Gustard R26

Yes I received the r26 and have been out of country for a while but now back. Have about 150 hours on it. I will try to make this short. I have never been more pleased with a purchase ever. First listening the bass jumped out and highs were sharp and sterile. At about 75 hours it all started to come together. I have thrown every thing at this I can and I just want to listen to more. My favorite setting is Qobuz through lan and nos. The sound stage is huge and at any time you can single out sny instrument you want to listen to. I think the biggest take away is my Vandersteen 2 se signatures sound like they are four times bigger than before. This dac is best described as musical you just want to sit and list to more. My go to Stevie Ray “tin pan alley” was given new life. When Stevie is singing the lyrics “better place to be” when both b’s are started you ban hear the air hitting the mic. Same with Tull “thick as a brick” you can almost feel Ian Anderson spitting on you when playing the flute. With the majority of dac’s I have heard the one thing I have never been impressed with have been drums. To me digital just can’t do drums until now. It is not perfect but the note decay for drums is the best I have heard. This will not go down as the best dac that can compete with the 20k and 30k models but it should win the award for best bang for the buck dac hands down. Down the road I will look into a ddc unit to take advantage of the I2S connection and external clocking but right now the Gustard R26 does not make me feel rushed at all. Anyone sitting on the fence jump off head first.

@sgreg1 thanks for taking risk and sharing your experience! 

I am surprised to hear as Gustard design engineers were able to produce decent R2R DAC product! Creating R2R DAC, assuming 20years product life time and other variables,  is very hard! So far my favorite R2R DAC is the latest XD series of Esoteric (same as Teac), which I trust more because of previous experience.

@westcoastaudiophile - Glad you're enjoying the Esoteric XD series. One point of correction though is that they are not using an R2R DAC design, according to their website the proprietary XD DACs are a discrete design using ESOTERIC’s exclusive Delta-Sigma (ΔΣ) modulator. You may have confused the fact that they're a discrete design with them being R2R. Just a technicality though, what really matters is their performance which by all reports is exceptional.

@bill_k noted, thanks for details! 

@bill_k found more info about esoteric xd series dac - yummy! 

“[Capable of] 64-bit resolution and overwhelming performance. However, the true essence of this DAC cannot be discussed merely in terms of its specifications. The fundamental goal in the development of the Master Sound Discrete DAC was to achieve an accurate, full-bodied reproduction of all the vibrancy and energy of music. Music is infused with all the passion that a performer brings to a passage, with instantaneous and explosive energy. We wondered if it was possible to use higher-grade parts than integrated chips, as well as more luxurious materials, to create a more powerful DAC that could deliver a superlative analog signal. This idea led us to the discrete DAC. Esoteric’s top engineering team painstakingly invested their very pride into realizing this complete, full-bodied sound.

Featuring four DAC circuits per channel, their eight circuit elements are arranged in a semi-circle for equidistant signal transmission within each DAC. This total of 32 circuit elements are arranged in two circles that present a luxurious structure with all constituent components, including resistors, logic ICs, and power supplies, separated for all 32 of the circuits. Since each of these 32 circuits utilizes an independent power supply circuit, the music’s full burst of energy can be output in its purest form. Furthermore, by selecting the same sort of ultra-high precision resistors used in measuring instruments, the DAC can perform high-speed digital arithmetic processing with greater accuracy.

With a discrete DAC, where component tolerances are directly linked to arithmetic precision, highly advanced quality control is also required for the manufacture of electronic circuit boards. Esoteric’s own in-house factory boasts some of the world’s leading board mounting technologies, such as soldering performed in an oxygen-free furnace, which is located in a clean room featuring the same level of cleanliness found in a hospital operating room. Technologies cultivated in the production of electronic circuit boards for audio, medical, aerospace, and defense industries support the high production quality of the Master Sound Discrete DAC.”