as sounding just a tad more transparent & etched overall. I didn't do a blind test or anything, so it could just be "bigger is better" bias, and in any case, the differences seem small. What I did discover though, is that I get an error when doing 1-stage DSD1024 for some tracks (could be length-dependent), so I had to resort to 2-stage DSD1024 for the comparison. The DSD512 was 1-stage. A screenshot of the error is attached.

Yes, though I realized that the Weiss' built-in headphone amp doesn't sound quite as good as (for example) my Mass Kobo 433 even with my Utopias. The difference would probably be even starker with planars. Not yet, but soon...

Further listening reinforces my initial impressions: definitely more detail and accuracy on the Weiss, but the Cyan 2 has a much more relaxed and 3D presentation that I'm growing to love. While the Weiss can be fatiguing, the Cyan 2 has not been at all: instead, the holographic presentation draws the listener into the music. If I didn't care for the relative portability of the Weiss (I do), I would be tempted to sell it and get a Holo May KTE.

Some very preliminary notes on comparing PGGB on My Weiss DAC501-MkII, which I have had for a while, and The Holo Audio Cyan 2, which arrived just a few days ago, and is my first and only R2R DAC. Signal chain to DAC: Music server -> USB -> Cyan 2 Music server -> direct ethernet connection -> Weiss Downstream chain used to compare: Mass Kobo 433 headphone amp, Focal Utopia, nice cables. PGGB settings: I understand that the following two settings are very dissimilar (after all, one is PCM and the other DSD), but they represent the best possible PGGB settings for their respective DACs, making this post as much a comparison of the two DACs in question, as it is a comparison of PGGB settings. Weiss: 4fS, dither only (after a lot of trial & speculation, this setting seemed most reasonable for the Weiss). Cyan 2: DSD1024, 9th-order noise shaping. 256-bit precision for both. Initial findings: The Weiss sounds "cleaner" than the Cyan 2, but also "leaner". The imaging is also "sharper" than the Cyan 2, and there is a greater sense of tangibility to vocals, which seem to "pop out" at the listener as if the singer is "alive" in the recording. The soundstage is both wider and deeper (set back from the listener) with the Weiss, but it is also much flatter. The Cyan 2 wraps instruments around my head (I believe "holographic" is the word for this), whereas the Weiss lays them all in front of me, perfectly positioned on a wall of sound that is expansive in both height and breath. The Weiss is probably more detailed (not 100% sure yet, need to listen closely for microdetails). I like the bass on the Cyan 2 much better: it is warm and palpable and inviting and floats in the 3D space the Cyan 2 creates, whereas the Weiss' bass is just clinical in comparison, though maybe a tad punchier. Overall, from these initial impressions, I still think the Weiss is the better DAC technically, but I can absolutely see why R2R DACs (if the Cyan 2 is at all a good ambassador for R2R DACs in general) are so popular. The Cyan 2 would probably be further improved by using a Holo Red (-> I2S -> Cyan 2), instead of USB.

@hols and @seeteeyou: thanks for your inputs! It is indeed a Cyan 2 I have and not a May/Spring. The USB port is indeed directly on the motherboard and not from a PCI-e card. I am also not running Roon (checked in Task Manager). I upgraded the ASIO driver to 5.62.0 (thanks for that link). However, I still get audio for anywhere between a few seconds to a few mins, then just a monotonic whine. This noise doesn't go away when I stop the audio file, but it goes away when I pull out the USB cable. I will try using TuneBrowser to see if it works any better. EDIT: TuneBrowser is working like a dream! No issues at all so far.

Well, first observations are that, at least using when USB from a Windows laptop and the Holo Audio ASIO driver, DSD1024 seems really unstable. It does work (at least it works when using HQPlayer; Foobar2000 just plays noise even with the right settings & plugins, and Roon of course doesn't support it), but the music will randomly turn into a single frequency whine. I wonder how stable DSD1024 was when you tested with the Holo May? Or maybe you used I2S and not USB?

My Holo Cyan 2 came in! Looking forward to trying PGGB (both PCM and DSD) with it. For PCM, @Zaphod Beeblebrox, while this DAC does even 32fS/32-bits, is 32fS/20-bits still preferred?

As someone with a Cyan 2 on order, I am interested in this elaboration!