GUSTARD DAC-R26 Balanced Decoder R2R+1Bit Dual Native Decoding Music Bridge

[BShaw]

I streamed both with an LG and my iphone/ipad (all wired connections) until I bought Zen Stream a few months ago. There was a definite bump in performance with the Zen Stream, and having Tidal Connect makes it a slam dunk for me.

 

[comzee]

On the new 1.3 Gustarender update and can confirm NAA works with HQP now.

How did you get 1.3 update, I went to gustard.cn and it seems the download link is giving me version 1.21?

edit:
Eh just as I posted this, I found it. It's under the "driver download" section not the "bridge firmware".

edit2:
I updated, and couldn't get Roon to find R26.
I had to completely power off R26 (not just press the front button that puts it to sleep)
This is the only thing that fixed it. Just posting if others upgrade and have this issue.

 

[Nada]

I use PGGB upsampling under Foobar2000

How does PGGB upsampling sound on R26 vs NOS?

Have you tried any other upsamplers?

Why PGGB?

 

[ray12345]

How does PGGB upsampling sound on R26 vs NOS?

Have you tried any other upsamplers?

Why PGGB?

Haven't tried others, PGGB just happened to be integrated with Foobar2000 which I use, convenience is the only reason. It sounds good too.

On X26, the PGGB upsampling and NOS makes the sound more analog like. On R26, the sound was already quite analog like from the R2R, so the effect of NOS and upsampling is not very significant. It does sound a bit clearer, but that's it.

 

[mmwwmm]

Yep it's SigmaStar (MediaTek owned) SSD201. (because of RAM size)
I think they cheap out too much.

Here is a pic of the PCB inside the R26

 

[Nada]

On R26, the sound was already quite analog like from the R2R, so the effect of NOS and upsampling is not very significant. It does sound a bit clearer, but that's it.

Thanks for sharing. Its nice to have a NOS R2R. It gives the choice to try NOS or OS/filters and brew to taste

 

[NoaHimesaka]

Here is a pic of the PCB inside the R26

My mistakes. It's 128MB so SSD202D is correct.

 

[NoaHimesaka]

I got TIDAL Connect working on R26 streamer! It was tedious but it was fun. MQA works of course.

 

[kenjamin0523]

I got TIDAL Connect working on R26 streamer! It was tedious but it was fun. MQA works of course.

It’d be really nice to have tidal connect on R26. Would you share how to do that?

 

[BShaw]

+1 for this request, thank you!

 

[pankar0]

+1 for me...

 

[PeteJ]

sounds like interesting project +1 for this request, would be great if you could share more details @NoaHimesaka

 

[Alcophone]

I got TIDAL Connect working on R26 streamer! It was tedious but it was fun. MQA works of course.

Haha, did you copy iFi's implementation over to the R26? Sneaky! Exciting times.

 

[Dandion]

From what I see, there is already everything we need to use Tidal with the R26 without streamer in the loop.

So we have 2 options:
1) use bluetooth LDAC from your smartphone/tablet with the R26
2) or connect an ethernet cable to the R26, use Bubleupnp to stream Tidal, probably the best option here...
Why add other devices and jitters in the DAC when we already have evertthing?

 

[Alcophone]

From what I see, there is already everything we need to use Tidal with the R26 without streamer in the loop.

So we have 2 options:
1) use bluetooth LDAC from your smartphone/tablet with the R26

That's lossy and requires good connectivity between the controlling device and the DAC because the phone/tablet streams the music to the R26.

2) or connect an ethernet cable to the R26, use Bubleupnp to stream Tidal, probably the best option here...

That also requires good connectivity.

If Tidal Connect works like Spotify Connect it just's for control, i.e. you'd tell the DAC which song to play, and the DAC retrieves it itself over the network (which could be a stable wired connection while your phone is on spotty Wi-Fi, no problem). You can turn your phone off after that and it'll happily keep playing because it has its own connection.