I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's great to see other people taking the leap of faith on the Gustard, especially since it's rather unknown and made in China.
Everybody seems to have such a bad connotation of products made in China nowadays that I'm glad to see that there are products out there today to show that it simply isn't the case.
So many of our high-end gadgets are made there, that they certainly have the know how. I'm also aware of the huge audiophile craze there and how big their diy market is. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg would be so proud of them "tuning their own bows." I think there are more serious enthusiasts in China now than there are here in the States. All that being said, I agree with you that there is still some audio snobbery that goes on. I for one am very happy that the love of music and it's excellent reproduction unites us.
I also happen to be a pecunious Scotsman, so if you build a great and affordable mouse trap, I will come.
The Gustard H10 is going to be on sale over Aliexpress on November 11th: http://www.aliexpress.com/premium/GUSTARD-H10.html?ltype=wholesale&SearchText=GUSTARD+H10&d=y&origin=y&initiative_id=SB_20141026140151&isViewCP=y&catId=0
The Gustard H10 is going to be on sale over Aliexpress on November 11th: http://www.aliexpress.com/premium/GUSTARD-H10.html?ltype=wholesale&SearchText=GUSTARD+H10&d=y&origin=y&initiative_id=SB_20141026140151&isViewCP=y&catId=0
Pollychen006 on Ebay is already selling them for less. It was $356 delivered to the States via DHL. I have nothing but praise for this guy. He was very responsive to my emails and shipped the product promptly with a very reliable shipper. It was also very well packaged for protection. Several of us have used him and so far no issues whatsoever. He should be our Gustard go to guy for sure.
Pollychen006 on Ebay is already selling them for less. It was $356 delivered to the States via DHL. I have nothing but praise for this guy. He was very responsive to my emails and shipped the product promptly with a very reliable shipper. It was also very well packaged for protection. Several of us have used him and so far no issues whatsoever. He should be our Gustard go to guy for sure.
I had good success buying from Pollychen006 on Ebay as well. Shipping was much faster than I expected, though I am located on the West Coast, so that may have some impact.
Can't wait to hear your impressions with the amp. I think getting a larger user base will help.
I had good success buying from Pollychen006 on Ebay as well. Shipping was much faster than I expected, though I am located on the West Coast, so that may have some impact.
Can't wait to hear your impressions with the amp. I think getting a larger user base will help.
The burn in has begun. First quick listen was not the best, but that was stone cold with no play time....Ha ha, I should know better. The sucker is definitely powerful...no pre-gain and half way on the volume control is as loud as I can take it. What was your break in experience?
The burn in has begun. First quick listen was not the best, but that was stone cold with no play time....Ha ha, I should know better. The sucker is definitely powerful...no pre-gain and half way on the volume control is as loud as I can take it. What was your break in experience?
I know Flysweep said that the amp really bloomed after a long burn-in period. I don't think I've quite reached that point yet, but I will say that the amp was not great nor terrible when I first received it. I've had the unit for a little over a month now, and I think it sounds great with everything I'm throwing at it.
I'll put it this way, out of the box, it did my HD-800s no favors. It was a much better match for my Enigmas and Paradox Slants.
The burn in has begun. First quick listen was not the best, but that was stone cold with no play time....Ha ha, I should know better. The sucker is definitely powerful...no pre-gain and half way on the volume control is as loud as I can take it. What was your break in experience?
My experience was that.. OOTB.. it sounded dynamically compressed.. lack of ample separation and stage depth.. timbre seemed 'washed out' and flat.. signature was on the bright/lean side to my ears too. Honestly, I wondered what the hell all that circuitry was really doing for some time as I used the H10. It's also why I was pretty silent about it.. I wanted to give it time.. let my ears adjust.. and based on my experience with other discrete amps I've owned.. I figured it *might* sound better with use.. and it surely did. IME, it was a good 100 hours before it sounded like a V200 competitor.
It's stupid powerful though, no? Haha. I can run most everything (even sensitive IEMs) on +0 pre-gain, as well.. I found +6dB to be excellent with my Paradox Slants.. UERM sounds terrific at -12dB or -6dB. My HD650 arrives later today.. I've got a nice aftermarket cable I'll be using with it.. I'm excited to hear this combo.. I may be able to get my hands on an HD800 (fairly soon) to audition with the H10, as well.
Good luck.. congrats on the H10 arrival.. I look forward to your continued impressions!
I'm very interested to learn what you HD800 owners think of the H10. I managed to get into an email exchange with Gustard, to ask if it uses negative feedback to reduce distortion (as I'm keen on using a low feedback or zero-feedback amp with the HD800. I'm happy with my $350, low-feedback, single-ended Class A NuForce HA-200, for now - really happy, so I would have to hear absolutely wonderful things about the H10 to get one for the HD800.
Unfortunately, the fellow at Gustard with whom I had an email exchange, just could not understand my questions regarding negative feedback. He was clueless and I never could get him to escalate my questions to an engineer that understands the concept, even having sent him a link to this excellent article by Nelson Pass, eschewing application of lots of negative feedback for multi-stage amp designs:
We have seen that nonlinear distortion becomes larger and more complex depending on the nonlinear characteristic of the stages, the number of cascaded stages, and the number of spectral elements in the music.
Negative feedback can reduce the total quantity of distortion, but it adds new components on its own, and tempts the designer to use more cascaded gain stages in search of better numbers, accompanied by greater feedback frequency stability issues.
The resulting complexity creates distortion which is unlike the simple harmonics associated with musical instruments, and we see that these complex waves can gather to create the occasional tsunami of distortion, peaking at values far above those imagined by the distortion specifications.
If you want the peak distortion of the circuit of figure 13 to remain below .1% with a complex signal, then you need to reduce it by a factor of about 3000. 70 dB of feedback would do it, but that does seems like a lot.
By contrast,it appears that if you can make a single stage operate at .01% 2nd harmonic with a single tone without feedback, you could also achieve the .1% peak in the complex IM test.
In September on 1995, Stereophile, an established highly respected hi-fi magazine, ran a review of the Cary 300SEI, the first mainstream review of a single ended amplifier. In this design, a single output device is tasked with producing both polarities of the signal swing and had zero negative feedback.
Robert Hartley, one of the senior reviewers, states:
"The 300SEI communicated music in a way I’d never experienced before. There was an immediacy and palpability to the sound that was breathtaking- a musical immediacy the riveted my attention to the music. It reproduced massed violins with beauty unmatched by any electronics I’ve had in my system. It excelled in the most important areas: Harmonic rightness, total lack of grain, astonishing transparency, lifelike sound staging, and a palpability that made the instruments and voices exist in the room."
The article then follows with lab bench test results. They were easily the poorest result in every specification; output power, frequency response, output impedance, total harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, and cross-talk.
"This amplifier measured so poorly as to be a joke...contrary to what we consider good technical performance. I’m convinced the 300SEI doesn’t harm the signal in ways push-pull amplifiers do, and that what the 300SEI does right is beyond the ability of today’s traditional measurements to quantify. I have become convinced single ended tube amplifiers sound fabulous in spite of their distortion, not because of it."
Anyone not familiar with Robert Harley [not "Hartley", as quoted in the Cheever's thesis] should know that he commands a lot of respect in the HiFi community.
So... Given that it's impossible to get an answer out of Gustard as to whether or not the H10 uses negative feedback, I'm not going to buy one until somebody I trust raves about its performance with an HD800 - which, in my opinion, is very sensitive to the complex, low-level (i.e. low volume level) distortion caused by multi-stage amps that use a lot of negative feedback, ironically, to control the distortion that's inherent to multi-stage designs.
My LCD-2 rev.1 don't have enough resolution to hear the edginess of my OPPO HA-1 amp, but the HD800 does. In his recent review of the OPPO HA-1, despite praising it in every other regard, Skylab writes:
I wouldn't recommend [the HA-1] to people who are looking for an amp to solve a "problem" they have with their headphones (and from what I read on several headphone boards this is a very common thing, sadly).
Skylab is talking about the HD800, here! You don't have to spend much time in the HD800 impressions thread to realize that it's not the HD800 that has a problem. It's the majority of amps that have a problem which can be revealed by the HD800!
Here's my HD800 solution, using the $350, low-feedback, single-ended Class A NuForce HA-200:
Regardless of the type of gain device, in systems where the utmost in natural reproduction is the goal, simple single-ended Class A circuits are the topologies of choice.
My experience was that.. OOTB.. it sounded dynamically compressed.. lack of ample separation and stage depth.. timbre seemed 'washed out' and flat.. signature was on the bright/lean side to my ears too. Honestly, I wondered what the hell all that circuitry was really doing for some time as I used the H10. It's also why I was pretty silent about it.. I wanted to give it time.. let my ears adjust.. and based on my experience with other discrete amps I've owned.. I figured it *might* sound better with use.. and it surely did. IME, it was a good 100 hours before it sounded like a V200 competitor.
It's stupid powerful though, no? Haha. I can run most everything (even sensitive IEMs) on +0 pre-gain, as well.. I found +6dB to be excellent with my Paradox Slants.. UERM sounds terrific at -12dB or -6dB. My HD650 arrives later today.. I've got a nice aftermarket cable I'll be using with it.. I'm excited to hear this combo.. I may be able to get my hands on an HD800 (fairly soon) to audition with the H10, as well.
Good luck.. congrats on the H10 arrival.. I look forward to your continued impressions!
Thanks 'mate. I appreciate your thoughts because notwithstanding all the times I've been through this, I still get a little paranoid during the break in process. I use the Purist Audio Disc to speed the process and today I switched over to music to see how things were going and it sounded quite edgy and shrill (compared even to the night before). I forgot that the Purist Disc does that and you have to play music for serveral hours for things to settle down....whew, that really had me in a tizzy. I will be running the HD600 with it and I have a HE-400i coming next week for comparison. I have the Havi B3 Pro to check out how it does with IEMs.
Hey Mike, nice material there. I've been a Nelson Pass fan ever since they sent me a review pair of the Aleph monoblocks years back. I still have them in my downstairs listening room.
Where the heck did you find an email address for Gustard? I searched high and low and couldn't find jack diddly. I have a local client who speaks fluent Mandarin.... Ha, maybe I could use him as an intermediary.
The H10 really turned the corner tonight. With about 40 hours in, the sound has dramatically improved...and when I say improved, I mean going from practically wanting to hang myself in the closet with a 2m interconnect to being down right giddy over its presentation. Now to be honest, there may be some breakin effect going on with the Analysis Plus silver oval XLR interconnects I'm running from the Aune S16 to the H10, since I haven't had much time on them, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly the H10. Fresh interconnects just don't sound like this and I'm hearing one of the most dramatic break in transformations I've heard in a very long time.
This is what I call a tubey ss amp. It seems to do those things I like most about great tube amps - space and air around images with a strain free, delicate top end.... and just the right amount of midrange warmth. The stage really opened up tonight and all the fine resolution is coming through now with an effortless ease that is just plain gorgeous. Dynamics are excellent and the background is dead silent, black as black can be. I think my HD600s are really liking the power and damping factor.
That's great to hear, Stuart. I didn't want to stress the 'break in' aspect of the H10 too much (despite finding it quite apparent & important with this particular amp).. because anyone who's been at HF long enough knows how those discussions tend to, almost inevitably, spiral out of control/topic. For the record, I'm not a hardcore subjectivist or hardcore objectivist. I believe that using both approaches in a harmonious, symbiotic manner yields the most informed and effective perspective.
My beloved HD650 arrived today (This is the second pair I've purchased. After I sold my first pair of 650's a few months ago.. I bought both the HE-560 & LCD-2F (the H10 was intended to power these, btw).. I was extremely impressed with both planars.. yet, I sold them and went back to the 650.. that's how much I love them!). Do note, my HD 650 is brand spanking new (as are the aftermarket ADL/Furutech Senn headphone cables).. so make of that what you will in terms of burn-in/conditioning. I'll cut right to the chase: I find the H10 to be a superb match for the HD 650. The H10 masterfully amplifies the 650's "quasi-romantic" sound with quiet aplomb. What do I hear with this combo? Wonderfully smooth micro- and macro-dynamics.. excellent resolving ability that's astonishingly grainless (unless the recording or upstream gear introduces it).. vivid tonal transparency..and terrific driver control. Through the H10, the 650 sounds full bodied without sacrificing speed or precision to achieve it. One other thing I noticed is how clean and well rendered the treble is. Lots of careful listening revealed a real lack of etch & glare in the mid- & upper-treble frequencies. In some ways, the 650 sounded almost "planar-like" in that it possessed powerful, yet smooth dynamic qualities, the ability to uncover low level information in an effortless, natural manner, and it displayed a cohesiveness that I found quite admirable. IME so far, the HD650/H10 combo is an absolute winner.
That's great to hear, Stuart. I didn't want to stress the 'break in' aspect of the H10 too much (despite finding it quite apparent & important with this particular amp).. because anyone who's been at HF long enough knows how those discussions tend to, almost inevitably, spiral out of control/topic. For the record, I'm not a hardcore subjectivist or hardcore objectivist. I believe that using both approaches in a harmonious, symbiotic manner yields the most informed and effective perspective.
My beloved HD650 arrived today (This is the second pair I've purchased. After I sold my first pair of 650's a few months ago.. I bought both the HE-560 & LCD-2F (the H10 was intended to power these, btw).. I was extremely impressed with both planars.. yet, I sold them and went back to the 650.. that's how much I love them!). Do note, my HD 650 is brand spanking new (as are the aftermarket ADL/Furutech Senn headphone cables).. so make of that what you will in terms of burn-in/conditioning. I'll cut right to the chase: I find the H10 to be a superb match for the HD 650. The H10 masterfully amplifies the 650's "quasi-romantic" sound with quiet aplomb. What do I hear with this combo? Wonderfully smooth micro- and macro-dynamics.. excellent resolving ability that's astonishingly grainless (unless the recording or upstream gear introduces it).. vivid tonal transparency..and terrific driver control. Through the H10, the 650 sounds full bodied without sacrificing speed or precision to achieve it. One other thing I noticed is how clean and well rendered the treble is. Lots of careful listening revealed a real lack of etch & glare in the mid- & upper-treble frequencies. In some ways, the 650 sounded almost "planar-like" in that it possessed powerful, yet smooth dynamic qualities, the ability to uncover low level information in an effortless, natural manner, and it displayed a cohesiveness that I found quite admirable. IME so far, the HD650/H10 combo is an absolute winner.
I'm impressed how you manage to make me love the H10 even though I don't have it yet
I still got the HD-650 and will definitely keep it for comparaison with other headphones. Didn't you have/heard it with a Crack before? (someone was mentioning this in page 1) The comparaison would be interesting, albeit audio memory isn't our strongest suit.
Hey Mike, nice material there. I've been a Nelson Pass fan ever since they sent me a review pair of the Aleph monoblocks years back. I still have them in my downstairs listening room.
Where the heck did you find an email address for Gustard? I searched high and low and couldn't find jack diddly. I have a local client who speaks fluent Mandarin.... Ha, maybe I could use him as an intermediary.
I started out using the html-based contact page at shenzhenaudio. When the rep there couldn't answer my question he said he would forward it to their contact at Gustard who started an email exchange with me directly, but asked that I not share his address saying, "we have no people to handle many questions."
Communication between me and the guy at Gustard isn't the problem. His written English is really pretty good. The problem is that he is some kind of front-office guy, not an EE, and I suspect when he translates words like "negative feedback" into Mandarin or Cantonese or whatever to the amp's designer, something gets very lost in the translation. I've not had a reply since I sent the links to the articles with which I am trying to educate him. There's always the possibility they understand the question perfectly, but just don't want to disappoint me with the news that it's a multi-stage design using massive amounts of negative feedback!
In the end, it doesn't matter. As usual in this industry, I'm going to have to buy the device to hear it (with my DAC, my headphones, my ears, my tastes) and hearing it is going to tell me all I really need to know.
My problem is that I after 10 months of asking myself why I shouldn't just sell the HD800 for lack of an affordable way to provide it with a signal that wasn't edgy and fatiguing, without losing any resolution or transparency, I've hit on the Metrum Octave MkII > NuForce HA-200 combination, which is so thoroughly satisfying for the HD800, I really have very little incentive to experiment with another amp - especially one that is most likely using a lot of negative feedback - which can sound great with nearly every headphone except the HD800 (as hinted by Skylab in his review of the very transparent and detailed OPPO HA-1).
That's the thing with the HD800, it's head-and-shoulders more resolving than anything except perhaps for Stax gear, digging down into those low level signals where the "complex distortion" (as described by Nelson Pass) that's created by use of negative feedback in multi-stage designs can absolutely destroy the natural, open ambiance that I'm hearing currently - again, after 10 months of trying to get there. Really, it's that wealth of low-level, micro-detailed information that resides just above a low-noise, transparent blackness, that can enhance your perception of space and imaging, and define the natural timbre of voices and instruments. Though not due to negative feedback, I find the Schiit Vali to be especially good at destroying the timbre that distinguishes one voice from another or one brass instrument from another. People who recommend the Schiit Vali for use with the HD800 are just happy as can be to smother the excruciating resolution of the HD800 with a veil that, to my ears, makes everything have a similar timbre. It reminds me of my mother-in-law's preserves - blackberry,raspberry, strawberry - the way she makes them, they all taste the same! And frankly, having had both the HD600 and the HD650, in my opinion, neither of them are, in themselves, sufficiently transparent to judge the transparency of upstream equipment. Which can be a good thing, believe me!
OK, enough of rambling about the impact of negative feedback.
That's great to hear, Stuart. I didn't want to stress the 'break in' aspect of the H10 too much (despite finding it quite apparent & important with this particular amp).. because anyone who's been at HF long enough knows how those discussions tend to, almost inevitably, spiral out of control/topic. For the record, I'm not a hardcore subjectivist or hardcore objectivist. I believe that using both approaches in a harmonious, symbiotic manner yields the most informed and effective
I'm coming from the same place. Some components just don't exhibit much of the break in effect, others do. This happens to be one that does in a rather significant way. I'm still somewhat skeptical of those that claim a component needs 150+ hours to sound it's best. In my experience (with everything except devices with a mechanical aspect, like loudspeakers) the vast majority of change occurs in the 20 to 50 hour range and anything after that is probably more wishful thinking and perspective adjustment.
The planar-like sound has got to be the vice grip control the ultra low output impedance H10 has on the Senn's drivers...not to mention the rather huge voltage swings and current this thing is capable of. I'm hearing it too. Words like "fast," "precise" and expressions like "stop on a dime," come to mind. All manor of distortions are reduced when that little diaphragm starts and stops the way it is supposed to. If the H10 can do this with the Senn, I can only imagine what it can do with a true planar dynamic. Ha ha, I won't have to imagine for long - the Hifimans are on their way.
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