Gustard R26 - good but not the one
I have owned a Chord Qutest for quite some time, maybe 5-years. I power it with a SBooter power supply and feed it USB from a SoTM SMS200 Ultra with SPS500 power supply. Overall it sounds great. It's been a great purchase.
But 5-year old DACs are getting long in the tooth. As Ferris Bueller said, "digital tech moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
So, I've been looking at new DACs as a possible replacement. It's tough because the Qutest is pretty darn good for it's price and bettering it takes a leap in spending.
The Gustard R26 R2R DAC has been widely praised all over the internet and it went on sale 10% off the other day (8/26/2023). So, I picked it up on Amazon with free Prime Shipping and 30-day free returns.
This was more of a learning experience than anything else. I'm sending it back 3-days later, but I wanted to say it is a fine sounding piece of equipment. IF I had not spent a long time with the Chord Qutest I would have been over the moon for the R26. I did run it continually for the 3-days it was here - not fully bedded in, but close.
It's well built, super sturdy, easy to live with, great sounding and very versatile. There was not a huge difference from the Qutest, but the Chord was just that much better to my ears and I don't want to spend $1,460 to get not quite as good sound quality.
The streamer was super convenient and sounded fine. Not SoTM great, but certainly sounded fine.
It has one flaw. when you switch inputs, and there are lots to choose from, it totally drops the input you've been on. You have to reestablish the entire setup in your player. Using Roon > HQ Player that meant going into HQP's preferences and selecting the Gustard anew.
So, that's my take on the Gustard R26 - very good but not Qutest good.
Great comments. I am narrowing my DAC choice from my current Atom+ to the Qutest, Mojo, or Bifrost. I am not sure id there is that much difference in what I am most sensitive to, (female vocal and false horn edginess) in any of the Delta Sigma ( DO300, E70 etc) over my cheap JDS. I want to hear how short, if at all, a Mojo is to a Qutest and the basic character difference to the Bifrost. Rummor FPLA prices have come down so Chords may drop a little. |
@tiggerfc I do realize that perhaps much more break in could have certainly made a difference. What I didn't think was that 100-200 hours would vault the R26 past my Qutest. And, I didn't want a new $1500 DAC that just was as good as what I've been living with all these years. I have to admit, I regularly find myself thinking how great the Chord sounds compared to my previous DACs. And this is what makes me wonder about the next step up and what it would be like. I will agree that for a new DAC with tons of functionality, that the R26 is great value for money. For years when I've posted about a "next DAC" the Hugo TT2 is most often mentioned to me because of how the Qutest suits me. Perhaps, I'll save up enough to make that happen. |
@tiggerfc is correct. Even if you ran it 24/7 for three days, you are nowhere close to stable and final sound quality for the R26. I've owned the Quest with a very good linear supply and I've had a well broken R26 in house connected directly to wired ethernet running Roon in an optimized network. No comparison in my mind; the R26 is by far the superior unit regardless of taste or system. Personally, I would not publish any digital component review without putting 500 hours on it first. |
@vinylvalet I just picked up a used R26 a couple weeks ago and I am very impressed by it. Definite step up for my second system. What’s your assessment of the on board streamer? I love the ease of use with it connected to a roon core compared to an iFI zen stream i used prior. Thanks |
Most folks, myself included when I borrowed a well broken-in unit from a friend, prefer the sound quality using the LAN input. I also have a Zen Stream and preferred going directly into the R26; less finicky and slightly better sound quality. Make sure you do all the R26 software updates. Here's a very long but useful R26 user thread. You'll find help with the software updates on the first page. |
