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

[BShaw]

Is the difference using this extra gear a 100% difference? When one reconnects a copper cable the same effect returns in the entending cable

Definitely not 100%, and it’s been a long time since I added them, but I still recall how surprised I was at the difference. Nothing like a speaker upgrade, but the removal of noise has a pretty hefty impact on clarity, detail, etc…..all the more delicate things you probably wouldn’t notice in a car but when sitting down to listen it’s very obvious.

 

[Dandoudou]

I'm back to using my Audio-GD DI-20HE over the Gustard U18 I was trying out. Only to find the I2S output of the DI-20HE doesn't work for the R26. I've been searching through this thread and the DI-20HE thread to no avail...anyone have further information on how to mod an HDMI cable to accomplish this shorting, or somewhere to buy a custom HDMI cable with such a layout?

EDIT: I was able to find a piece of metal small and thin enough to stick between the pin 15 and pin 17 holes to attempt shorting pin 15. It does seem like it works in theory, as now my Gustard is showing PCM (instead of "UNLOCK") when I'm on the I2S mode, but there is no sound output. The COAX connection from my DI-20HE continues to work fine. Any thoughts? Maybe I just broke my HDMI cable instead? Or maybe I just have a bad HDMI out from my DI-20HE?

The R26 needs to get a 5V flag on pin 15 when it receives DSD through I2S, but the DI-20HE does not do that.
There's no solution for this problem except a custom DIY HDMI cable like the one that I have. It was built by a friend.
This cable has a 2.5 mm input for a connection to a LPS. When playing a DSD album, I have to connect the DC cable of a 5V LPS to the HDMI cable. It powers pin 15 with 5V. The R26 recognizes than the stream as being DSD, and plays it fine.
It's not very convenient, but it's the only way one can stream DSD from the DI-20HE to the R26.

 

[Buckminster]

Hi @camrector and @Jake2 , by chance were you ever able to eliminate the DSD Direct hiss with 44.1khz tracks, or mitigate its effects with any combination of modulators and filters? I find it seems to strike at random for me even with consistent HQPlayer settings: sometimes it's quite loud, other times it's hardly audible, if at all, on the same tracks. (Current settings: DSD512, ASDM7ECv3, poly-sinc-ext3, less demanding settings have produced similar result)

Furthermore, on the PCM 48khz side, I'm finding that NOS mode doesn't seem to engage at 768khz only as I can still cycle through the onboard PCM filters. This isn't the case with 384 and lower, where you can clearly hear the effects of NOS mode engaging and the slow/mid/fast filters are disabled. All in addition to the original external clock issue I had outlined in an earlier post which Gustard wasn't able to answer.

I continue to enjoy this DAC, even as I continue to be confounded by some of its quirks.

Any ideas? Apologies if any of these questions were answered definitively upthread. Happy New Year to all!

 

[Jake2]

Hi @camrector and @Jake2 , by chance were you ever able to eliminate the DSD Direct hiss with 44.1khz tracks, or mitigate its effects with any combination of modulators and filters? I find it seems to strike at random for me even with consistent HQPlayer settings: sometimes it's quite loud, other times it's hardly audible, if at all, on the same tracks. (Current settings: DSD512, ASDM7ECv3, poly-sinc-ext3, less demanding settings have produced similar result)

Furthermore, on the PCM 48khz side, I'm finding that NOS mode doesn't seem to engage at 768khz only as I can still cycle through the onboard PCM filters. This isn't the case with 384 and lower, where you can clearly hear the effects of NOS mode engaging and the slow/mid/fast filters are disabled. All in addition to the original external clock issue I had outlined in an earlier post which Gustard wasn't able to answer.

I continue to enjoy this DAC, even as I continue to be confounded by some of its quirks.

Any ideas? Apologies if any of these questions were answered definitively upthread. Happy New Year to all!

For me the DSD hiss was near inaudible at my listening position, especially with music playing, only obvious up to close to speakers with no music playing, so didn’t really bother me. From what little experimentation I did I found native rate 44.1 multiples (with hiss) sounded better than interpolated upscaled to 48khz multiples (no hiss). So no solve, but haven’t listened to DSD for a while for various reasons.

Haven’t experimented much with R26 filters and am on holiday so away from gear so can’t comment on that point.

 

[camrector]

Hi @camrector and @Jake2 , by chance were you ever able to eliminate the DSD Direct hiss with 44.1khz tracks, or mitigate its effects with any combination of modulators and filters? I find it seems to strike at random for me even with consistent HQPlayer settings: sometimes it's quite loud, other times it's hardly audible, if at all, on the same tracks. (Current settings: DSD512, ASDM7ECv3, poly-sinc-ext3, less demanding settings have produced similar result)

Furthermore, on the PCM 48khz side, I'm finding that NOS mode doesn't seem to engage at 768khz only as I can still cycle through the onboard PCM filters. This isn't the case with 384 and lower, where you can clearly hear the effects of NOS mode engaging and the slow/mid/fast filters are disabled. All in addition to the original external clock issue I had outlined in an earlier post which Gustard wasn't able to answer.

I continue to enjoy this DAC, even as I continue to be confounded by some of its quirks.

Any ideas? Apologies if any of these questions were answered definitively upthread. Happy New Year to all!

I did not ever solve this issue and moved on to the A26 because of it.
I believe that that 1bit DSD dac is just noisy.
No noise on the A26. Dead silent and sounds fantastic.
But the AK4499 chip has its own quirks
DSD128 and DSD256 are its only native rates. So DSD64 and DSD512 are a no go! Lol

 

[Buckminster]

@camrector that is funny! These Gustard products sure keep you on your toes.
@Jake2 That's what I suspected, but I agree it doesn't bother me too much either; it's definitely a pseudo-vinyl experience. I'll try to diagnose the factors that seem to exaggerate it. Thank you both!

 

[leylandi]

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/gustard-h26-fully-balanced-class-a-headphone-amp.971200/

 

[Gotgi19]

Happy new year to everyone. Just wanted to share my new audiophile experience. Last summer I bought an Gustard U18. By accident I must admit. I was just looking for a device that has an USB input as (at this time) I was an Apple Music user. So I could connect the ipad via USB to the U18, via Coax into my Arcam ST60 streamer and into my Arcam AVR20. So far so good.
A couple of weeks ago I stumbled over this forum and I read everything about the U18, the C18 and the R26 and the X26 Pro ( including all the “upgrades” like SR Purple fuses and so on).
As I was always looking for great sound I thought what the heck. I am 55, my hearing is still very good (in my opinion), so why wait? The “mistake” I maybe made was to order it all at once: the C18 clock, the R26, 2 C2 cables and 2 SR purple fuses. Maybe a step by step installation would have been better (to figure out which element does what to the sound) but I didn’t want to wait. So the system is up and running for a week now and today the final step was made by switching from sine to squarewave on the C18. I am blown away! I still have my Infinity Kappa 8 (34 years) and I can’t believe how good they sound now. It’s audio-heaven. So a big THANKYOU to all of you who shared your experiences in these forums and gave advice. It helped me tremendously. Of course I ditched Apple Music and from my MacMini there is now a connection to the U18 and I am using Roon and Qobuz. Couldn’t wish for more. Enjoying my music now which sounds phenomenal.

 

[LucianoBadoe]

@Gotgi19, congrats for the achievements and inspirational sharing.

 

[ray12345]

Happy new year to everyone. Just wanted to share my new audiophile experience. Last summer I bought an Gustard U18. By accident I must admit. I was just looking for a device that has an USB input as (at this time) I was an Apple Music user. So I could connect the ipad via USB to the U18, via Coax into my Arcam ST60 streamer and into my Arcam AVR20. So far so good.
A couple of weeks ago I stumbled over this forum and I read everything about the U18, the C18 and the R26 and the X26 Pro ( including all the “upgrades” like SR Purple fuses and so on).
As I was always looking for great sound I thought what the heck. I am 55, my hearing is still very good (in my opinion), so why wait? The “mistake” I maybe made was to order it all at once: the C18 clock, the R26, 2 C2 cables and 2 SR purple fuses. Maybe a step by step installation would have been better (to figure out which element does what to the sound) but I didn’t want to wait. So the system is up and running for a week now and today the final step was made by switching from sine to squarewave on the C18. I am blown away! I still have my Infinity Kappa 8 (34 years) and I can’t believe how good they sound now. It’s audio-heaven. So a big THANKYOU to all of you who shared your experiences in these forums and gave advice. It helped me tremendously. Of course I ditched Apple Music and from my MacMini there is now a connection to the U18 and I am using Roon and Qobuz. Couldn’t wish for more. Enjoying my music now which sounds phenomenal.

Great!! Congratulations!!

BTW, I will just mention 2 things that you may be interested, which may bring your system to an even higher level :

1) for C18, connecting it to both U18 and the DAC has audible benefits, at least I am sure of this on X26 Pro, I haven't tried U18 on R26 much. Personally, I am using Cybershaft blue clock cable to connect from clock to U18, and then Harmonic Tech DCIII from clock to X26 Pro.
2) clock cables affect the sound a lot, use it to tune the sound to your liking. Try Harmonic Tech DCIII, I think that is much better than Gustard C2.

 

[Gotgi19]

Great!! Congratulations!!

BTW, I will just mention 2 things that you may be interested, which may bring your system to an even higher level :

1) for C18, connecting it to both U18 and the DAC has audible benefits, at least I am sure of this on X26 Pro, I haven't tried U18 on R26 much. Personally, I am using Cybershaft blue clock cable to connect from clock to U18, and then Harmonic Tech DCIII from clock to X26 Pro.
2) clock cables affect the sound a lot, use it to tune the sound to your liking. Try Harmonic Tech DCIII, I think that is much better than Gustard C2.

I have 2 Gustard C2 cables connected to both, the U18 and the R26 and I am very happy with the sound. Those cables aren’t cheap to just buy some and check them out. They are hard to get here in Germany. Bought my C2 cables in France. Wouldn’t buy something that comes shipped from a dealer in China in case of problems or returns. Just looked up the DCiii. Couldn’t even find a dealer for the 50 ohm cable in Europe. Where did you buy yours?

 

[LucianoBadoe]

Where did you buy yours?

I recommend Ramble Audio.
Very attentive to customers and better shipment costs.

 

[DeckHiFi]

Currawong might be onto something with this Dac or it’s just a great setup in general. Pretty sure he said optical was best input on this dac per his YouTube video. Tried for first time tonight connecting a bluray player playing CDs to this disc via optical. Loving this with EDIT: mid filter (might depend on album), nos off. The music just sounds very enjoyable and right if that makes sense. That being said, this dac has sounded great to me many times in the past. But I’m a big fan of playing CDs now.

 

[powermod]

Hi, I have a probably naive beginners question...

I am using the R26 via USB on a Mac as audio device, dint't experiment with streaming or other inputs so far. Music comes from Apple music.

When I switch between NOS on/off or PCM filter low/mid/fast, I can hear no difference. Is this due to USB connection? Do these settings only affect other inputs?

 

[sajunky]

Hi, I have a probably naive beginners question...

I am using the R26 via USB on a Mac as audio device, dint't experiment with streaming or other inputs so far. Music comes from Apple music.

When I switch between NOS on/off or PCM filter low/mid/fast, I can hear no difference. Is this due to USB connection? Do these settings only affect other inputs?

Some say all DACs sound the same. It can true on low resolving systems. MAC is a source of harmful energy. The over engineered USB, combination of noise from superspeed wires, internal Thunderbolt and high voltage power delivery circuits over USB take a hit. And (unless I am wrong) Gustard do not have a common in this price range galvanic isolation on the USB port, so take care of ground loops.

First remove radiation from superspeed wires by inserting USB 2.0 hub between MAC and a DAC. Get a hub with external power supply, so it will redirect MAC ground loops to its own power supply. Cable between MAC and a hub should be very short, not an audiophile grade, but using thick wires. It must not have moulded ferrite beads. A cable to a DAC should have ferrite beads.

Instead of 2.0 hub you can use Ifi Defender or other audiphile grade USB cleaners. Not all them are transparrent to the complicated USB protocol, so start with iDefender.

Next step would be using converters like Douk Audio U2 /Pro. It won't invalidate your existing investment, it should just add value, low-jitter clocks (if you chose such option) and another ground loops redirector stage (after adding power supply).