GroovySauce encouraged me to share my review that I originally posted on the Holo Audio Head Fi Forums a couple of days ago.  Hope it is helpful to someone.  Note that it’s going to start a bit abruptly as I am not posting the preamble, which is not relevant to this forum.

Design:
My God. The Spring 3 KTE is so drop dead gorgeous that it just takes my breath away every time I look at it.  I’ve researched a lot of DACs and I have never seen anything that comes close to Holo’s design aesthetic.  In fact, ‘how it looks’ was not an insignificant factor in my decision.  The uber industrial and boring designs of the entire Denafrips line never appealed to me.  And even though I’m a Schiit fan—the Yggy won’t win a sexy design award anytime soon.  Currently, I have the Node stacked on top of the Spring 3,  but I’ve been careful not to cover the Kitsune Fox emblem, which is the proverbial cherry on top.  The copper sides and buttons on the faceplate provide unbeatable contrast to the jet black chassis and incidentally a great match for my Klipsch front strange.  In fact, it’s such a great match aesthetically that I am debating (now that I have switched speakers) whether to sell my Klipsch towers or just keep them there for HT use and completing the uniform front stage look.  If there’s any unit that deserves to be put on a pedestal for looks—it’s this.  

Well, there is one exception…

Display:
If there is one thing that I don’t care for, it is the display.  It seems half baked (literally) with two non-functional bands on each side, restricting the functional real estate, which is a bit jarring to look at.  I’m keeping it off for potentially better power utilization within the unit and not wanting the display to call attention to itself. However, when the sample rate changes from track to track, the unit ignores the ‘be off’ edict and displays it for a second before turning off again.  That remains a minor nuisance.  If I was that worried about knowing sample rates for each song, I wouldn’t have turned off the display. Oh well….minor quibble, this.

Remote:
Let me tell you—I freaked out when I handled the remote for the first time as I thought it was broken since I could hear massive rattling.  Tim assured me that it was by design and that’s it just the copper buttons making contact with their respective circular casing around it.  I really don’t use the remote so not a big issue either way, but it was worrisome at first blush.  The copper buttons on the chassis faceplate seem like a replica of the remote buttons in both looks and feel, though I wouldn’t be shaking the chassis anytime soon to gauge if they rattle the same way as well!

Internals:
Not going to comment here since I haven’t opened mine nor do I plan to.  We’ve all seen the pictures and have seen the reviews. That said, one could successfully argue that the Spring 3 KTE is even more gorgeous from the inside.

Sonics:
I’ve read many mini glowing reviews right out of the box on this thread.  That was not the case for me.  It didn’t sound noticeably superior to my Ares II either on Day 1 or Day 2.  I admit, I was panicking at the tail end of Day 2, but I trusted the experience of the collective that it takes a while to open up.  Day 3 is when I could finally hear the “men separating from the boys” and it gradually got better over the past month.

Dynamics—One of the things I really wanted to improve upon is dynamics, and here, starting from Day 3, I started to get rewarded.  One of my go to tracks is Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Tin Pan Alley.  My reference listening experience to this track is on Klipsch Forte IV’s paired with the Mola Mola Kula that has the Tambaqi DAC built in.  The Spring 3 got closer to that reference  then the Ares II could ever manage fully broken in.  While I don’t think there was much change in dynamics on that particular track from day to day (listened to it almost daily), overall the Spring 3 KTE skillfully handled dynamic contrasts, making listening sessions much more enjoyable.  That said, dynamics also have to do with with how good your drivers are and I’m experiencing even better dynamics with the Lii Audio Fast 15 Full Range drivers in the OB setup.  I may or may not have jumped out of my listening chair yesterday.

Bass Slam—I wasn’t necessarily hurting in the region. In fact, I didn’t think the RP-8000f’s had anything left to give—I was already getting a pretty good punch in the chest.

I was wrong.  

The slam starting on Day 4 and 5, had me questioning my sanity.  And it’s not just slam…it’s both the texture and the bass being more effortless, compared to the Ares II.  This is hard to put in words but for some reason the term ‘more elastic’ comes to mind.  It’s as if the bass is no longer tethered, it springs (no pun intended), it roars, and dances like a ballerina on certain tracks.  I concede that this is a very subjective and borderline romantic explanation, but it’s my truth and I’m sticking to it.

Resolution/Timbre—Definitely experiencing what others described as going from 2K to 4K—One way to describe what I heard was more ‘realism’ with every instrument, especially the Piano.  With the Ares II, it was decidedly my least favorite instrument not because it sounded bad, but it was never engaging and I almost always ignored it.  Now, I’m hanging on to each keystroke.  It sounds really really good and I’m appreciating it on almost every track that has it.

Sound Stage and Imaging—No other tweak or gear has altered the size of the soundstage in my rig over the past two years as the Spring 3 KTE did in the last month.  More noticeable in width, then height, then depth.  Well, now that I have the OB speakers setup 6 ft from the front wall, I’m also getting incredible depth.  Moreover, the imaging/placement of each instrument within the soundstage is more precise leading to a more resolute, airy, and crisp presentation.  The Spring 3 KTE provides such wonderful layering that it’s easy to keep track of multiple instruments at the same time—something I wasn’t able to necessarily enjoy as much on the Ares II.  

Vocals—More clearer, the breath work more intimate, the saliva more palpable— hence, even more so ‘in the room’ then ever before.

Details—After a week of break-in, I picked up on the Piano during the determinedly fiddle solo section of Diana Krall’s cover of “Just You, Just Me” from the album “This Dream of You” floating ceiling height, just right of center.  The Ares II did this track beautifully as well but I was never able to pick up on the Piano as clearly as I did on the Spring 3 KTE.  That was a nice surprise and there have been many many since.  I wish I could provide more examples, but I eventually stopped taking notes as the music became just so intoxicating.

Conclusion:

I was the at Capital Audio Fest a couple of weeks ago and after auditioning the Uber sexy Hi Fi Rose Streamer/DAC, I asked the exhibitor if the onboard chip DAC could be bypassed and he looked at me incredulously and said that you’d have to have a very capable external DAC to beat the whatever DAC chip the Rose has inside.  I was like yeah—I prefer to use my r2r DAC and he was like, oh you’re one of those guys.  He probably didn’t mean that in a nice way, but I took it as a compliment and will wear that moniker as a badge of honor.

Despite my reservations and second guessing leading up to this massive upgrade, the Spring 3 KTE has proved itself and I’ve stopped obsessing over break-in after 600 hours.  Anything beyond what it already sounds like, will be a welcome bonus.

Agreed—true for both Denafrips and Holo.

And as far as Denafrips is concerned, I’ve huge respect and sentimental value attached to that brand. The Ares II was my first external DAC and I owned it for a year before upgrading (and jumping ship) to Holo last month.   In fact Holo does not even compete with Denafrips in the sub $1000 price point.

Purchased my spring 3 kte when they were being announced in July of 21.

Love it.

You may want to talk to groovysauce about his experience upgrading the stock SR red fuse into Mark Scifter’s excellent Swiss fuse product from Verafiaudio. Through some private conversations I have had with GS, he indicated the Swiss fuse to be a substantial upgrade for holo dacs.

Reading GS’s threads on the Swiss fuse product were instrumental in tempting me to get in touch with Mark. Mark has been incredible to work with, and his products provide significant improvement over stock in my application.

I plan to write about the Swiss fuses once I have thoroughly reviewed, but unfortunately at this time that is not possible.