GUSTARD A26 DAC MQA Dual AK4499EX AK4191 With Streamer/Renderer XMOS DSD512 PCM768K MQA384K IIS Balanced Audio Decoder Black

Product Information

The smoothness and technical attribute of the A26 is forcing the CH-Amp and ATH-ADX5000 to work hard and match the resolution. I’d say the tonal balance achieved here will satisfy a lot of listeners. As a general rule of thumb, you are getting a softer sound with resistor ladder DACs and a speedier one with chip-based converters. If you wanted to have them both, then you needed to eat more bread and less pudding & cook your own meals for a few blood moons. Nonetheless, Gustard shattered my preconceptions with R26, which I’m still using on a daily basis.

Without a proper screen like in the A26, users of the Qutest will have to take time to remember the meaning of the different colors indicated on the unit. There are two physical orbs for changing inputs, filters, and accessing the hidden settings. PerformanceIt might look raw and unpolished around the edges, but it’s not really the case (Audio-GD units are mostly like that), its corners and edges are sanded on a small scale, so it wouldn’t damage your expensive headphones while handling them around. It has a flushed On/Off button, its menu is cleverly designed, looking almost invisible in a dark environment. Its monochrome OLED screen is quite big, a bigger font was also used, so you can easily read it from afar in a loudspeaker setup. It has several brightness levels which makes it even more versatile to be used in late night listening sessions. In the end, A26 felt like a better unit when pointing out the location of every instrument, while pushing the sounds somewhat closer versus the R26. I love them both for what they are and if you already own any of these, it will be foolish to side-grading to the second unit, unless you need a second DAC.

While not always the case, one observation I had climbing up the ladder to more expensive DACs is that the stage becomes less about the dimensionality as they get better in their disappearing act. Hi - thanks for writing this up - very nice. I'm trying it on an A26 with renderer 1.4 and having some issues though. Once I got to resizing the partitions it's not working. Upon entering fdisk, it mentions: The remote has a Gustard logo on the bottom to set it apart from other remotes lying around. Aside from this feature, there’s nothing too special about it seeing it is mostly built with cheap plastic that at least seems rugged enough for daily use. All things considered, starting with its build quality, impressive feature set, component selection and most importantly, sound quality, this is one of the most impressive DACs that I’ve heard at my place. Top 10? Make it in the top 5 best units I tried and that should tell you how I honestly feel about it. Is -00 dB etc, the range that I use to control volume if the DAC is connected directly to a power amp? And is 0 dB "silent" aka, no sound,DSD Direct – Two positions are provided: OFF (default) or ON. Enabling it will disable internal DSD processing, sending the raw DSD stream into the DAC chips for a clearer and faster sound. Be warned! After enabling this feature, the volume cannot be controlled, outputting full power into your amplifiers. Don’t use this feature while using power amplifiers that can’t control the volume output. Now, depending on your tastes, the fact that Gustard has now removed the physical power button and control wheel could swing either way. Where I stand on this is that while mechanical components feel more engaging, the touch sensors up the presence better. What was quite amazing is that several amplifiers that aren’t known to be impressive when it comes to bass delivery and speed, X26 PRO awoke them from their deep sleep, giving a huge helping hand and the same can be said about mellow sounding headphones and loudspeakers. The best of Gustard with its overkill capacitance would infuse more positive vibes, more uplifting beats, that would cure even slow and boring setups. If you really need more slam, more body and a faster pace…I think I found a cure for the boringness of your setup. In the end, I find them comparable, yet different sounding, and depending on your taste you might prefer one or the other and that’s perfectly fine. I’m surprised that Gustard lowered the price to be in line with X26 PRO, but still kept the Streamer and Ethernet port of the pricier R26 Discrete. Regardless of what unit you will be choosing, you will be getting a top-notch D/A converter that’s comparable or better versus pricier units.