This is a review and detailed measurements of Kitsune Hifi's Holo Audio Cyan DAC with DSD option. It is on kind loan from a member. The Cyan comes either in PCM R2R with headphone amp or just DSD (you can also get both). The cost for the DSD version is USD $1099. I am assuming you have to pay shipping on top of that.
While the pedigree of off-the-shelf DIY case cannot be erased, the Cyan DAC adds enough touches to make it look nicer than the crowd:
I am especially fond of the dot matrix white LEDs. Not a good choice in the bedroom likely but otherwise, it is bright and legible.
As noted, the headphone amp option is deleted from the DSD version but oddly the volume control and jacks are left there. I guess it saved them manufacturing cost to make another front panel without those holes. From what I recall, even the headphone circuits are in there but just disabled. The reason being that the DSD stream doesn't allow digital volume control change so the designer opted to eliminate the headphone out option just the same. You have to be pretty convinced of value of DSD DAC to want to lose this option.
Note that PCM playback is still available. The Cyan DAC internally converts PCM to DSD prior to playback.
I am pleased to see balanced output which in my view is mandatory in any DAC above $300:
In addition to usual inputs we also have an I^S input using HDMI connector.
For my testing I focused on USB input alone.
And oh, I forgot to say the Cyan is one heavy beast. The corners were damaged as such by the time I got it, not having been double boxed. You can see the nick in the top right. Also note that nice looking copper color sides. Wish they were visible from the front though.
Measurements
I started with my usual dashboard view, first with RCA output and PCM signal at 44.1 kHz:
The Cyan DAC completely meets its THD+N spec. Performance improves a bit using XLR outputs:
Tha mains leakage is eliminated as one would expect from balanced output.
Note that in both cases, the output is well below what we like to see. RCA out should be 2 volts. Balanced should be 4 volts. By keeping the output voltage lower, the Cyan DAC avoids driving its output stage hard and perhaps gets better distortion ratings than it would otherwise. Going with the XLR output, the Cyan DSD DAC lands in tier 2 of our DAC ratings which is actually quite good for "boutique"/custom DAC:
Now, this being a DSD DAC, one may complain that rating it as a PCM DAC is unfair. Putting aside the fact that most of your content is PCM, let's address that by feeding it a 1 kHz tone at DSD64:
The noise floor goes down as does the magnitude of the the second harmonic error. Note that the output level remains too low so that is not related to PCM to DSD conversion.
The dynamic range unfortunately doesn't come close to matching its spec:
Oops. One of those should say XLR but seeing how the two are similar, I am not going to remeasure to confirm. I am unclearly how they got to 121 dB number. Perhaps they used an On/Off scheme as opposed to AES-17 recommendation where a low amplitude tone is used to make sure the unit doesn't mute. There are a lot of vagaries in how dynamic range/signal to noise ratio is measured so I won't fault them as much as I should.
Frequency response shows roll off below audible band:
We are down about 1 dB at 20 kHz. The younger members may worry about that but the rest of us can't hear it and will live happily ever after!
White noise shows slow filter which seems to be in vogue these days:
Square wave response shows asymmetrical ringing:
I thought it was clipping but it doesn't seem so.
Handcrafting custom DACs with precision is hard. Our intermodulation distortion versus level shows this clearly:
The chip-based AKM DAC in the Topping DX3 Pro has far, far better performance. The sloping down section of the curve is normally noise dominated. For distortion to make it peak it means it is fairly high level. That is what we see in at least three segments of the curve. The final value is quite low and hence the reason the Cyan DAC looked good in the Dashboard. Fair bit of fidelity is lost as you lower the digital samples.
We also have significantly higher noise floor although some of that may be due to PCM to DSD conversion.
Another place where a spotlight is put on custom DACs is linearity test:
We see very odd rise in level error below -100 dB in balanced and then in unbalanced.
Multitone results are excellent though:
Usually I see a rise in noise floor at low frequencies but here, it is quite low and remains so.
High bandwidth spectrum of 1 kHz tone is also unusually clean, showing very little noise shaping:
Conclusions
Whenever I test these custom DACs, I get prepared for poor showing. Here though, the Holo Audio Cyan DSD seems to avoid outright failures like we see in many R2R DACs. Measurements are quite respectable in many regards and the faults likely not audible.
That said, I still don't see the appeal of spending $1,100 and getting worse performance than a $99 DAC. There is nothing I see here that is euphonic in nature. It is a DAC with less perfection than chip-based DACs.
If you are itching to get a custom DAC, then the HOLO Audio Cyan DSD DAC is a much better choice than many others.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Money was donated for gas to go and get some good fish chips in town. Need a few more coins to pay for the meal itself though. Please consider donating funds using:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or
upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).
While the pedigree of off-the-shelf DIY case cannot be erased, the Cyan DAC adds enough touches to make it look nicer than the crowd:
I am especially fond of the dot matrix white LEDs. Not a good choice in the bedroom likely but otherwise, it is bright and legible.
As noted, the headphone amp option is deleted from the DSD version but oddly the volume control and jacks are left there. I guess it saved them manufacturing cost to make another front panel without those holes. From what I recall, even the headphone circuits are in there but just disabled. The reason being that the DSD stream doesn't allow digital volume control change so the designer opted to eliminate the headphone out option just the same. You have to be pretty convinced of value of DSD DAC to want to lose this option.
Note that PCM playback is still available. The Cyan DAC internally converts PCM to DSD prior to playback.
I am pleased to see balanced output which in my view is mandatory in any DAC above $300:
In addition to usual inputs we also have an I^S input using HDMI connector.
For my testing I focused on USB input alone.
And oh, I forgot to say the Cyan is one heavy beast. The corners were damaged as such by the time I got it, not having been double boxed. You can see the nick in the top right. Also note that nice looking copper color sides. Wish they were visible from the front though.
Measurements
I started with my usual dashboard view, first with RCA output and PCM signal at 44.1 kHz:
The Cyan DAC completely meets its THD+N spec. Performance improves a bit using XLR outputs:
Tha mains leakage is eliminated as one would expect from balanced output.
Note that in both cases, the output is well below what we like to see. RCA out should be 2 volts. Balanced should be 4 volts. By keeping the output voltage lower, the Cyan DAC avoids driving its output stage hard and perhaps gets better distortion ratings than it would otherwise. Going with the XLR output, the Cyan DSD DAC lands in tier 2 of our DAC ratings which is actually quite good for "boutique"/custom DAC:
Now, this being a DSD DAC, one may complain that rating it as a PCM DAC is unfair. Putting aside the fact that most of your content is PCM, let's address that by feeding it a 1 kHz tone at DSD64:
The noise floor goes down as does the magnitude of the the second harmonic error. Note that the output level remains too low so that is not related to PCM to DSD conversion.
The dynamic range unfortunately doesn't come close to matching its spec:
Oops. One of those should say XLR but seeing how the two are similar, I am not going to remeasure to confirm. I am unclearly how they got to 121 dB number. Perhaps they used an On/Off scheme as opposed to AES-17 recommendation where a low amplitude tone is used to make sure the unit doesn't mute. There are a lot of vagaries in how dynamic range/signal to noise ratio is measured so I won't fault them as much as I should.
Frequency response shows roll off below audible band:
We are down about 1 dB at 20 kHz. The younger members may worry about that but the rest of us can't hear it and will live happily ever after!
White noise shows slow filter which seems to be in vogue these days:
Square wave response shows asymmetrical ringing:
I thought it was clipping but it doesn't seem so.
Handcrafting custom DACs with precision is hard. Our intermodulation distortion versus level shows this clearly:
The chip-based AKM DAC in the Topping DX3 Pro has far, far better performance. The sloping down section of the curve is normally noise dominated. For distortion to make it peak it means it is fairly high level. That is what we see in at least three segments of the curve. The final value is quite low and hence the reason the Cyan DAC looked good in the Dashboard. Fair bit of fidelity is lost as you lower the digital samples.
We also have significantly higher noise floor although some of that may be due to PCM to DSD conversion.
Another place where a spotlight is put on custom DACs is linearity test:
We see very odd rise in level error below -100 dB in balanced and then in unbalanced.
Multitone results are excellent though:
Usually I see a rise in noise floor at low frequencies but here, it is quite low and remains so.
High bandwidth spectrum of 1 kHz tone is also unusually clean, showing very little noise shaping:
Conclusions
Whenever I test these custom DACs, I get prepared for poor showing. Here though, the Holo Audio Cyan DSD seems to avoid outright failures like we see in many R2R DACs. Measurements are quite respectable in many regards and the faults likely not audible.
That said, I still don't see the appeal of spending $1,100 and getting worse performance than a $99 DAC. There is nothing I see here that is euphonic in nature. It is a DAC with less perfection than chip-based DACs.
If you are itching to get a custom DAC, then the HOLO Audio Cyan DSD DAC is a much better choice than many others.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Money was donated for gas to go and get some good fish chips in town. Need a few more coins to pay for the meal itself though. Please consider donating funds using:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or
upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).