The newest HoloAudio offering is the Cyan Dac/Amp. Holo and Magna Hifi are offering you the best performance and price ratio of any product on the market. We are pleased with the Cyan and its performance. The Cyan is offered in 2 different model options: PCM or DSD. Both can play DSD and PCM without any problem. The PCM version will convert DSD to PCM while the native DSD version will convert PCM to pure DSD. The PCM version offering includes both balanced preamp and balanced headphone amp It’s a true balanced discrete resistor ladder dac.
REVIEW HEADPHONE.COM
Cyan with headphone amplifier
PCM Module (Balanced) has full function Balanced headphone amplifier that is capable to power most any headphone and sensitive IEM. Has high and low gain settings to fine tune the amp for whatever pair of headphones you may have. 28bit with digital volume control.
Cyan – DAC Only Edition
DAC Only Unit (Balanced) – (Without Headphone Amplifier and volume control)
INPUTS
USB
RCA coaxial
BNC coaxial
AES/EBU
Toslink Optical
I2S (HDMI)
* All digital input interface supports DSD (DOP mode).
OUTPUTS
Fully balanced/bridged XLR and RCA output
Balanced headphone output using 4 pin xlr
Mode | Input Format | Internal SRC | |
Cyan – PCM | NOS mode | PCM | No SRC |
DSD | Convert DSD to PCM | ||
OS mode | PCM | Oversampled to 352.8K or 384K PCM | |
DSD | Convert DSD to PCM | ||
Cyan – DSD | NOS mode | PCM | Convert PCM to DSD |
DSD | No SRC | ||
OS mode | PCM | Oversampled to DSD256 | |
DSD | Convert PCM to DSD |
• Offers oversampling and non oversampling modes
• Compact chassis 260×281*55mm (WxLxH)
• The new fully balanced headphone circuit capable of powering most headphone easily
• Ability to select either low impedance or high impedance for the headphones
• Includes high quality aluminum remote control – functions include: Mute, Volume, low & high gain for Output, Input Selection, Display Brightness, OS/NOS mode
Cyan PCM Edition
For those who choose the PCM module version you will be able to enjoy the balanced headphone amplifier. However if you choose the DSD module version then you will not be able to use the headphone amplifier. For those who know DSD well, they will know that pure DSD does not allow for volume control. In fact if a DSD dac claims to have volume control then you will know that it’s first converted to PCM internally to achieve this. We released the pure DSD module version for those looking to have a unique and high performance Discrete resistor ladder dac DSD solution. We have highly optimized the architecture of our resistor network to have an incredible sounding DSD dac. if the Amp was enabled it would be at 100% volume and put your ears and headphones at risk. Also the DSD version will have a “headphone delete” and not contain the components on the motherboard for the headamp. However there will still be a volume control knob and headphone outputs on the front panel that will not function.
Cyan DAC ONLY Edition
DSD is natively supported on this Discrete Resistor Ladder DAC
Holo Audio is the world’s first to support DSD natively on Resistor Ladder DAC. This is not the DSD converted to PCM before digital-analog converter, but directly by the discrete components of the DSD digital to analog converter. Supported currently on MAC (DOP)and Linux (DOP), and Windows/PC (Direct Native and DOP). Please note, the word ‘R2R’ is the name of a kind of architecture of resistor ladders. This architecture requires less resistors yet still is capable to deliver more than acceptable performance. Most DACs in the industry use this architecture. The DSD module of Cyan does not use R2R architecture for the DSD, more specifically it uses a very specific architecture which is optimized to perform DSD to analog. So to be entirely accurate the DSD module of the Cyan is using resistor ladders, not R2R.