Gustard X16 Balanced MQA DAC Review

[curiouspeter]

Im just testing this more thouroughly and it also happens with my old mouse. Although less often. But yes, at least for me USB seems to be super sensitive. Display is also changing between MQA and PCM when it stutters.

Hmm, what should we do? Mine happens so infrequently. It may even correlate with unclean AC power that is hard to control.

Sticking with optical will severely handicap the device. I will need a HAT and I need case with my Pi. I might as well go i2s.

I will observe for another week. Apos has a good return policy. But it is hard to find a desktop DAC of this quality that sells for this price. I can fallback to my NEO iDSD, which is well behaving, but then I will need another DAC/amp combo, which is even more costly.

I can also try some USB and power cleaners from iFi. But USB purifiers can cause their own problems.

 

[ninetylol]

Hmm, what should we do? Mine happens so infrequently. It may even correlate with unclean AC power that is hard to control.

Sticking with optical will severely handicap the device. I will need a HAT and I need case with my Pi. I might as well go i2s.

I will observe for another week. Apos has a good return policy. But it is hard to find a desktop DAC of this quality that sells for this price. I can fallback to my NEO iDSD, which is well behaving, but then I will need another DAC/amp combo, which is even more costly.

I can also try some USB and power cleaners from iFi. But USB purifiers can cause their own problems.

At the moment I cant say if its a problem with the X16 or my computer. Seems only Tidal MQA tracks make it stutter.

 

[curiouspeter]

At the moment I cant say if its a problem with the X16 or my computer. Seems only Tidal MQA tracks make it stutter.

The first stutter happened with a 16/44.1 Flac on the local network, so I even ruled out internet issues. The second one was a 16/44.1 track on Qobuz.

Unless it's a new WiFi issue it will be related to the X16, which is not necessarily at fault. We stream 4K HDR on Netflix using WiFi all the time without issue. Doubtful it's the WiFi.

 

[dmac6419]

This is a bit concerning. Does it mean the X16 is sensitive to USB? Perhaps we need USB purifiers, audiophile cables and $5000 streamers after all...

In hours of testing, my signal chain stuttered twice, each for about 1 second. I have not started to trace down the issue. It could be Wi-Fi as my home is flooded with em waves, though this has not happened before.

No

 

[ninetylol]

The first stutter happened with a 16/44.1 Flac on the local network, so I even ruled out internet issues. The second one was a 16/44.1 track on Qobuz.

Unless it's a new WiFi issue it will be related to the X16, which is not necessarily at fault. We stream 4K HDR on Netflix using WiFi all the time without issue. Doubtful it's the WiFi.

I wouldnt think about it if it happened twice in several hours. Probably a stutter/error from PC/CPU.

I think mines a problem with volume control and TIDAL. Because when I have a volume bar in Tidal it works flawless, but when I have Force Volume ticked it bugs out randomly.

 

[curiouspeter]

I wouldnt think about it if it happened twice in several hours. Probably a stutter/error from PC/CPU.

I think mines a problem with volume control and TIDAL. Because when I have a volume bar in Tidal it works flawless, but when I have Force Volume ticked it bugs out randomly.

I assume Force Volume is like the exclusive mode? If there is volume control in the app the decoding may be happening in the PC?

It could be a Windows driver thing in your case then. Are you using the Gustard driver?

My X16 is connected to an RPi 4 that only does Roon streaming.

BTW, does the stuttering occur only with MQA tracks or with plain vanilla tracks as well?

 

[ninetylol]

I assume Force Volume is like the exclusive mode? If there is volume control in the app the decoding may be happening in the PC?

It could be a Windows driver thing in your case then. Are you using the Gustard driver?

My X16 is connected to an RPi 4 that only does Roon streaming.

BTW, does the stuttering occur only with MQA tracks or with plain vanilla tracks as well?

Driver is installed. It only happens with MQA tracks and USB connection. Everything else working fine so far. Since the X16 can decode MQA even with optical, it wouldnt be to bad.

 

[joseG86]

You might as well try and check your computer latency / DPC with this program Latency Monitor it will tell you the highest DPC count so that you can identify which is the program causing the problem when you play audio/MQA files, clicks, pops, etc

There's also bios stuff related to CPU power and overclocking that can cause "problems" like C-States as the audio playback doesn't need any CPU power it will think you're doing nothing/IDLE and the clock/voltage will go lower causing the issue so try as well in control panel > power options to always use "high performance" specially if you're using a laptop

Also disabling internal audio controller from the BIOS and of course, use the latest drivers for the Gustard X16 5.0.0 version found here

If you already tried all these stuff let me know, there are 3 or 4 things more to try

 

[ninetylol]

You might as well try and check your computer latency / DPC with this program Latency Monitor it will tell you the highest DPC count so that you can identify which is the program causing the problem when you play audio/MQA files, clicks, pops, etc

There's also bios stuff related to CPU power and overclocking that can cause "problems" like C-States as the audio playback doesn't need any CPU power it will think you're doing nothing/IDLE and the clock/voltage will go lower causing the issue so try as well in control panel > power options to always use "high performance" specially if you're using a laptop

Also disabling internal audio controller from the BIOS and of course, use the latest drivers for the Gustard X16 5.0.0 version found here

If you already tried all these stuff let me know, there are 3 o 4 things to try

All C states and speedstep are off. So CPU is always running at max frequency. Windows is in high performance Mode. I was using 5.0 driver but deinstalled now, that im using optical.

I might check latency tomorrow, but as you can see im a hardware guy and most of the time know, what Im doing

 

[curiouspeter]

Driver is installed. It only happens with MQA tracks and USB connection. Everything else working fine so far. Since the X16 can decode MQA even with optical, it wouldnt be to bad.

Are you sure you are getting the full decoding with optical (MQA vs OFS on the display)? The spec is a bit unclear.

 

[curiouspeter]

All C states and speedstep are off. So CPU is always running at max frequency. Windows is in high performance Mode. I was using 5.0 driver but deinstalled now, that im using optical.

I might check latency tomorrow, but as you can see im a hardware guy and most of the time know, what Im doing

I know nothing about hardware. It is a bit embarrassing because I studied computer engineering but got my only "C" in Transistors. To this day, I still have no idea how transistors work. Software is much easier.

 

[ninetylol]

Are you sure you are getting the full decoding with optical (MQA vs OFS on the display)? The spec is a bit unclear.

With optical its displaying OFS samplerate. I thought, since its the chip decoding, its still working even outside USB?

 

[curiouspeter]

With optical its displaying OFS samplerate. I thought, since its the chip decoding, its still working even outside USB?

If it says OFS the decoding may be happening in your PC. Does your Tidal have "Passthrough MQA" enabled?

BTW, does your PC have an optical port or are you using a USB to toslink converter?

 

[ninetylol]

If it says OFS the decoding may be happening in your PC. Does your Tidal have "Passthrough MQA" enabled?

BTW, does your PC have an optical port or are you using a USB to toslink converter?

From MQA FAQ a renderer does the unfold 2 and unfold 3 after first core unfold (in this case Tidal Software), so if you check pass through MQA, its not working with optical. But it works if i keep it uncecked. - > displaying OFS in Display.

My motherboard got a optical out.

 

[curiouspeter]

From MQA FAQ a renderer does the unfold 2 and unfold 3 after first core unfold (in this case Tidal Software), so if you check pass through MQA, its not working with optical. But it works if i keep it uncecked. - > displaying OFS in Display.

My motherboard got a optical out.

So the X16 is only doing the rendering in this case, which is fine. I am only using OFS because I need to do DSP between decode and render.

What if you keep "Passthrough MQA" unchecked and continue to use USB? Will the OFS process still stutter? If USB+OFS works then we know it's a bit-perfectness issue not necessarily related to USB.

MQA decoding needs the bits to be perfect. Something in your chain is making your bits imperfect. But duh.

 

[dmac6419]

I had that problem, while it's decoding it losing the MQA stream and reverting to regular decoding, I forget how I fixed it.think I set Roon as renderer decoder,don't have that problem anymore.

 

[ninetylol]

So the X16 is only doing the rendering in this case, which is fine. I am only using OFS because I need to do DSP between decode and render.

What if you keep "Passthrough MQA" unchecked and continue to use USB? Will the OFS process still stutter? If USB+OFS works then we know it's a bit-perfectness issue not necessarily related to USB.

MQA decoding needs the bits to be perfect. Something in your chain is making your bits imperfect. But duh.

With USB it doesnt matter if i check or uncheck it. Its always full decoding (Display MQA in Display) then but sometimes stuttering and showing PCM in display for a second or so.

I had that problem, while it's decoding it losing the MQA stream and reverting to regular decoding, I forget how I fixed it.think I set Roon as renderer decoder,don't have that problem anymore.

Yeh thats the problem i have i guess, using Tidal though. Since my last DAC did not have MQA functions, it couldnt stutter there i guess.

 

[curiouspeter]

Are you guys using a Mac, a PC, or a Linux streamer?

Another observation is that when an OFS track is paused it is showing as PCM 88.2 kHz. This doesn't bother me though.

 

[curiouspeter]

With USB it doesnt matter if i check or uncheck it. Its always full decoding (Display MQA in Display) then but sometimes stuttering and showing PCM in display for a second or so.

Yeh thats the problem i have i guess, using Tidal though. Since my last DAC did not have MQA functions, it couldnt stutter there i guess.

You can also try using Tidal through Audirvana (free trial). It also has the option of performing the first unfold in the PC. But if optical is working out fine for you...

 

[Fjfjsh]

So I had a similar issue while using exclusive mode on Tidal and Amazon music, where the x16 will cut out and stutter. I was able to resolve this by changing the latency in the X16's driver settings. The issue I ran into was that the latency setting for tidal did not match the latency setting for Amazon music. After a ton of frustration I figured out that if I disabled the setting in windows for allow exclusive apps to have priority, that it fixed all the problems with Tidal, and 80% of the problems with Amazon. Since Amazon music doesn't have a true exclusive mode I just leave it off on Amazon, Unless I have all other windows capable of playing sound turned off. This isn't so much an issue with the X16 as it is an issue with exclusive mode. All my other DACs were cutting out whenever you enabled exclusive mode in any streamer. It doesn't seem to want to play nicely with other windows that can play sound like YouTube. Disabling that setting in windows will fix most of your issues with exclusive mode though.