[mmlogic]

Apparently, Gustard is not yet a full fledged "brand" with its own marketing, website, etc. The investigative journalist in me wants to know much more about who they are - things like, who their principal designer is, where their manufacturing facility is located, what's his favorite color and if he could be any animal, what one would he choose... Ha, ha, I'm always fascinated by the people behind the products.

I'm trying to find out more because the products themselves represent outstanding design and tremendous value. Obviously, someone there really knows what they are doing. I suspect that they are made in Taiwan because the seller, Vintage Audio Lab on eBay is from there and he seems to be a very early adopter. Early on, VAL was selling the same products without the Gustard name on the case. That suggests to me that he has a direct relationship with the manufacturer and they were close by.

I think Gustard is now transitioning to full brand status and I have my feelers out for direct communications and hopefully a pipeline to review their new products. I'm told that the flagship X20 DAC should be arriving by the end of February.

I'm a Taiwanese and I don't think they are made or designed in Taiwan, as a matter of fact, GASTARD's products are not so popular here, and the H10 I purchased from MSaudio a.k.a. Vintage Audio Lab was delivered from China.
The only official web page of GASTARD I can find is their Taobao store, and I think the store manager Haung is the man behind these products.
BTW, I share the same opinion with many head-fiers here: H10 has a ridiculously high C/P ratio and matches particularly well with orthodynamic headphones. 

 

[stuartmc]

Thank you mmlogic!   My contact in Guangdong province never told me where they were located, so its nice to get some additional information. I will try contacting Haung at the Taobao store.

 

[ansi]

  Thank you mmlogic!   My contact in Guangdong province never told me where they were located, so its nice to get some additional information. I will try contacting Haung at the Taobao store.

 
They are in Shenzhen. 深圳歌诗德电子 or Shenzhen Geshide Dianzi (Shenzhen Gustard Electornics) is the company name. The brand is not widely known since they are an OEM manufacturer, most of their products are re-branded or customized and sold by their customers in both China and abroad such as Rein, Valab, LJM... and many others. Like many old shanzhai manufacturers, they have started to develop their own brand as of late, but really have been around for a long time. 
 
Edit: Took a closer look at it and seems that the manufacturing and the sales are maybe different companies, not just different departments. I'll ask when I get the chance.

 

[stuartmc]

   
They are in Shenzhen. 深圳歌诗德电子 or Shenzhen Geshide Dianzi (Shenzhen Gustard Electornics) is the company name. The brand is not widely known since they are an OEM manufacturer, most of their products are re-branded or customized and sold by their customers in both China and abroad such as Rein, Valab, LJM... and many others. Like many old shanzhai manufacturers, they have started to develop their own brand as of late, but really have been around for a long time. 
 
Edit: Took a closer look at it and seems that the manufacturing and the sales are maybe different companies, not just different departments. I'll ask when I get the chance.

Ansi,
 
This is very helpful information and as Captain Guinea Pig of the SS Gustard, I want to personally thank you for sharing your knowledge.  As of last night, I have re-joined my friends at positive-feedback online in the capacity of Associate Editor and legal counsel.  My schtick has always been to find and promote the products of companies whose price/performance ratio is ahead of the pack.  Gustard is one of those companies and I think they are poised to make a big splash in the audio pond. I want to help them if I can and give their products more exposure here on Head-fi and also at PF.  To do that properly and include some of the back story and personalities behind the brand, I need a direct contact person at Gustard who knows what's going on.   If you could help me do that, I, and quite a few of the swabbies around here, would be very grateful.
 
Stu 

 

[Schopenhauer]

 

   
They are in Shenzhen. 深圳歌诗德电子 or Shenzhen Geshide Dianzi (Shenzhen Gustard Electornics) is the company name. The brand is not widely known since they are an OEM manufacturer, most of their products are re-branded or customized and sold by their customers in both China and abroad such as Rein, Valab, LJM... and many others. Like many old shanzhai manufacturers, they have started to develop their own brand as of late, but really have been around for a long time. 
 
Edit: Took a closer look at it and seems that the manufacturing and the sales are maybe different companies, not just different departments. I'll ask when I get the chance.

Ansi,
 
This is very helpful information and as Captain Guinea Pig of the SS Gustard, I want to personally thank you for sharing your knowledge.  As of last night, I have re-joined my friends at positive-feedback online in the capacity of Associate Editor and legal counsel.  My schtick has always been to find and promote the products of companies whose price/performance ratio is ahead of the pack.  Gustard is one of those companies and I think they are poised to make a big splash in the audio pond. I want to help them if I can and give their products more exposure here on Head-fi and also at PF.  To do that properly and include some of the back story and personalities behind the brand, I need a direct contact person at Gustard who knows what's going on.   If you could help me do that, I, and quite a few of the swabbies around here, would be very grateful.
 
Stu 

I second that. They have a small but rabid - and rabidly, as it were, growing - fan base here in States. It would be a great time for them to strike.

 

[ansi]

  Ansi,
 
This is very helpful information and as Captain Guinea Pig of the SS Gustard, I want to personally thank you for sharing your knowledge.  As of last night, I have re-joined my friends at positive-feedback online in the capacity of Associate Editor and legal counsel.  My schtick has always been to find and promote the products of companies whose price/performance ratio is ahead of the pack.  Gustard is one of those companies and I think they are poised to make a big splash in the audio pond. I want to help them if I can and give their products more exposure here on Head-fi and also at PF.  To do that properly and include some of the back story and personalities behind the brand, I need a direct contact person at Gustard who knows what's going on.   If you could help me do that, I, and quite a few of the swabbies around here, would be very grateful.
 
Stu 

 
Sure, I'll do what I can. I don't think anyone in that company speaks English though so any contact may not be very direct unless you can speak Chinese.
 
By the way, their taobao shop ships internationally (and taobao takes foreign credit cards) so for anyone who can speak Chinese or knows someone who can help them order, there's no need to use ebay or a taobao agent. They also have 1 year warranty and you can listen for 7 days and get a full refund if you decide to return the product. 
 
edit: Called them up, happy to give me an interview. Feel free to send me any questions you want to ask em, cap'n
edit 2: Wow what nice guys. Not only did they invite me over to Shenzhen to take a tour and listen to all their stuff, byt they also offered to send me all their stuff to give them a listen, and cover the shipping back and forth.

 

[Juventino77]

This is brilliant, if you could get in on the new X20. Especially when they are looking to release and also at what price.
What additional features have the added above the X12
What other product lines are they looking to move into and if they will be sold under their brand or under other brands.
 
The more information the better.
 
Would you be willing to share their contact. I am in South Africa and would possibly like to help bring the product here.

 

[ansi]

 
This is brilliant, if you could get in on the new X20. Especially when they are looking to release and also at what price.
What additional features have the added above the X12
What other product lines are they looking to move into and if they will be sold under their brand or under other brands.
 
The more information the better.
 
Would you be willing to share their contact. I am in South Africa and would possibly like to help bring the product here.

 
No problem. Sent you PM. I'll be going to Shenzhen next month, after the Chinese New Year holidays and drop by. Hopefully they'll have an X20 to test. 

 

[abartels]

Hi Ansi,
 
I'm an owner of a Gustard U12 digital interface.
If you are planning to go to the factory, maybe you could ask if there are schematics available!
Would be very nice to get hands on them to mod the units
 
Further, i'm also VERY interested in the upcoming X20.
 
Keep us posted please 

 
 
Regards,
Alex Bartels
http://www.head-fi.org/t/736294/gustard-u12-usb-interface-8-core-xmos-chip

 

[Benny-x]

It'll be awesome to hear what Ansi finds after his trip to Gustard's factory at the end of this month. 
 
This thread in general is great. Gustard is a HUGE cost vs. performance player and I'll enjoy having a look at their other gear. The love that other LCD-2.2 owners have for the H10 is giving me a push in that direction. I'm still impressed with my U12, too. If the firmware could be updated so that the I2s output was actually PS-Audio spec (right now it's out of phase and channels are switched) that'd be awesome. Luckily my DAC can invert phase and I can just swap the interconnects to solve the problem, but of course if that were corrected it'd be nice
 
Anyway, looking forward to more news.

 

[motberg]

  It'll be awesome to hear what Ansi finds after his trip to Gustard's factory at the end of this month. 
 
This thread in general is great. Gustard is a HUGE cost vs. performance player and I'll enjoy having a look at their other gear. The love that other LCD-2.2 owners have for the H10 is giving me a push in that direction. I'm still impressed with my U12, too. If the firmware could be updated so that the I2s output was actually PS-Audio spec (right now it's out of phase and channels are switched) that'd be awesome. Luckily my DAC can invert phase and I can just swap the interconnects to solve the problem, but of course if that were corrected it'd be nice
 
Anyway, looking forward to more news.

Hi Ben, Can you confirm this is the current U12 HDMI output pinout?  Maybe it would be good to make a clear and specific request to Gustard to match some standard, or at least get their point of view on why they are using the current positions. If not possible/desired to change the firmware, maybe they can offer a crossover cable or adapter for various devices.

 

[norbert2nd]

You can check here "http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/164366-i2s-standards-ps-audio.html" that the PS-Audio standard is met by Gustard's implementation. No channel swap and no phase swap.
I can confirm that there is no channel swap on PCM or DSD in my HDMI-connected U12/X12 combo.

 

[Benny-x]

 
Hi Ben, Can you confirm this is the current U12 HDMI output pinout?  Maybe it would be good to make a clear and specific request to Gustard to match some standard, or at least get their point of view on why they are using the current positions. If not possible/desired to change the firmware, maybe they can offer a crossover cable or adapter for various devices.

If you can tell me how to check it, I'll have a look and confirm it
 
I agree that having a specific request like "swap pins 1 and 3, 7 and 9, and 12 and 14 to make your output match the industry standard PS-Audio HDMI-I2s spec" would be a great idea. Definitely more helpful than just asking them to meet that spec. Since there isn't another HDMI-I2s spec that I know of, I'd say they just tried to meet it and accidentally swapped some pairs. If you look at it it's not like the pins are just all over the place, they're very specifically wrong
 
Anyway, let me know how to confirm what pins are doing what and I'll go to work.

 

[motberg]

  You can check here "http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/164366-i2s-standards-ps-audio.html" that the PS-Audio standard is met by Gustard's implementation. No channel swap and no phase swap.
I can confirm that there is no channel swap on PCM or DSD in my HDMI-connected U12/X12 combo.

Hi, thanks for the great link. I am not an EE so maybe reading incorrectly, but seems maybe the data pins 1 & 3 are different phase comparing the info published by PS in your link and the pinout info published by Gustard on their taobao.tw website store. I think this would be interesting info to show to Gustard and get their perspective. Maybe they can provide some phase switch options similar to the Hydra-Z or at least verify that their published pinout is the latest revision. I am a customer and occasionally do product development work with a small Shenzhen/Dongguan electric components supplier and in my experience they really appreciate when they have the opportunity to discuss this kind of detail stuff face-to-face.
 
Other items for the U12 would be external power supply input - and some details on exactly what happens to the USB 5V after it is used to turn-on the device..  

 

[motberg]

  You can check here "http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/164366-i2s-standards-ps-audio.html" that the PS-Audio standard is met by Gustard's implementation. No channel swap and no phase swap.
I can confirm that there is no channel swap on PCM or DSD in my HDMI-connected U12/X12 combo.

Hi Again! I was wondering of you ever compared the HDMI connection to any of the SPDIF options? If so, your impressions on the SQ differences would be most welcome..