Gustard X16 Balanced MQA DAC Review

[engineeringDynamo]

I see UNLOCK if no signal for the selected input. So I think seeing UNLOCK is normal.

Regarding BT, did you already make sure BT antenna is connected and BT is turned on via x16 menu option?

Thank you for the help. I looked at the menu, and it said that Bluetooth power is on when "selected". I figure this is the right way to keep it.
I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and my phone found it. Problem solved!

 

[kiyu]

GUSTARD X18 wolfx's Measurements & Review
.
https://www.l7audiolab.com/f/gustard-dac-x18/

Credits of course to @WolfX-700

Really impressed, maybe my next new dac (?)

 

[Dennis_FL]

I used Tidal for a long time without any problems.
On a Mac mini with IOs and Audirvana.
Today I am using Qobuz.
Sorry for those who use Windows 10, but for audio I think it's the worst operating system.

I have both Tidal and Qobuz on a iMac with Roon and my home library on an external hard drive. For months I heard cracks and pops on hi-res tunes from any source and initially thought it was downstream (in the Gustard). I had my gear on the other side of the room and had maybe a 15-20 ft run of a USB cable. Sometimes the noise was loud horrible white noise - when playing DSD and then I suspected the Gustard handshake as if I played the tune the next day - it would be OK.

I ended up buying more expensive USB cables and had a little better luck but still had the occasional noise which drives me up a wall - spending more time looking for it than listening to music.

Finally, I bought a Raspberry Pi 3A and put Roon Bridge on it (still keeping Roon core on the iMac) and after a month of listening.....zero cracks and pops. With the Raspi driving the DAC next to it, my USB cable was only inches long and the Mac was sending the tunes over WiFi and not using the USB bus) --- So the previous noise was either from the cable bandwidth limitations or possibly the USB bus in the Mac.

I had other problems with the USB on this iMac (2020 intel). It would occasionally drop my external SSD drive and many, many Apple tech support sessions ended with an unsolvable problem.

Looks like my initial troubleshooting suspicions for the source of the noise were all wet. And the Raspi is actually cheaper than the cables.

 

[Dennis_FL]

@Cirodx, @dan kolov, @frankh, @dmac6419, @curiouspeter, @ninetylol
All,

Issue:
I am also having the "stuttering"/"mini pause" issue with MQA files in Tidal with this DAC that several people have mentioned. But, when it does occur the DAC screen turns on and I can see the display switch from PCM and then quickly back to MQA. So, there appears to be something to that.



All thoughts appreciated

Do you have "loudness normalization" enabled? Clipping? Try turning Tidal Loudness on/off. Make sure your Gustard is not controlling volume and is a "pre-amp" with loudness at max when you test the loudness setting.

 

[Dennis_FL]

I was looking for means of streaming my "non-Roon" music (Apple Music for example) to the Gustard and I tried Bluetooth. I had always pooh-poohed Bluetooth as a sort of MP3 quality or less. Then I saw here and here that APTX is pretty good. Even better is LPAC. This is not your father's Bluetooth! The specs from Gustard on Bluetooth are:

• Bluetooth 5.0: PCM LDAC, AAC, SBC, APTX, APTX LL, APTX HD, and other high frequency encoding, LDAC can achieve 24B/96K high code transmission

My iMac is also Bluetooth 5.0 so I presume the same as the above? I gave it a shot with QOBUZ and Apple Music and it sounded great.

My main squeeze is still Roon via USB to the Gustard, but my occasional need for other than lossless (Bluetooth) is far better quality than I was expecting.

One thing that puzzled me initially is when I played music from my Mac via Bluetooth it was fine. Then, when I was switching between sources (Apple Music, JRiver, QOBUZ, Tidal)....all of a sudden it went quiet.

I tried my phone Bluetooth and same thing....nothing. After a lot of troubleshooting including emails to Gustard, I tried increasing the volume on my phone to near 85% and I got sound. Same thing with my iMac....I had to up the output volume to 80%. Alternately I could increase my preamp volume (a lot). I didn't think of this as a solution since it had been working at the existing settings.

It seems that now...the Gustard doesn't boost the Bluetooth signal the same as Toslink or USB..... so switching between sources I get this volume anomaly. But the first time I used Bluetooth it was the same as the USB. Strange.

 

[RoyB]

Dennis-FL..... BT is much better, but I dont believe we are at 24B/96K yet...but soon...

 

[tvrgeek]

Search was confusing. Do they provide an ASIO driver. WHY? Well, it looks like there is a WMP plugin for ASIO but not WASAPI. I HATE all the other UIs I have found.

 

[Snoopy]

What happens if I connect the Gustard X16 or x18 to a MacBook M1 with Roon.

Will it just work or do I need drivers etc?

How about a iPad?

 

[Veri]

Search was confusing. Do they provide an ASIO driver.

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[netcipher]

http://www.gustard.cn/?attachment_id=12475&download=1

 

[rozel]

Hi and a very happy New Year to all. I have been using my X-16 now for six weeks or so and have to say how delighted I am with it. I use an Android Zidoo media player as the streamer and play PCM and DSD files stored on it as well as hosting UAPP in which I have intergrated Tidal. The sounds are quite amazing. I replaced a "kit DAC" with the X-16 (please read my posts starting on page 154 if interested) but in an endeavour to squeeze better sounds from it I used an ISO REGEN along with a semi-decent linear PSU. The combo worked, getting rid of most of the background noise. To make the X-16 fit in my cabinet though I ripped out the previous DAC and ISO REGEN combo but have been wondering over Christmas if the X-16 would benefit if I connected it to it.

I notice that the ISO REGEN isn't available now due to the chips it uses having run out and not being made any more and see that Gustard has now released the X-18. I have not read anything about pairing the ISO REGEN with the X-16 so I would like to ask for opinion on here as to whether I would likely see any improvement or otherwise.

Thanks

 

[Dennis_FL]

Hi and a very happy New Year to all. I have been using my X-16 now for six weeks or so and have to say how delighted I am with it. I use an Android Zidoo media player as the streamer and play PCM and DSD files stored on it as well as hosting UAPP in which I have intergrated Tidal. The sounds are quite amazing. I replaced a "kit DAC" with the X-16 (please read my posts starting on page 154 if interested) but in an endeavour to squeeze better sounds from it I used an ISO REGEN along with a semi-decent linear PSU. The combo worked, getting rid of most of the background noise. To make the X-16 fit in my cabinet though I ripped out the previous DAC and ISO REGEN combo but have been wondering over Christmas if the X-16 would benefit if I connected it to it.

I notice that the ISO REGEN isn't available now due to the chips it uses having run out and not being made any more and see that Gustard has now released the X-18. I have not read anything about pairing the ISO REGEN with the X-16 so I would like to ask for opinion on here as to whether I would likely see any improvement or otherwise.

Thanks

You still have the ISO? Just plug it in and see.

 

[rozel]

Yes - I should've said that it would be a difficult job for me now so was asking to see if anyone had tried the X-16 with this combo

 

[misterdog]

I would like to ask for opinion on here as to whether I would likely see any improvement or otherwise.

No, but give it a try anyway.

Nothing to hear, here.

 

[rozel]

Thanks @misterdog , much appreciated. It is what I thought but the measurement confirms it

 

[sojer2005]

Does anyone use X16 with a PS5 console? I'm talking about a USB to optical converter and then via optical input to the X16. I have connected a usb to optical converter based on CM108 and I hear a lot of crackling...

edit: No crackling if I use a PCM2704 card as a usb to optical converter.

 

[Snoopy]

Go straight into the DAC with a usb cable.
But the DAC needs to support UAC 1.

(I do that with my Cambridge cxn V2)

 

[Lossless]

Why you mad at an audio codec?,there's hundreds of codecs

Maybe they’re actually mad at TIDAL and use MQA as their excuse.‍

 

[dmac6419]

Maybe they’re actually mad at TIDAL and use MQA as their excuse.‍

Why not be mad at MQA and use Tidal as their excuse.

 

[sojer2005]

Hi, does anyone have an idea why I hear crackling/interruptions when I connect a cm108 based usb to optical converter via toslink? The converter works rather well, no crackles when I connect it to the chord mojo dac via toslink.
The x16 optical input works fine if I connect a tv with optical out or ddc based on pcm2704 to it.