Gustard R26

Other reviews have said A26 is better.

https://soundnews.net/sources/dacs/gustard-a26-dac-review-can-it-get-any-better/

Flavor of the month.

Denafrips lives long and prospers. 

I stopped believing online reviewers a while ago. It is good to get some details but their opinions are next to useless. One of them loves it and another hates it.

Case in point - Steve Huff gushing over the Willsenton R300 - amp of the year. I bought one and yes I was keen on it at first then I compared it to some other tube amps - I realized half the music was missing - no symbol crashes that were clearly evident on another amp....etc

These reviewers may mean well but in the end they are there to make money thru views on YouTube and some I believe get freebies or kick backs from the vendors and manufacturers.

I would rather trust the opinions on here.

@soix Like they say, horses for courses. I know Sandu has a lot of fans here, but just looking at his equipment and preferences I can tell that we are quite different when it comes to the type of flavor we like in our music. I respect him a lot and think he's one of the better ones out there. But his choice of amps (Benchmark) and speakers (KEF) tells me that he prefers a more neutral tonality. Nothing wrong with that, but I know that our tastes are quite different. 

Another reviewer compared the Gustard R26 to Denafrips Ares 12th Edition and preferred the Ares. Go figure! 

And Steve Huff ... well, the less we say about him the better .. lol!

Steve Huff is turning into a hermit!

I was laughing at him because he spent $1k for a power bar to improve his stereo when he actually had preamp ground loop hum. I left him a comment to let him know...

Anyway he seems like a nice guy....used to like his camera reviews. He should stick to photography.

@soix

Gustard engineers have said they put a lot more into the lan port than the usb and coax inputs. From many owners who have done comparisons it seems with good mods to the upstream signal going into the lan you can achieve better sound than a ddc and I2S input. This is not saying lan is going to be better on all dac’s but with Gustard right now it is until they upgrade the other inputs. The mods include fiber media converters, wifi extenders, mesh systems, upgraded switch and external clock. What I like for myself is by making the upgrades the R26 is still very musical to the point I can listen for hours on end with no fatigue. That to me is key I have heard to many systems that do sound hood very detailed but after an hour I have to walk away and reset. This is not my case with R26 I have to walk away because it’s 3am and need to get some sleep.

I heard a rumor about a version of the R26 without the built in streamer.  Any truth to this?  I would be interested in a DAC only version for sure.