Gustard R26


Is anyone else looking forward to the reviews coming out on the Gustard R26 r2rDac? I am interested to see if it can compete with the Holo Spring at a lower price point. How will it stand up to the other r2r dac’s out there right now. It does present well and is feature rich right out of the box. Is it a true proprietary resistor board or is it off the shelf and tweaked? I know the other Gustard equipment is well received and liked so my hopes are high for this as well.

sgreg1

@pinwa

Give the r26 more burn in time before being too critical. The first real sign of what this dac can accomplish will come in at 100 hours. Then after 200 hours it will be in full stride. Mids for vocals will be in the room with you, bass will be tight and punch you in the gut, highs will sound fantastic with a very little roll off and I mean very little to the point you have to strain to notice. I do not like to make the “like vinyl” comparisons, what I like most with my r26 is I have to drag my self away. I can spend hours at a time listening and the music just flows. You are right with the large sound stage. For me it is like my Vandersteen’s are four time large than before. Dynamics allow you to hear every instrument right in its correct placement. My favorite setting is nos off slow filter through lan input. Down side to this is Currently using mconnect and it sucks, I will be replacing how I access lan very soon.

@pinwa (and @sgreg1) -thank you for the impressions and additional thoughts. Just out of curiosity, when this DAC processes DSD, does it do so through chips rather than r 2 r?

 

I can’t recall off the top of my head. I am on another thread for the r26 that gives this level of detail. I would post the link but I know agon would pull it. I know the access to the r2r ladder is determined by the input used. Not the sample rate. People adding an external clock will by pass internal clock snd it goes straight to the ladder.

@pinwa

@whart

@whart  I'm guessing @sgreg1  is referring to the thread at Head-Fi which is almost 2300 posts long.  Many of the posts are fairly technical so that might be a better place to ask your question about DSD.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the R26 changes with more burn in.  I was just excited about how it sounded after only 36 hours.

Thanks both. I'll do a little digging. I'm glad you are excited, @pinwa That's usually a good sign.