• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Gustard X18 Review (Stereo DAC)

Rate this DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 7 2.7%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 2 0.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 21 8.0%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 231 88.5%

  • Total voters
    261

RHO

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
1,182
Likes
1,087
Location
Belgium
would a 3db degradation of SINAD make a difference to human ears?
That depends on what the SINAD number is. For the X18, I would seriously doubt it.
 

mccririck

Active Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
153
Likes
61
Location
Edinburgh, UK
would a 3db degradation of SINAD make a difference to human ears?
It depends what the SINAD level is to begin with. According to Amir on products like the X18 no it wouldnt. Which makes it all the more pointless and highlights the damage focusing so much on SINAD can do.
 

Snoopy

Major Contributor
Joined
Jul 19, 2021
Messages
1,628
Likes
1,206
It depends what the SINAD level is to begin with. According to Amir on products like the X18 no it wouldnt. Which makes it all the more pointless and highlights the damage focusing so much on SINAD can do.


The real Problem is that especially manufacturers like topping , Gustard, smsl will keep trying to get the highest number. And the reviewers will focus and advertise these numbers in their YouTube channels,blogs and forums.

Let's look at headphone amps like the SMSL SP400. 12 watts into 16 ohm.. 6 watts into 32 ohm..yet there are so many reviews that claim it doesn't get anywhere near that.
 

mccririck

Active Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
153
Likes
61
Location
Edinburgh, UK
The real Problem is that especially manufacturers like topping , Gustard, smsl will keep trying to get the highest number. And the reviewers will focus and advertise these numbers in their YouTube channels,blogs and forums.

Let's look at headphone amps like the SMSL SP400. 12 watts into 16 ohm.. 6 watts into 32 ohm..yet there are so many reviews that claim it doesn't get anywhere near that.

That's why they all submit all their products to Amir. They know what he measures and they can design around that. And they know what he doesn't measure. They also know he doesn't listen to products so he wont hear any clipping.
 

RHO

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
1,182
Likes
1,087
Location
Belgium
But the race for the best SINAD ever could be the real problem...
There is no problem whatsoever with increasing SINAD.
The problem is with people not understanding what it means and misinterpreting and misrepresenting it and not looking at and/or understanding the rest of the measurements.
I'm not an expert at all. But at least I try to understand more and more about what I see and read in objective reviews.
Dismissing all the measurements because you don't understand what 1 number means or because you disagree with that 1 measurement is absolutely the wrong way to go.
 

mccririck

Active Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
153
Likes
61
Location
Edinburgh, UK
There is no problem whatsoever with increasing SINAD.
The problem is with people not understanding what it means and misinterpreting and misrepresenting it and not looking at and/or understanding the rest of the measurements.
I'm not an expert at all. But at least I try to understand more and more about what I see and read in objective reviews.
Dismissing all the measurements because you don't understand what 1 number means or because you disagree with that 1 measurement is absolutely the wrong way to go.
Nobody is dismissing all measurements. Please do not derail this issue. He's right - focusing on the world's best SINAD at 1kHz is ridiculous and is ignoring other issues.
 

RHO

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
1,182
Likes
1,087
Location
Belgium
Nobody is dismissing all measurements. Please do not derail this issue. He's right - focusing on the world's best SINAD at 1kHz is ridiculous and is ignoring other issues.
Because you focus on 1 does not mean you ignore other parameters.
 

RHO

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
1,182
Likes
1,087
Location
Belgium
The point is Amir is ignoring some things. He has not spotted the clipping on the Gustard X18
Nobody is perfect. Amir his work is not some kind of holy gospel. But it sure is a very valuable source of information about objective performance of audio related products.
Instead of criticizing him for not spotting an issue you could just as well have asked him why it doesn't show up in the measurements. And maybe, if you are knowledgeable enough, suggest some way of protocol to catch it in future reviews.
 

mccririck

Active Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
153
Likes
61
Location
Edinburgh, UK
Nobody is perfect. Amir his work is not some kind of holy gospel. But it sure is a very valuable source of information about objective performance of audio related products.
Instead of criticizing him for not spotting an issue you could just as well have asked him why it doesn't show up in the measurements. And maybe, if you are knowledgeable enough, suggest some way of protocol to catch it in future reviews.
The irony here is that recently Amir made a snide remark about GoldenSound not understanding his analyser properly. And here we have Amir missing something fairly basic.
 

RHO

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
1,182
Likes
1,087
Location
Belgium
The irony here is that recently Amir made a snide remark about GoldenSound not understanding his analyser properly. And here we have Amir missing something fairly basic.
Then they both make mistakes. As all humans do. But goldenears are bigger. Claiming to understand the measurements but then going on to say that he hears differences in where there are none ... well... You can't tell that measurements are very important and then tell they don't mean a thing in the same story. That makes no sense.
 

gustard

Active Member
Audio Company
Joined
Nov 13, 2020
Messages
135
Likes
349
I saw that but I couldn't fully understand, I think it's related if the files are in super bad quality there is no room for oversampling, and that causes a problem? well if someone understand that properly please let us know
Thanks!
Oversampling in audio applications is a process to get a more 'curvy' waveform by generating intersamples. In the experiment from this video, a signal near 0dBFS was fed and the oversampler ‘guessed’ there was a peak over 0dBFS between two sample points. In music, the peak is a louder signal than the real "recorded information '
 

mccririck

Active Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
153
Likes
61
Location
Edinburgh, UK
Then they both make mistakes. As all humans do. But goldenears are bigger. Claiming to understand the measurements but then going on to say that he hears differences in where there are none ... well... You can't tell that measurements are very important and then tell they don't mean a thing in the same story. That makes no sense.
And here we are, back at the old asr standard "there are no audible differences" debate. Yawn. please do not respond to my posts any longer.
 

RHO

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
1,182
Likes
1,087
Location
Belgium
And here we are, back at the old asr standard "there are no audible differences" debate. Yawn. please do not respond to my posts any longer.
I'll put you in my ignore list.
 

inaudible

New Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2022
Messages
1
Likes
0
Oversampling in audio applications is a process to get a more 'curvy' waveform by generating intersamples. In the experiment from this video, a signal near 0dBFS was fed and the oversampler ‘guessed’ there was a peak over 0dBFS between two sample points. In music, the peak is a louder signal than the real "recorded information '
Which PCM filter do you recommend for the x18? I read the X16 L-fast filter is actually a minimum phase variant, is this true for the x18 as well? Thank you, the X18 is a work of art.
 

Mr.XO

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2020
Messages
69
Likes
24
Oversampling in audio applications is a process to get a more 'curvy' waveform by generating intersamples. In the experiment from this video, a signal near 0dBFS was fed and the oversampler ‘guessed’ there was a peak over 0dBFS between two sample points. In music, the peak is a louder signal than the real "recorded information '
For further reading here's Benchmark's blog the reviewer referenced,
 

mccririck

Active Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2021
Messages
153
Likes
61
Location
Edinburgh, UK
Oversampling in audio applications is a process to get a more 'curvy' waveform by generating intersamples. In the experiment from this video, a signal near 0dBFS was fed and the oversampler ‘guessed’ there was a peak over 0dBFS between two sample points. In music, the peak is a louder signal than the real "recorded information '
So why wasn't the X18 designed with this in mind?
 

TomJ

Active Member
Joined
Sep 16, 2019
Messages
129
Likes
177
Location
Palo Alto CA
So why wasn't the X18 designed with this in mind?
All it would take is a firmware update reducing their peak V output slightly. That would also lower their SINAD and their rank in bar charts like ours.

Re firmware, I sent Gustard an inquiry last week using the message box on the gustard.cn support webpage and asked when they plan to release a MacOS utility for firmware updates. They replied right away that there will be no future firmware updates for the X18 and therefore no update utility. I answered that I was sorry to hear that because as a prospective customer, I hoped they would fix three problems reported here and elsewhere:
- clipping >4 V output
- jitter on SPDIF and AES inputs (worse than X18 USB, also worse than X16 SPDIF and AES)
- inconsistent V out on reconstruction filters.
They never replied further.
 
Top Bottom