Had a quick look at that comment section, may I ask why you consider those temperatures to be too high? Assuming those measurements are accurate, 45 degrees surface and 66 inside are warm but seem totally reasonable to me?
Well things like voltage matter too, if a capacitor voltage rating is uprated (but not too much) it will extend component life. There are other variables and how much the capacitor is stressed in the circuit. However, heat is a major problem affecting component life that should never be dismissed.
Here's a nice paper if you want to learn more about capacitor endurance.
https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/publications/5005/download/
Definitely not the case.tell me, maybe this x26pro requires a more powerful computer than for the x16?
Thank you.Definitely not the case.
I'm pretty sure I know how to fix this!PROS:
* Sound. This dac changed my view on DACs because I started to listen recordings and experience the actual recording rather the device on the table. And I now understand better why serious listeners praise the old jazz recordings all the time. How can I tell.. those classic jazz recordings and vocals creates entirely different atmosphere in room. I can see that each artificial atmosphere differs by record to record, label to label, session to session. It is like putting another device on the table for each track. Vocals are my favorite part. They are so real and so attractive, this makes me pick the records with vocals in it. I begin to spend more time to listen to the music.
Did you have the same noise with other DACs in the same chain?
There is an important reason for not having air ventilation holes at top : DUST. All active parts those generate heat are SMD surface mount parts. If these parts begin to fall under the dust, their heat radiation factor will exponentially reduce in time. Dust will prevent the heat ventilation. Using an air ventilation fan will quicken the dust collecting process. It will collect floating dust around inside. Regular dust cleaning is an option but that would not be my first preference.Heat and longevity
I own the Gustard X26 Pro. My advice is to be cautious if you don't own a 3d printer to create an external fan (I did). The DAC gets way too hot and will not survive in the long-term. The inside temps get at least 66°C and the capacitors are rated 85°C for 1000 hours. Heat is the enemy of transistor and capacitor longevity ...
My take away
- Top tier speakers are more revealing than headphones.
- The Gustard is no worse than other DAC's at 44.1khz and 48khz. Sounds excellent when upsampled.
- Upsampling sounds better but requires SOTA speakers in regards to THD/IMD/crossover quality
- DAC quality is likely a result of filters and upsampling as opposed to THD/SINAD.
- Careful attention to 44.1khz upsampling might be good for future measurements on audiosciencereview, DAC's which upsample 44.1khz to a frequency divisible by 44.1khz might be better. I could hear the difference.
- NOS mode sounds horrible unless upsampled very high. Sounds excellent when upsampled.
- Upsampling to very high frequencies shifts the noise to higher frequencies. Upsampling very high likely moved this noise beyond 20khz, I assume my Revelator tweeters could pick this up.
- A computer does a better job than the upsampler built into the DAC. I wonder if this is Gustard thing or a ESS Sabre thing, maybe DAC's are not completely solved when it comes to CPU power. After all my laptop seemed to have struggled.
- Tube amplifiers are revealing of DAC's despite their inferior SN ratio and THD. However, I assume this is only if your tube amplifier is engineered to be objectively pure with TOTL output transformers and not subjectively "tubey"
could not find, give a link pleaseI updated the Gustard with the firmware as soon as it was posted on the other thread.
CONS:
* Some strange noise. When I directly connect the x26pro to the power amp or headphone amp, sometimes a noise appears on one channel. This noise sounds like a radio interference or a contact noise but not a hum. Noise disappears after recycling power. I admit that this issue is a bit discouraging which makes you check the setup at highest volume before each listening session. This issue may related with my setup and environment but I have to warn about this anyway.
I had the same issue and returned my unit, with shipping cost $116 by USPS to China. The replacement unit does not have this problem.