I just upgraded my DAC from the Holo Audio Spring 1 KTE to the Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE.
If I stream audio directly to the Spring 3 from Roon the sound is severely clipped and distorted.
The distortion seems to only reproduce when audio is streamed directly to the DAC from Roon.
The problem does NOT reproduce if I stream to the Spring 3 from other sources: YouTube, Apple Music, or HQ Player on the same system.
The issue also does not reproduce on the Spring 1 going direct from Roon with the same settings and signal path.
@Richard_Piedra, I am not an owner or have experience with the Spring DAC line, but are you performing any DSP on your audio stream, or upsampling files? Is the distortion occurring on a specific file type and sample rate?
Enabling the âHeadroom Managementâ with a -3dB attenuation seems to mostly resolve the issue, but it doesnât completely solve it, and I donât understand why any headroom attenuation at all would be required here since there is no oversampling applied, and no eq or any kind of filtration. Itâs just 44.1, 16 bit trying to play lossless direct to the dac, and it doesnât work (From Roon).
So you see clipping indications turning the signal path star red, right?
If so, -3dB only reduces occurrences and you need to decrease the value more until completely free from clipping - download my test file for proper full spectrum 0dB signal evaluation without ambiguities.
Wait ⌠looking at the specs of your devices now, I see the Marantz input sensitivity as only 200 mV, unfortunately without specification on itâs overload margin so not sure about max possible input level without analog clipping.
The Holo on the other hand actually puts out 2.9V RMS single ended which could possibly cause analog overload.
In this scenario youâd get analog input clipping and your signal path star, when enabled, would never turn red, but reducing headroom also remedies that by reducing Holoâs output.
All that said and looking at your signal path screenshot, I have no explanation for other digital sources not causing clipping occurrences.
BTW, youâre actually only using half of the circuitry and sacrifice ultimate performance of your Holo ladder DAC and analog output stage by only being able to connect single ended to the Marantz.
Good luck in getting your issue understood and corrected.
Good that your issue seems remedied, but please consider splurging a couple of words as to clarify the root cause, referencing my last post - itâs for the good of everyone else experiencing similar symptoms!
Thank you Marin, really appreciate your responses.
This does look like the input from the Holo is too hot feeding into the Marantz. This version of the Spring 3 has the pre-amp module whereas my previous Spring did not. That seems to be the difference. Turning off the headroom management and adjusting the output volume directly on the Holo does resolve the problem. I didnât think to check that, I wasnât used to having a pre-amp built into the DAC.
As for why I didnât see the issue with other digital sources, I think in the case of HQ Player it may be because I had that outputting to DSD, which does result in some signal attenuation. Iâm not sure why Apple Music doesnât show the issue, but this definitely seems like I had analog clipping of the input into the Marantz.
