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Gustard R26 R2R DAC with roon

Dennis_FL

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TjindarSingh

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Anybody know if there can be delays if I have my tv with youtube on playing music?

Read that some r2r DAC have problems with delay.
 

MadMaxx

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Seems like a direct competitor to the Denafrips Pontus 2. I owned the P2 for about 6 months last year. Great build quality but I had a hard time noticing any difference between it and my Topping D90. I had read so much about the benefits of R2R dacs. Maybe my hearing isn't sharp enough to pick up what others seem to hear so clearly. Sold both dacs and bought a FiiO K9 Pro ESS. Sounds good to me.
 

BBG

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Seems like a direct competitor to the Denafrips Pontus 2. I owned the P2 for about 6 months last year. Great build quality but I had a hard time noticing any difference between it and my Topping D90. I had read so much about the benefits of R2R dacs. Maybe my hearing isn't sharp enough to pick up what others seem to hear so clearly. Sold both dacs and bought a FiiO K9 Pro ESS. Sounds good to me.
I'll soon find out (almost pulled trigger on Pontus 2). Ordered the R26 and will compare with SMSL m400 AKM, OPPO Sonica w 9038 (above its class when released, and still above many), and Bryston. Great fit for my desktop system w Dynaudio actives (best nearfield spkr ever tried - Dynaudio kills it). First R2R - was waiting for lower end price point (<$2K) combined with high-graded ps, clock, LAN streamer (esp Roon), discrete components, other step ups from entry level w/o the high ticket. Checks a lot of boxes but I only trust my ears and my system - YRMV. Correction, YRWAV. New to ASR - great forum and hooked on Amir's review videos. Thanks Amir and members for being civil.
 
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Snoopy

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Great build quality but I had a hard time noticing any difference between it and my Topping D90. I had read so much about the benefits of R2R dacs. Maybe my hearing isn't sharp enough to pick up what others seem to hear so clearly.

I had a similar experience when I purchased the Hifiman EF400 headphone R2R DAC/amp.
After reading about the wonders of R2R I imagined I hear a difference. Till I began to upsample everything in Roon to the same sample rate and Bitrate etc.

There might have been tiny differences that you would only notice in A/B switching but for normal music listening I couldn't tell the difference to my CXN V2 dual Wolfson DAC and Smsl D300 ROHM DAC chip.

I appreciate what is possible with old Technology like R2R but at the same time it just tells me that we reached a level of quality with whatevers chip is used that is already good enough.

Its still unbelievable what I read especially at head-fi about R2R DACs .. bit like the DAC is a person that does its job with feelings and confidence like an experienced artist.
 

bill poster

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Off subject but hoping to see more Rohm offerings from Smsl and Topping. D300 is v tempting but the balance is probably too 'polite' for my tastes
 
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Snoopy

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Off subject but hoping to see more Rohm offerings from Smsl and Topping. D300 is v tempting but the balance is probably too 'polite' for my tastes

Bit off topic as well but even the R26 has pretty bad DSD performance. But shouldn't this be something a R2R DAC should be especially good with?

My Smsl D300 plays DSD 512 flawlessly. No clicks and no pops at all.
(I don't want to start a discussion about DSD Vs pcm).

But my Yamaha wxa50 (ESS DAC) couldn't handle DSD .. clicks and pops and skipping issue.
 

ahmadie

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I am talking about "3D layering and huge soundstage" that reviewers often assiociate with R2R dacs.
Why (?) concidering quite normal (100 Ohm) output impedance and distortion like this:
View attachment 227665
That is so much worse than my D70s (that Sandu also liked very much claiming that it has R2R qualities, but from the review I guess he likes R26 more than any delta-sigma DAC) that it makes me puzzled.
I progress from Audio gd 11 = ES lower Dac to D70 to D70S to R26 now. To my ears from D70S to R26 the jump in sound quality and staging is easy to hear In R2R instruments image bigger and take more space hence more texture. My experience with two R2R dac with stax headphone and speakers as well. I think sound-stage cannot be measured so only subjective.
 

DHT 845

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I progress from Audio gd 11 = ES lower Dac to D70 to D70S to R26 now. To my ears from D70S to R26 the jump in sound quality and staging is easy to hear In R2R instruments image bigger and take more space hence more texture. My experience with two R2R dac with stax headphone and speakers as well. I think sound-stage cannot be measured so only subjective.
Thank you for your opinion. I know "image bigger" and "texture" effect well since I love tube amps ;) In my case R2R might be too much of a good thing since I like pinpoint imaging and highest transients precision as well (esp. in electronic music) and generally I find R2R too soft and lacking some information. But Sandu says R26 is different beast R2R, that it is detailed and even "technical sounding" (not a good connotation for me). That statement was quite surprising in Sandu's review so I would have to check out the DAC myself in my system. But in these politically hard time I do not think I should support China more than I did before with my choices (I got 2 Chinese DACs already).
 

one soul

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I progress from Audio gd 11 = ES lower Dac to D70 to D70S to R26 now. To my ears from D70S to R26 the jump in sound quality and staging is easy to hear In R2R instruments image bigger and take more space hence more texture. My experience with two R2R dac with stax headphone and speakers as well. I think sound-stage cannot be measured so only subjective.
I’ve purchased this DAC about a month ago. It has now ‘beaded-in’, after perhaps 150 - 200hours. It sounds amazing! A very natural sound. For what it’s worth I would highly recommend The Gustard R26. The music improvement, over my existing 8 year-old AUDIOLAB 8200CDQ (with DAC) is obvious. The R26 is a great investment if you love listening to music which sounds natural, big, authoritative, highly detailed and most enjoyable.
 

Wavemechanic

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BBG

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Different, VERY encouraging, but too soon to tell. . . .
Just took delivery of R26. Some first, very prelim impressions.
Starting in a main rig (not my desktop - to follow later): Krell 320e, PSAudio BHK Sig Pre, Wilson bookshelf's, Roon Nucleus
Prior and A/B dac's - Bryston, Oppo Sonica, Esoteric, SMSL m400 AKM chip
Unboxing - weighty and well built unit just from feel of it. good finish work, screws, feet, etc. very solid. like it.
Agree that front aesthetics more akin to 90's set-top box rather than serious piece of audio gear. Prefer X26Pro casework. Not my 'look' but bought it for go, not show.
Display and menu are. . . . .bad. Highest brightness, 8, barely visible in well lit or sunny room. And its OLED - good contrast but more limited brightness.
Menu font is needlessly small and compressed - crazy difficult to read. And why with all that screen real estate?! Big miss, Gustard.
You'll need a 5-year surgical residency at Johns Hopkins - toggling and selecting menu items is micro-surgery.
Lettering just so small and jammed (crammed) into ridiculously small area. For what?
Scroll wheel is not my pref either - too sensitive, lacks traction, and awkward spinning small wheel w finger . . . just not an easy, tactile nav tool.
Powering up - my US shipped unit arrived set to 220 so be sure to reset two/both power switches in rear to 110 if US.
I'll pause here to say, despite a very unfriendly user interface, things get more interesting when we hit play
But first, getting connected.
Downloaded GR26 Owner Manual and boy is it minimal. Tells you nothing about getting connected to network, Roon, USB devices. . . . .or pluto and St. Louis for that matter.
Your flying solo on connectivity matters.
Fortunately Roon will eventually find the R26, or at least that was my 'whew' experience.
Running Roon nucleus. Connected R26 via LAN to Nucleus. Nucleus didn't see the R26 when searching for devices after multiple tries and toggles, so rebooted Nucleus and Roon, waited and waited, and finally Roon found the Gustard R26.
Have no idea what others were saying about what works and not in NOS, DSD - just tried and failed w menu setting enough times until, voila, music.
And here it does get damn interesting.
Note this is out of box, stone cold, R2R music play so take my early impressions w a grain of salt until I have the 100-200 burn in hrs in rear view mirror.
And, just as important, hear how it plays with other audio gear.
All that said, first listening impressions tell me this is an entirely different piece of gear from my chip dacs. And not subtly so.
My chip dacs can be very detailed, articulate, and dynamic. Soundstage can be fairly expansive (depending on gear). Sometimes they can even be 'musical' re. flow and timbre. . . . . until I hear the R26. Mind you, out of the box.
There is just soooo much musical info being pumped out. Top end, crazy detailed and articulate. Mid is still congested. And at first all sounded thin w little bottom end.
Then I switched to music w more bass end. . . . and the bass lept out at me. Again, not (hopefully yet) as articulate as I would want, but the R26 can definitely do bass.
I realize I'm burying the headline just now getting to what makes this unit so 'promising'. I'm no pro reviewer but I'll try to describe what I'm hearing bc it is quite special.
First is the amazing separation and detail of notes, vocals, instruments - you start (need that burn in) to hear an amazing amount and separation of musical info. Top to bottom, side to side. Some is scary 'from nowhere' clear, detailed, never heard it before. Top end definitely not rolled off as some suggest w R2R - this is a detail monster, same as the reviewer said. Just as important, that detail has no sharp, glassy, glaring edges. Just massive amounts of musical info. What I'm waiting for from burn in is to hear this info flow more freely - for now it feels like the R26 is trying to push too much info through too small a pipe. If that makes any sense. Waiting for a wider pipe from dac to speakers.
Second is what I think most of us are looking for from an R2R - analog, tube-like air and decay around the notes. Out of box I'm definitely hearing early hints of that floaty 'air'. Just hoping after burn in that will come on even more. Will even say that after listening now for ~3hrs. I'm confident this piece of kit will deliver just what I was looking for. And at a great price too. Pontus II? Haven't heard it so no clue how they(or any other R2R) compare. And, of course, system matching, your room, and your music are huge variables too.
So, long note on first impressions but I too was scouring internet and youtube for reviews other than the 2 we've all seen. One thing I will totally agree with from these reviews, this dac is a detail monster. I can't imagine it leaving any 1's or 0's on the disc.
I'll try to write more, if nobody is minding the long-winded notes, after burn-in.
Day one - buyer's remorse or grin?
100% grin so far. Had no Idea my dac's were leaving so much music behind on the disc.
Yeah, Gustard R26 is the real deal.
YRMV
 

H3d

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Hi there. Lot of positive words on the r26. I too think there s lot positive say, but .... I compared it to my sonnet Morpheus/metrum ambre combo (volumio qobuz over UPnP). That was a bit too much for the gustard. More emotion in the music. This combination pulls me more into the music. But this combo is more than double the price. For the price the gustard is a very very nice product.
 

BBG

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This is the only part the word salad anyone could or should agree with.
'anyone could or should agree with'?
You make a habit of thinking and feeling for everyone else on this planet. 'word salad'?? Guess everyone's entitled to opinion, but two points I ask to consider: only two detailed youtube reviews and unit cost ~$1600. So good intent was to give firsthand user review from regular guy who's not online reviewer. So much for good intent. Second, I usually don't post comments bc how critical n contentious people can be on internet. Thanks for reminder Dr. Critical. I'll pass on that final review I hoped to share and just go back to reading, not writing. You do no service for readers and gear lovers Jimbo54. Be kind.
 
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