[denti]

Has the firmware been made available for the SU-1 to enable DSD516?I heard they've been working on it.

 

[crazychile]

Help me. The headfi "upgrade" as absorbed me into the system and I'm lost. I can't navigate to get home. Tell my wife I love her. I'm lost in the advertisement Matrix.

Oh, and you dweebs that buy this unserviceable Chi-fi crap get what you deserve.

 

[Quadman]

Well after moving over to the T+A dac8 DSD and cleaning up my Gustard X20 so it is salable and easy and neat for an enduser, I am going to put my Gustard X20 with USB up for sale. Last year from March thru September I was posting a lot about this dac on this forum. I had already done a full level 1 mod to this dac (my own labor, not Ric's) and my buddy wanted one and I preceded to mod it step by step and then compare it to my finished level 1 mod dac as I progressed. After I completed that I reported on my progress to make this dac DSD512 capable, which I eventually accomplished. Unfortunately late last year an issue developed in which I had periodic dropouts in playback, short 1/10th of a second type. Trouble shooting everything step by step lead to the DIYinHK USB/I2S card that I was using to get 512 to play. I pulled this card out and installed the stock USB card and with driver 3.34 I am now limited to DSD256 with NO dropouts what so ever during playback. The DIY usb card obviously had developed an issue. If you have a SU-1 with the new firmware then via I2S (HDMI) you can play DSD512 thru this dac.


My ad should be posted in the next 24 hours, this dac is full level 1 with a Abracon OCXO clock soldered in close to the dac chips with external 5V dc power which can be supplied with a wall wart or even a Uptone LPS 1, there is a very high quality regulator right in front of this clock which drops the voltage down to 3,3 Vdc. The abracon clock is probably the sweet spot between the very expensive Pulsar Clock and the crystek that Ric is installing in his level 1 mod. There is a dip14 adaptor soldered to the board so any dip14 clock, including the pulsar can be dropped in with no additional soldering. Check out the ad if you are interested.

 

[canthearyou]

Help me. The headfi "upgrade" as absorbed me into the system and I'm lost. I can't navigate to get home. Tell my wife I love her. I'm lost in the advertisement Matrix.

Oh, and you dweebs that buy this unserviceable Chi-fi **** get what you deserve.

Thank you for this informative and useful comment.

 

[rafabro]

Well after moving over to the T+A dac8 DSD and cleaning up my Gustard X20 so it is salable and easy and neat for an enduser, I am going to put my Gustard X20 with USB up for sale. Last year from March thru September I was posting a lot about this dac on this forum. I had already done a full level 1 mod to this dac (my own labor, not Ric's) and my buddy wanted one and I preceded to mod it step by step and then compare it to my finished level 1 mod dac as I progressed. After I completed that I reported on my progress to make this dac DSD512 capable, which I eventually accomplished. Unfortunately late last year an issue developed in which I had periodic dropouts in playback, short 1/10th of a second type. Trouble shooting everything step by step lead to the DIYinHK USB/I2S card that I was using to get 512 to play. I pulled this card out and installed the stock USB card and with driver 3.34 I am now limited to DSD256 with NO dropouts what so ever during playback. The DIY usb card obviously had developed an issue. If you have a SU-1 with the new firmware then via I2S (HDMI) you can play DSD512 thru this dac.


My ad should be posted in the next 24 hours, this dac is full level 1 with a Abracon OCXO clock soldered in close to the dac chips with external 5V dc power which can be supplied with a wall wart or even a Uptone LPS 1, there is a very high quality regulator right in front of this clock which drops the voltage down to 3,3 Vdc. The abracon clock is probably the sweet spot between the very expensive Pulsar Clock and the crystek that Ric is installing in his level 1 mod. There is a dip14 adaptor soldered to the board so any dip14 clock, including the pulsar can be dropped in with no additional soldering. Check out the ad if you are interested.

Hi Quadman, is it night & day compare to Gustard?

BTW
I like Gustard so much that I'm not going to sell even if I buy new DAC. I love this stuff!
I'm getting sentimental with age I guess...

 

[crazychile]

Thank you for this informative and useful comment.

Hey, no problem. I'm happy to help. Since I'm still stuck here and obviously nobody reads this thread for a month or more at a time.

 

[canthearyou]

I took a dive and picked up a X20 Pro. Should be here by the weekend. Hopefully not a mistake.

 

[Benny-x]

Hi Quadman, is it night & day compare to Gustard?

BTW
I like Gustard so much that I'm not going to sell even if I buy new DAC. I love this stuff!
I'm getting sentimental with age I guess...

I would also like to know how they compare. It'll have been a while since @Quadman got to hear the DSD512 capabilities of the X20, but the T+A DAC 8 DSD can do DSD512 and it would have been lucky to hear his thoughts on this. I've been looking at the DAC 8 DSD for a long time, but very few comparisons exist with it and any thing else, let alone any of the growing Chinese DACs that can also do DSD512, so the feedback would be amazing to hear.

I do understand he has an open sales thread open, so he may not want to put the X20 down. At the same time, the T+A DAC 8 DSD does have a lot of rave reviews and is in a vastly different price bracket, so I don't think any real potential buyers would take any performance criticisms vs. a $4000 DAC in a negative way~

 

[tripitaka]

for anyone looking for a quick and easy dsd512 solution. the LKS usb-100 does not appear to be it.

Not sure if i have any problems with hdmi port on either gustard or lks.

:LKS will take dsd512 signal, and gustard shows its in dsd mode, but no sound. 192k signal, also no sound

LKS via coax into gustard 192k has sound

Hello and sorry to dig up the distant past, but would you mind me asking whether this null result was after you tried modifying a standard HDMI cable? I've ordered an LKS upsampler, but its the SRC100 (coax in) version which only has i2s output, so I cant even fall back on coaxial out!
UFOKillerz, since you seem to be the only other person in the world who ever tried an LKS upsampler feeding a gustard x20 (mine is 20pro, but I doubt that matters), I am curious to know if I should throw this upsampler away before even trying to get the i2s link working?! Due to an overall lack of skill, there's no way I'm poking around inside the dac to get an i2s connection to work.

Edit: There is an informative thread on the the correct wiring at computeraudiophile, using a HDMI breakout plug and based on feedback over there it sounds like the LKS unit may be a pretty good option after all!

Thanks!!

 

[Quadman]

@rafabro and @Benny-x my apologies for not responding, the notifier that my handle was mentioned did not work and I was unaware of your queries. Yes it has been a while since the x20 was full DSD512 capable, but I spent apprx 3 weeks last October listening to both in my system at 512 and the difference was not as great as one would expect considering the price point. The real test was when I had to pack the T+A up and send to my buddy and I was not crying when I was 100% back to the X20. Now my X20 was pretty heavily modified, full level 1, with some 3m RFI absorption added and really nice abracon OCXO clock which was powered from a really nice Acko regulator which itself was powered from a pretty solid linear PSU. All Listening was via SE RCA outputs which as I have since learned is not the best way to hear the T+A, it is best running balanced. Since my system is SE I do not know if the X20 is much better balanced or SE. The T+A was perhaps a bit more resolving/transparent than the x20, images had a bit more focus. It also seems maybe a touch more neutral, where the x20 was a bit more warm, and maybe a bit rounder on the leading edges. Bass seemed a touch fuller/rounder with x20 and had tighter leading edges/cleaner with T+A. In the end I wanted to combine the strengths of both and have the perfect dac.

The Gustard products have nothing to be ashamed of for the price points, under $900 US they make amazing dacs and sound just wonderful. Anyone who buys one should be very happy. I have not heard the other newer Chinese dacs but the LKS Da004 is getting a lot of good buzz going and it seems it is very good out of the box where the 003 needed a lot of mods to get to the gustard's level, but it (004) is another 5 bills more than a x20 and with a SU-1 you can get 512 (w x20) and if you like to mod you can further improve both the x20 and SU-1.

When I arrived at my buddies house and connected the T+A we listened to it a lot and then after several days we switched to balanced mode our jaws dropped, it was sooo much better than running SE. Had I heard that in my system the T+A would have crushed the X20. Luckily for me my buddy is not PC competent and he gave up on PC streaming and sold the T+A to me who happily took it and I am definitely enjoying hassle free DSD512 playback, it just works. But like any tweaker I made some non-warranty busting mods to it and slightly improved it. At some point I will get a balanced amp and then . BTW my X20 sold within a couple of days.

 

[riderx1]

Wnder how it stacks up with the Questyle.

 

[Benny-x]

@rafabro and @Benny-x my apologies for not responding, the notifier that my handle was mentioned did not work and I was unaware of your queries. Yes it has been a while since the x20 was full DSD512 capable, but I spent apprx 3 weeks last October listening to both in my system at 512 and the difference was not as great as one would expect considering the price point. The real test was when I had to pack the T+A up and send to my buddy and I was not crying when I was 100% back to the X20. Now my X20 was pretty heavily modified, full level 1, with some 3m RFI absorption added and really nice abracon OCXO clock which was powered from a really nice Acko regulator which itself was powered from a pretty solid linear PSU. All Listening was via SE RCA outputs which as I have since learned is not the best way to hear the T+A, it is best running balanced. Since my system is SE I do not know if the X20 is much better balanced or SE. The T+A was perhaps a bit more resolving/transparent than the x20, images had a bit more focus. It also seems maybe a touch more neutral, where the x20 was a bit more warm, and maybe a bit rounder on the leading edges. Bass seemed a touch fuller/rounder with x20 and had tighter leading edges/cleaner with T+A. In the end I wanted to combine the strengths of both and have the perfect dac.

When I arrived at my buddies house and connected the T+A we listened to it a lot and then after several days we switched to balanced mode our jaws dropped, it was sooo much better than running SE. Had I heard that in my system the T+A would have crushed the X20. Luckily for me my buddy is not PC competent and he gave up on PC streaming and sold the T+A to me who happily took it and I am definitely enjoying hassle free DSD512 playback, it just works. But like any tweaker I made some non-warranty busting mods to it and slightly improved it. At some point I will get a balanced amp and then . BTW my X20 sold within a couple of days.

Thanks a lot for the comparison on the two. It does sound like the X20 is a real performer for the price, and if you throw some elbow grease into it and don't mind fiddling too much, you can pull out quite a bit more performance. The T+A doesn't require that extra effort though, and IMO should be more stable.

Your feedback has also helped restore my faith in my crusade to source and procure the T+A by helping me in self-justifying and biasly filtering any info I read in order to support the future purchase of the T+A DAC 8 DSD :-D

 

[canthearyou]

I recently purchased both the Gustard X20u Pro and the Matrix X-Saber Pro. After comparing them side by side for a week I sold the X-Saber and kept the X20. Definitely a big winner especially for its price.

I'm gonna do a small review/write up in the two shortly.

 

[Excellence 5]

Has the firmware been made available for the SU-1 to enable DSD516?I heard they've been working on it.

I, too, am very interested in this solution. Please, can someone confirm (even posting some pictures)?

Thanks in advance!

 

[mocenigo]

Hello

My Gustard X20U has returned after nearly three months from the factory in China. They replaced the main board (the one in the middle) and the Amanero USB card.

Now, when it starts connected to my Raspberry Pi 3 running moode it displays DSD512 and sometimes, more often than not, there's a high pitched hiss coming out of the loudspeakers. As soon as I latch it on a lower frequency, it works perfectly. It seems like a phenomenon described by @Quadman when he was initially trying to get DSD512 out of it. Audirvana Plus on my Mac displays also frequencies higher than PCM384, and in fact I can try to upsample to 705.6 and 768, with a lot of noise and distortion in the sound. Again, lower sampling rates work well and indeed I think I get a smoother sound than before.

Similarly, if I SSH to the device and type "cat /proc/asound/card1/stream0" the output is

XMOS xCORE USB Audio 2.0 at usb-3f980000.usb-1.3.1, high speed : USB Audio

Playback:
Status: Stop
Interface 1
Altset 1
Format: S32_LE
Channels: 2
Endpoint: 1 OUT (ASYNC)
Rates: 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000, 352800, 384000, 705600, 768000
Data packet interval: 125 us
Interface 1
Altset 2
Format: SPECIAL
Channels: 2
Endpoint: 1 OUT (ASYNC)
Rates: 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000,176400, 192000, 352800, 384000, 705600, 768000
Data packet interval: 125 us
​

Which looks wrong, as the list of Rates should be "44100, 48000, 88200, 96000, 176400, 192000, 352800, 384000" and the format S16_LE should also be supported.

Any suggestion on what to do? Any email address of tech folks at Gustard?

Roberto