REXNFX
500+ Head-Fier
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Tidal Connect has sounded bad on every streamer I have tried so far. I imagine Roon and other options sound better with the R26? Anyone compared all the options?
GUSTARD DAC-R26 Balanced Decoder R2R+1Bit Dual Native Decoding Music Bridge
- Thread starter m-i-c-k-e-y
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BShaw
1000+ Head-Fier
Since a lot of us have the fiber media converters in our system, I wanted to revisit the topic, specifically regarding the last bit of ethernet cable from the second box to the R26. I've had several cables in there, the last being a plain old BlueJeans, great bang for buck IMHO, which displaced a very nice Supra with Telegatners.
Well, our very own Camrector has been making some very nice cables lately, and he dropped one on me! It's the prettiest ethernet cable I've seen, made with 20ga solid Neotech silver in oversized teflon tubing (air dielectric).
I have a lot of silver in my system at this point, and figured I know what silver sounds like, but I didn't have much expectation of hearing much difference with this cable, and didn't want to have to tell my friend that it sounded about the same as the $12 BlueJeans cable. Fortunately I didn't have to.
At first I thought things were sounding a bit dark, so I let it run for an hour or so, and started listening to tracks I know well. What I started to realize was that there was no loss of detail, it was all there, but now there's a sense of heft that I've always felt was slightly lacking with the R26. Somehow this cable is allowing more body to the sound, not what one usually expects from silver, although I do think most of the criticisms of silver are due to it being not soft enough or "clean" enough. I sat for quite a long while and heard things open up more and more. There's a quality to the delivery of music that's hard to describe, but it translates to realism or sometimes people call it 'speed'. What I think it is, is the rapid rise of transits, where the immediacy of an impulse is conveyed. It's what we hear with high sensitivity speakers too. Well that's what this cable is doing, and it's knocking the socks off any other I've had in the chain. It's very hard to describe things that seem to perform in contradictory ways, but there's a liquid smoothness to the sound but no loss of liveliness or sense of things being rounded off, which only makes sense if you could hear it.
Anyway, sorry for going a bit OT but I can definitely say that in my experience, it's worth having a really high quality ethernet cable in this vital last link to the Gustard. I know Cam worked hard on the design and played with a lot of combinations before his pride would let him make one for me (I'm a bit of a pain in the arse). Neotech silver is expensive, and this was a gift, but I'd never go back to copper now and will probably upgrade at the source end now even though I don't think it will make nearly as much difference.
Well, our very own Camrector has been making some very nice cables lately, and he dropped one on me! It's the prettiest ethernet cable I've seen, made with 20ga solid Neotech silver in oversized teflon tubing (air dielectric).
I have a lot of silver in my system at this point, and figured I know what silver sounds like, but I didn't have much expectation of hearing much difference with this cable, and didn't want to have to tell my friend that it sounded about the same as the $12 BlueJeans cable. Fortunately I didn't have to.
At first I thought things were sounding a bit dark, so I let it run for an hour or so, and started listening to tracks I know well. What I started to realize was that there was no loss of detail, it was all there, but now there's a sense of heft that I've always felt was slightly lacking with the R26. Somehow this cable is allowing more body to the sound, not what one usually expects from silver, although I do think most of the criticisms of silver are due to it being not soft enough or "clean" enough. I sat for quite a long while and heard things open up more and more. There's a quality to the delivery of music that's hard to describe, but it translates to realism or sometimes people call it 'speed'. What I think it is, is the rapid rise of transits, where the immediacy of an impulse is conveyed. It's what we hear with high sensitivity speakers too. Well that's what this cable is doing, and it's knocking the socks off any other I've had in the chain. It's very hard to describe things that seem to perform in contradictory ways, but there's a liquid smoothness to the sound but no loss of liveliness or sense of things being rounded off, which only makes sense if you could hear it.
Anyway, sorry for going a bit OT but I can definitely say that in my experience, it's worth having a really high quality ethernet cable in this vital last link to the Gustard. I know Cam worked hard on the design and played with a lot of combinations before his pride would let him make one for me (I'm a bit of a pain in the arse). Neotech silver is expensive, and this was a gift, but I'd never go back to copper now and will probably upgrade at the source end now even though I don't think it will make nearly as much difference.
Nice write up Brian and great work on the cable @camrector , very neatly finished and clearly sounds excellent.Since a lot of us have the fiber media converters in our system, I wanted to revisit the topic, specifically regarding the last bit of ethernet cable from the second box to the R26. I've had several cables in there, the last being a plain old BlueJeans, great bang for buck IMHO, which displaced a very nice Supra with Telegatners.
Well, our very own Camrector has been making some very nice cables lately, and he dropped one on me! It's the prettiest ethernet cable I've seen, made with 20ga solid Neotech silver in oversized teflon tubing (air dielectric).
I have a lot of silver in my system at this point, and figured I know what silver sounds like, but I didn't have much expectation of hearing much difference with this cable, and didn't want to have to tell my friend that it sounded about the same as the $12 BlueJeans cable. Fortunately I didn't have to.
At first I thought things were sounding a bit dark, so I let it run for an hour or so, and started listening to tracks I know well. What I started to realize was that there was no loss of detail, it was all there, but now there's a sense of heft that I've always felt was slightly lacking with the R26. Somehow this cable is allowing more body to the sound, not what one usually expects from silver, although I do think most of the criticisms of silver are due to it being not soft enough or "clean" enough. I sat for quite a long while and heard things open up more and more. There's a quality to the delivery of music that's hard to describe, but it translates to realism or sometimes people call it 'speed'. What I think it is, is the rapid rise of transits, where the immediacy of an impulse is conveyed. It's what we hear with high sensitivity speakers too. Well that's what this cable is doing, and it's knocking the socks off any other I've had in the chain. It's very hard to describe things that seem to perform in contradictory ways, but there's a liquid smoothness to the sound but no loss of liveliness or sense of things being rounded off, which only makes sense if you could hear it.
Anyway, sorry for going a bit OT but I can definitely say that in my experience, it's worth having a really high quality ethernet cable in this vital last link to the Gustard. I know Cam worked hard on the design and played with a lot of combinations before his pride would let him make one for me (I'm a bit of a pain in the arse). Neotech silver is expensive, and this was a gift, but I'd never go back to copper now and will probably upgrade at the source end now even though I don't think it will make nearly as much difference.
The fine terminations required in an ethernet cable would be well outside my comfort zone. Instead I am experimenting with stacked Mundorf foil ribbons as ground box 'cables' to the R26 and other components. With PTFE thin film, PTFE 'dry' spray and air as dielectic. Silk sleeve outer. A WIP. (Also got some 2mm 14AWG Mundorf Angelique to rewire my power amp) Remarkable how much difference the conductors and topography of a 'mere' ground cable makes, let alone - I'm sure - a digital signal carrying cable like an ethernet cable. On ethernet I've been experimenting with vibration damping directly on the OCXO in my switch. It's incredible how much difference each additional layer makes - audio over ethernet is waaay more sensitive to the precision of the signal than I'd ever have imagined. I now have a decent ethernet cable, Furutech LAN-8 NCF (24 AWG silver-plated OCC copper conductors), which was a nice step up, but nothing like what @BShaw is describing or the damping improvements I describe.
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BShaw
1000+ Head-Fier
Sounds like fun Jake! Have you considered making a set of those foils with 44mm Mundorf for speaker cables? Except I'd suggest separating the foils rather than laminating them ala Goertz. I made a pair some time back and they were outstanding. Cotton trumps silk as a dielectric, but I know silk has its fans, good damping. I've never heard of this "dry" PTFE spray, sounds really interesting, if only as an anti-oxidizing film for the copper. I used a thin film of conservation wax.
I agree about the sensitivity of the digital signal, everything I do to tend to its ease of transmission seems to pay back audibly!
I'm buying a pair of grounding rods this week, in anticipation of getting my Puritan Groundmaster, which I'll connect through the floor and straight down into the undisturbed, 1881 dirt basement floor!
Cheers Brian. I haven't seriously considered making foil speaker cables, suspect I'd jump straight to Silversmith Fideliums. From my experimentation to date 50 & 70mm wide 0.05mm thick copper foil tapes works exceptionally well offboarding high frequency RF noise from the ground pane - all about skin effect at MHz and GHz frequencies. Hence taking it up a level with hopefully purer copper foil from Mundorf
Using PTFE spray on conductors is simply an off-label use of a spray like this. https://www.wd40.com/products/dry-lube/
I've yet to try it. Haven't read about anyone else doing so but thought it was worth a shot. I wouldn't use it to insulate two conductors with different polarity eg. ground /neutral/hot etc, as in YouTube videos the coating can be scraped off, but I reckon it's worth a go as an oxidation preventative and a budget if imperfect - 'Litz' style insulation at the strand level within a multi-strand cable... Or between foils of a multi-foil conductor as in my case.
Very cool re the Puritan and Groundmaster. I used a 50mm wide, 2metre long 0.8mm thick copper strap from AliX with slightly greater surface area than two rods. I may have some recommendations on the optimal cable to the ground rod to use too as a result of my ground box experimentation. Will keep you posted.
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BShaw
1000+ Head-Fier
I have the Fideliums too. Done. the info Jeff has published on his site re wave theory is illuminating, and between that and speaking with him (he was very patient with questions I had), I have an entirely different perspective on how signal is actually conducted in our systems.
amrutmhatre90
Head-Fier
I am using Tidal connect via Eversolo to R26, but it doesn't sound bad.
I have AB'ed with Qobuz, it is almost identical
Only time the streaming sounded bad was when I used a LAN and used R26 directly to play via bubble UnPnp. But Roon and HQPLAYER NAA solved this.
That's weird since pretty much everybody raves about LAN input. I haven't compared it A/B with USB yet. Listened a bit either way and liked both. When it comes to streaming I can only use UPnP unless I figure out how to make Tidal work. Roon is crazy expensive for me.
Btw. Is HQPlayer paid? I could never find that out.
m-i-c-k-e-y
Headphoneus Supremus
sajunky
Headphoneus Supremus
Even it if off-topic, I need to ask you a question. What is a link speed of your cable and your other cables? If you can't verify speed on the FMC, connect Gustard directly to a switch which has link speed indicators. Thanks.
BShaw
1000+ Head-Fier
Ok it’s official I’ve sold my R26 and got a great deal on an A26 that includes a SR purple fuse. Thanks @ericx85 !!!
I have loved the R26 since day 1. It’s truly been a remarkable DAC, and with its feature set CAN NOT be touched for under $5000.
To me it’s only short comings are the reasons I’m making this lateral move.
As someone who uses HQplayer, I want to convert and upsample to DSD. I personally do not like the 1bit DSD dac in the R26. As @BShaw can attest to, it was extremely noisy with a very audible “hiss” in my system.
The A26 with the AKM chip provides a cleaner DSD256 implentation that I’m looking for as well as DSD direct.
I’ll still be here on this thread tho to help anyone. It has been an amazing journey with you all going deep with this DAC.
We took a very well designed product, deconstructed and studied every bit of it, came up with improvements and left this thing better than we found it.
Gustard should be very pleased with themselves not just for designing a well made product, but more importantly creating a bridge where life long friendships could be made.
Thank you all! And extra special thanks to @m-i-c-k-e-y for this amazing thread and organization.
I have loved the R26 since day 1. It’s truly been a remarkable DAC, and with its feature set CAN NOT be touched for under $5000.
To me it’s only short comings are the reasons I’m making this lateral move.
As someone who uses HQplayer, I want to convert and upsample to DSD. I personally do not like the 1bit DSD dac in the R26. As @BShaw can attest to, it was extremely noisy with a very audible “hiss” in my system.
The A26 with the AKM chip provides a cleaner DSD256 implentation that I’m looking for as well as DSD direct.
I’ll still be here on this thread tho to help anyone. It has been an amazing journey with you all going deep with this DAC.
We took a very well designed product, deconstructed and studied every bit of it, came up with improvements and left this thing better than we found it.
Gustard should be very pleased with themselves not just for designing a well made product, but more importantly creating a bridge where life long friendships could be made.
Thank you all! And extra special thanks to @m-i-c-k-e-y for this amazing thread and organization.
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m-i-c-k-e-y
Headphoneus Supremus
Thank you always for your contributions @camrector
Maybe I should re-evaluate again for upsampled DSD.
hmmm....
Maybe I should re-evaluate again for upsampled DSD.
hmmm....adewolf2
New Head-Fier
Hello all:
I have Gustard R26 and it's not being found on the network using jriver media center app on MACOS. I tried to update the firmward using the firmware USBC connector above the Ethernet connector and a windows 11 laptop with USB C to USB A adapter cable. It's not being seen on the Windows 11 laptop, is thar another way to update the firmware? This is working fine with a Bricasti M3 streamer DAC. I forgot to mention that my DHCP server is handing out a IP address and I can ssh into the R26. Anyone know the root password for ssh on the R26 or other credentials?
Thanks
I have Gustard R26 and it's not being found on the network using jriver media center app on MACOS. I tried to update the firmward using the firmware USBC connector above the Ethernet connector and a windows 11 laptop with USB C to USB A adapter cable. It's not being seen on the Windows 11 laptop, is thar another way to update the firmware? This is working fine with a Bricasti M3 streamer DAC. I forgot to mention that my DHCP server is handing out a IP address and I can ssh into the R26. Anyone know the root password for ssh on the R26 or other credentials?
Thanks
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