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.
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. |
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. |
Without offense to anyone reading this imo that would not be very logical. That would be taking a step back from where the R26 is today. What is a consumers biggest fear when making a substantial purchase! That after you click buy, by the time you receive the item it will be outdated tech. Gustard has really built the R 26 to address a very wide client base sll for $1600. Almost anyone could buy the dac and have a great sounding source right out of the box and plugged into their existing system no further equipment needed. I could see it being an option say if current R26 was $3000 and building a stripped down version would sell for $1000 to bring in a whole new market. To take the current R26 and remove the lan to sell for $1200 does not sound like a good business decision. To save a couple $100 for an input you might regret not having in the future I guess is for each individual buyer to decide on. This is like living where I do in the cold. You always take extra coats with you as you never know when you will need them. To have and not need is good but to need snd not have leaves no option. Again no offense to anyone and to each their own choice. Enjoy the music! |
+1 @sgreg1 I think direct-to-ethernet is a really cool feature ... especially at this price point. From what I've been reading, the R26 even without the LAN connection is worth the asking price. The LAN is just icing on the cake. It also saves you several hundred dollars that you would have otherwise spent on buying a nice USB cable. It'll be nice to hear from someone who has compared it to >$1000 streamers. I know it competes favorably with below $1000 streamers like Bluesound Node, ifi, etc.
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