Tell us about your experiences with the Gustard X16...
Here’s mine -
My new Gustard X16 DAC arrived today. That’s got to be a record from Shenzhen China to my door in just less than 48 hours! Good on you DHL - outstanding service. £20 import fees were due before delivery.
The box itself is a solid feeling metal device with a (very) small mono display. Settings are fairly rudimentary - will tinker over the coming days and months. Left it all at defaults for initial testing. I quite like that you set the display to “auto off” and then pops up every track for 10 seconds or so and goes off again.
So I now run a Gustard X16, using a pi4 and VitOS as the Roon endpoint backed off to a NAS/Tidal Hifi account.
The Gustard is currently doing the full MQA decode - may change that later. Seems to work as advertised with test materials. I also get up to DSD512 playback now in addition to MQA full decode (my prior DAC didn’t support either). I can also send Bluetooth from the phone if needs be - bonus, if a somewhat crappy quality bonus... it supports Bluetooth protocols I’ve never heard of.
Externally this DAC feeds using RCA into a Cyrus XPd QX preamp (with outboard PSX-R) and then a Stereo200 hybrid class D amp hooked up to B&W 702S2 speakers... Interconnects and speaker cable are homemade 99.99 silver stranded (look up TweakerMan on YouTube).
I will try using the Gustard to drive the amp directly using balanced XLR in due course as I need to make a cable up to test that.
The DAC itself sounds “crispy”... (that’s good). The highs are delicate and articulate with the bass hitting the lows whilst retaining presence without getting stodgy and bogged down. The sound stage seems more focused with singers more upfront and stage center than before. I run B&W speakers and they don’t have a wide sound stage - this remained basically the same with no sudden amazing projection of sound further to the left or right than before.
Damn I sound like John Darko!!!!
First impressions very positive.
Pink Floyd sound ace and the neighbours love the new DAC ;-)
Here’s mine -
My new Gustard X16 DAC arrived today. That’s got to be a record from Shenzhen China to my door in just less than 48 hours! Good on you DHL - outstanding service. £20 import fees were due before delivery.
The box itself is a solid feeling metal device with a (very) small mono display. Settings are fairly rudimentary - will tinker over the coming days and months. Left it all at defaults for initial testing. I quite like that you set the display to “auto off” and then pops up every track for 10 seconds or so and goes off again.
So I now run a Gustard X16, using a pi4 and VitOS as the Roon endpoint backed off to a NAS/Tidal Hifi account.
The Gustard is currently doing the full MQA decode - may change that later. Seems to work as advertised with test materials. I also get up to DSD512 playback now in addition to MQA full decode (my prior DAC didn’t support either). I can also send Bluetooth from the phone if needs be - bonus, if a somewhat crappy quality bonus... it supports Bluetooth protocols I’ve never heard of.
Externally this DAC feeds using RCA into a Cyrus XPd QX preamp (with outboard PSX-R) and then a Stereo200 hybrid class D amp hooked up to B&W 702S2 speakers... Interconnects and speaker cable are homemade 99.99 silver stranded (look up TweakerMan on YouTube).
I will try using the Gustard to drive the amp directly using balanced XLR in due course as I need to make a cable up to test that.
The DAC itself sounds “crispy”... (that’s good). The highs are delicate and articulate with the bass hitting the lows whilst retaining presence without getting stodgy and bogged down. The sound stage seems more focused with singers more upfront and stage center than before. I run B&W speakers and they don’t have a wide sound stage - this remained basically the same with no sudden amazing projection of sound further to the left or right than before.
Damn I sound like John Darko!!!!
First impressions very positive.
Pink Floyd sound ace and the neighbours love the new DAC ;-)
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