Holo Audio Red

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by RestoredSparda, Jan 27, 2023.

  1. Qstik

    Qstik Acquaintance

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    I don't know Tim's email address; but I sent a message via the "Contact Kitsune HiFi" web page.

    I primarily use Spotify Connect in Performance (Exclusive) Mode and as long as Firmware 2024.03.27 works reliably, I don't have a need for an immediate firmware fix to also have the option of Compatibility Mode.

    Thanks for the suggestion. It might accelerate the fix for other Spotify users. I have no idea how many Holo Red users stream using Spotify. I find that its AAC 320kbit/s "Very High" codec sounds quite satisfying and even surprisingly good to me.
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2024
  2. falkonn

    falkonn New

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    Is it possible to install PiOS and Plexamp on this?
    Does PiOS have all the necessary drivers/etc.. to control all of the hardware?

    or Ropieee?
     
  3. ryanrulez

    ryanrulez New

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    Hi All

    i recently bought a Weiss 204 DAC with a plixir elite BDC LPS and ive been using Mercury v2 since quite long along with an LPS however the USB on this isnt great ( as in these were built for storage purposes) , will buying a Holo Red give me better USB ? im asking this question since both use RPi CM4, and also if i use the DDC on the Weiss 204 would it negate the ill effects of the USB on mercury v2 or would going for a Holo red mitigate the USB woes ??

    Thanks in advance
     
  4. Greg121986

    Greg121986 Almost "Made"

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    Edited to put my previous comment in spoiler. I am going to read into this topic again. According to GoldenSound, the USB output is not coming directly off of the PI USB Bus. He says the USB output is re-clocked and has a separate 5V power supply. This is different than I recall reading over the years. I will read back into this and see if I can find more info. I may have misremembered how this thing works. Regardless, I love mine.

    My understanding of the Holo Red USB output is that it is actually nothing special. Its USB output comes straight from the RPI Bus without any additional processing or filtering of the signal. The RPI itself is fed by a superb power supply because that's what the Red has, but it does not do anything to cleanup the electrical output of the USB Bus from the RPI.

    Where the Red really shines is its digital outputs because those are cleaned up. The entire thing is powered by an exceptional PSU as indicated by how well the digital outputs measure. In my experience, I2S from the Red to my Holo Spring 3 KTE is superior to the USB output. However, the difference is not necessarily "good vs. bad." There are just some subtle differences.

    Anyone correct me if I'm wrong, but over the life of the Holo Red this reiterates what I have seen when it comes to discussion about the USB output of the Holo Red. It is just coming straight from the RPI bus.

    One could suggest that the Holo Red OS has some "software optimizations" as they allow certain features to be turned off, and they might have optimized the Linux distro they are using. But I usually do not worry too much about that sort of a thing. There is room to optimize, but the bottom line is the software either works and is usable or it is not. But generally I like the Holo Red for the entire package that it represents as a complete device. Not considering whether it is "perfect" in one respect or another.
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2024
  5. ryanrulez

    ryanrulez New

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    Thank you for replying, i currently use LPSU with mercury v2 and i would be using gentooplayer rather than the red OS, if the USB is coming out from the rpi on both then how different is the USB on red from mercury v2 cos a lot of people ive heard say that the USB on Holo red is much better
     
  6. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    how many of "those people" actually own a mercury?
     
  7. ryanrulez

    ryanrulez New

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    Good question Michael i love the Mercury v2 already with gentoo player , what i was trying to achieve is using the USB along with DDC of Weiss 204 since ive already paid for the DDC in it and USB ports on mercury are only for Storage as per manual, a storage port of a streamer should be as bad as a PC right if the DDC improves the sound with a PC then im sure it should mitigate the issues with a USB on Mercury also isnt it ?
     
  8. famish99

    famish99 Friend

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    That's really marginalizing the effect of a supply, arguably the biggest gap between most RPI based streamers. The USB output on the Red isn't shared between multiple devices either like a normal RPI so that also helps. I would say at least in direct comparisons using a Hydra Z fed by vanilla RPi3 vs Allo Usbridge signature powered by Allo Shanti vs Red as a USB host, the Red sounds noticeably best with having the least veil and most energy.
     
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  9. Greg121986

    Greg121986 Almost "Made"

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    I may be remembering the details completely wrong. I edited my post above. GoldenSound states the USB output of Holo Red is re-clocked with its own power supply. I'm going to try to look into this further to confirm. We could probably look at the PCB and figure it out.
     
  10. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I love my RED, but is there any way to do the following with it?

    • Stop if from skipping the first 1/2 second of a song
    • Gapless playback

    sure would be nice to have the gapless playback at least.
     
  11. famish99

    famish99 Friend

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    I know internally the output section for the i2s/spdif outputs is connected via USB internally so I suspect they put a good amount of work to make it clean and optimized to maximize the performance. It's also the same reason you can't use it as a DDC and a streamer simultaneously but at least later versions seem to have gotten rid of the restart requirement to go between the two.
     
  12. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

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    Mine doesn't do that with Roon?
     
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  13. Michael Kelly

    Michael Kelly MOT: Pi 2 Design

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    The USB port of the PC is much noisier simply because the motherboard of a PC is much noisier. A high-power CPU, lots of memory, storage, etc. means the power supply is working very hard and producing a lot of noise. The raspberry pi on the other hand is consuming very little power and, you will get a much better result even if there has been no extra effort taken. That said, however, reducing the noise on the USB supply line means less noise going into the downstream DAC. Then it's up to that DAC to determine how sensitive it is to any noise.
     
  14. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I'm using BubbleUPNP, Roon doesn't work for me because I use Tidal mostly and because it's' all album based and works in the opposite way that I think about my music library. And is not flexible at all. It's the Roon way, you either love it or not. Anyways... I'm happy for people who love it. :)

    I have gapless turned on in BubbleUPNP, which works with MoOde and the Pi2AES. But not the RED. Tired of the heart freezing gap in gapless albums! It's like the earth stops rotating for a second.
     
  15. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    Doesn’t Holo Red have tidal connect? I forget if gapless worked or not with connect but it should. You just use the tidal app and set the playback device to the Red in the Tidal app and then when you play something in the app it’ll automatically start playback from your device. This was a million times better user experience for me than the alternatives but ymmv.
     
  16. Greg121986

    Greg121986 Almost "Made"

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    JPlay is expensive, but it was a much better experience than MConnect or Bubbleupnp. I used it for a year before I went to Roon. I would give JPlay a try if you have not already. It worked really well when I was doing DLNA on my Red.
     
  17. 5bs5vuiz4

    5bs5vuiz4 New

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    Welcome to the joy that is UPNP. It's inconsistent garbage. I highly recommend ditching it entirely and switching to LMS. The only way that I've found to make UPNP work properly is to use LMS with the UPNP bridge plugin, but at that point you might as well use their native squeezelite output.

    In short, all the problems you're experiencing are UPNP related, not an issue with the RED.
     
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  18. lehmanhill

    lehmanhill Almost "Made"

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    Off topic,I suppose, but I find the gapless thing interesting. To me, gaps are a normal separation between songs. I assume that they were originally put into records so you had a little space to drop the needle at the beginning of a songs As I understand it, artists then started using the gap to put artisitic separation between songs. A pallet cleanser of sorts. I have heard albums, both vinyl and digital, where there was an exceptionally long gap because the songs were so different that they needed a longer separation. I get that adding a gap to an album that wasn't meant to have them would be just as artistically wrong as eliminating intended gaps, but to me gapless sounds like everything is run together and very unnatural. Each to their own taste.
     
  19. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    Yes, the Redbook standard allows for "negative sections", because when played it is all zeros and the time counts down. Many CD burners even added this in, even when you copied a CD. So even if the mastering engineer gave it 2.5 seconds or 1.5 seconds, the software burner added a blank 2 seconds. Technically you CAN have audio in that section as some CD's did (I think a Tool CD did, if I am not mistaken). Either way, some chose to use this OR to use dead space after the last song where there is no negative space. As time went on, the latter became the norm.

    Modern players now add a gap just to fetch the next song. It can be annoying if you have a live album or something that was supposed to be gapless in the first place. There are a few occasions, like you mentioned, where one song will just right butt up to the next song and I can see how that is as jarring as gaps in a live album (or designed not to be there). Many portable players have the ability to switch from having a gap to gapless. I thought there was an m3u tag for this, and there still might be, but even if there is, I am not sure how many players are doing anything with that.
     
  20. lehmanhill

    lehmanhill Almost "Made"

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    Interesting stuff. I always learn something around here. It strikes me that we shouldn't be mad at some hardware/software that makes something gapless or not. We should be mad at recording engineers that either divided up a live 2 song combo that should have played as one track or they took away an intended space between songs. If the recording engineers did it right every time then one playback system, probably gapless, would be great in every situation.
     

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