Am I glad I spent $1,650 to replace a $1K DAC.yes! While not miles better than the Liberty DAC (in my opinion) it's enough better that I'm glad I made the purchase. It gave me plenty of dynamics and punch that chip-lovers like, but also a warm, holographic image the analog lovers like. I say that because when I listened to the R26 I wasn’t sitting there thinking, “oh this really sounds A LOT different than a chip-DAC.gee what do I do now?” No…it wasn’t like that at all. I think the whole R2R vs chip DAC debate is overblown, but that’s just me. Like other reviews have stated it’s a bit more analog sounding than chip DACs, but to me it’s not as exaggerated of a difference as other reviews have stated. It’s very musical and it produced a much larger and holographic soundstage than the other DAC’s, especially when pitted against the BlueSound and Rotel. It was also better than the Mytek Liberty DAC (~$1K), but not by as wide a margin as the other two DAC’s.
The difference was immediately noticeable.
Out of the box the R26 did not disappoint! It was CLEARLY better than the BlueSound and Rotel DAC’s…no comparison in my mind whatsoever. a) I am NOT a professional reviewer, so I’m not going to be too wordy or try to get all fancy with my review, and b) My 50+ year old ears have been pleasantly abused with well over 100 concerts and loud home/car music over that timespan, so my hearing may not be as good as many of yours. Ok, now to the sound signature this produces, but first a couple of disclaimers. Yes, for those unaware you can use this DAC with Roon as a streamer, so you need not purchase another streamer if you have Roon and are able to connect the DAC via LAN.ģ. I connected it via LAN (Ethernet) and Roon found it immediately without issue. It arrived with the latest v1.3 firmware, so I didn’t have to mess around with updating the firmware myself. It was super simple and straight forward to set-up. You have to download the manual, but quite honestly I don’t think you’ll need it. Very pleased! However, it just went on sale for 10% off (of course!) so I currently have a message into Aoshida to see if they will refund the difference of $164.99.Ģ. Delivery: I bought it from Aoshida via Amazon and it arrived 6 days later, 2 weeks ahead of their initial predicted delivery. To anyone interested, I thought I would post my thoughts on the Gustard R26 DAC that I just set-up and listened to along with my thoughts on how it sounded against the BlueSound Node DAC, my Rotel RA-1575 mkii integrated amplifier’s internal DAC, and the Mytek Liberty DAC.ġ.
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