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Gustard X16 Balanced MQA DAC Review

threni

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Billy, they are part of Shenzhen Audio.... I was amazed to find that in addition to SMSL, Topping and Gustard, Chord is also one of their brands. Scroll to the bottom of https://shenzhenaudio.com/

Is Astell & Kern "one of their brands" too? They're a retailer. Those are the brands they sell.

You registered to post that? Er... welcome?
 

m8o

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To those who have recieved delivery, unpacked it, and used it: What's on the mini Disc? Windows driver? Thnx. (rather not put it into my pc to find out.)
 
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jaynewt

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Captura de Pantalla 2021-01-25 a la(s) 4.42.13 p. m..png
 

jaynewt

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I owned (and my friend still does) the Mola Mola Makua with Tambaqui DAC. When I can figure out how to do a comparison socially distanced I'll post impressions.
 

Fjfjsh

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What I saw and heard from my X16:
I guess it completely decodes the MQA.When I play through TIDAL, the display shows the (MQA. KHz ) in which the recording was made.

Don't quote me on this but I think the X16 only does the complete unfolding of MQA if you select MQA passthrough under the more settings for the device menu in Tidal. Otherwise Tidal will do the first unfolding and the X16 will handle the rest.
 

cbayschm

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Don't quote me on this but I think the X16 only does the complete unfolding of MQA if you select MQA passthrough under the more settings for the device menu in Tidal. Otherwise Tidal will do the first unfolding and the X16 will handle the rest.

If it is showing the "MQA." logo on the DAC then it is doing the full decoding/rendering. If Tidal was doing the first unfold, then the Screen would show "OFS" instead. I tested this out with Roon. If I let Roon do the first unfold and X16 only render, even with DSP turned off, it would show OFS instead of MQA. It only shows MQA when I have it set in Roon to Decode and Render on the X16.
 

dmac6419

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If it is showing the "MQA." logo on the DAC then it is doing the full decoding/rendering. If Tidal was doing the first unfold, then the Screen would show "OFS" instead. I tested this out with Roon. If I let Roon do the first unfold and X16 only render, even with DSP turned off, it would show OFS instead of MQA. It only shows MQA when I have it set in Roon to Decode and Render on the X16.
I concur
 

abdo123

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If it is showing the "MQA." logo on the DAC then it is doing the full decoding/rendering. If Tidal was doing the first unfold, then the Screen would show "OFS" instead. I tested this out with Roon. If I let Roon do the first unfold and X16 only render, even with DSP turned off, it would show OFS instead of MQA. It only shows MQA when I have it set in Roon to Decode and Render on the X16.

Did you turn off DSP volume too?

This doesn’t make sense.
 

A Surfer

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I didn't wait too long, I ordered in December so when Shenzhen Audio offered some money I said keep it, I'll pay full price In knew the X16 was a pre-order and there were extenuating circumstances. They shipped it pretty close to when I expected/predicted (middle of January was my prediction) so I feel good with how things unfolded.

I remember when the Sony Z1R was released and only a handful, and I mean a handful of units, were made available to the North American market. I had prepaid with a really good seller I had used before Razordog Audio and I waited months after paying in full. He just couldn't get the units as Sony was tightly controlling things and only trying to allow very select vendors to get any stock outside of Japan. Eventually I had to ask for my money back and I was so lucky that I found one of those extremely rare sellers who Sony approved and I paid more, but I received one of the very first units possible in North America. Compared to that experience the wait for the X16 has been a cakewalk.
 

P_Stein

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Hi guys,
I got mine and without any A/B testing Im liking the sound. I know, Ill have my wife blindfold me, good to have a second use for it:)
So.....I put up the brightness to 7 and its fairly readable for me. Im getting 96 on my flac albums so thats workin well with the passthrough. Generally seems like a solid device. But, Im struggling to get anything higher than PCM 44 or PCM 48.1 from the unit when streaming through a Node 2i. Ive selected MQA Decoding in the BluOS and attached both coax and optical. Anyone else have a similar struggle? :confused: Ive tried playin stuff through Bluos and Tidal connect.
 

dmac6419

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Hi guys,
I got mine and without any A/B testing Im liking the sound. I know, Ill have my wife blindfold me, good to have a second use for it:)
So.....I put up the brightness to 7 and its fairly readable for me. Im getting 96 on my flac albums so thats workin well with the passthrough. Generally seems like a solid device. But, Im struggling to get anything higher than PCM 44 or PCM 48.1 from the unit when streaming through a Node 2i. Ive selected MQA Decoding in the BluOS and attached both coax and optical. Anyone else have a similar struggle? :confused: Ive tried playin stuff through Bluos and Tidal connect.
Working fine with Tidal, don't have a bluOS can't speak on that, sounds really good
 

cbayschm

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Did you turn off DSP volume too?

This doesn’t make sense.

I have DSP turned off and volume set to fixed. I will check what you say about DSP volume, but I don't even normalize. According to me, I have no DSP turned on.

I thought it weird also when I saw it.
 

Pdxwayne

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Hi guys,
I got mine and without any A/B testing Im liking the sound. I know, Ill have my wife blindfold me, good to have a second use for it:)
So.....I put up the brightness to 7 and its fairly readable for me. Im getting 96 on my flac albums so thats workin well with the passthrough. Generally seems like a solid device. But, Im struggling to get anything higher than PCM 44 or PCM 48.1 from the unit when streaming through a Node 2i. Ive selected MQA Decoding in the BluOS and attached both coax and optical. Anyone else have a similar struggle? :confused: Ive tried playin stuff through Bluos and Tidal connect.
If you turn off MQA decoding and use coax/optical, what do you get?
 
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