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

@soix is correct. It's rarely mentioned in these discussions that I2s specs say no longer than a 10cm (~4 inches) cable.

Most folks with a R26 find that it sounds the best with the LAN connection.

There is a huge thread over on head-fi:

Head-Fi Gustard R26 Thread

and an interesting master clock thread:

Head-Fi Master Clock Thread

@soix I was given an amazing opportunity today to purchase the Esoteric Grandioso D1. So I did so. Do you think a DDC is still necessary?

@zeusodin Im sorry, I’m not familiar with your DAC so I can’t say.  I’d certainly reach out to Esoteric and ask them what input is best and go from there.  If they say their DAC works best with an i2S input I wouldn’t hesitate to get a good DDC, but at that level I’d be looking at the Denafrips Hermes or Musician Leo given their better clocks.  If i2S is the best connection according to Esoteric, then hell yeah I view a DDC as mandatory. 

I was looking at the Audio-GD DI-20HE DDC. Will look at the Musician Leo as well. Will reach out to Esoteric. Thanks so much.