Pleasantly surprised by the Gustard X-26 Pro

[Yelamanchili manohar]

Long live chi-fi

I recently borrowed a Gustard X-26 Pro to try out in my room a few weeks back. I belong in a group who are prejudiced against ESS chips, and consider them to be bright, edgy, sibilant, brittle and lean with the typical ESS glare.

However, the Gustard with its excellent power supplies and class A output stages was none of the above. So, to say I was pleasantly surprised would be an under statement. My last tryst with a ESS chip didnt last 20 mins, but I thoroughly enjoyed the Gustard.

My current Dac is an Esoteric K-01, which while still a reference level CD player, its USB implementation is dated and does'nt support DSD via its USB board from a Linux based streamer, though it will still accept via a PC with the Esoteric driver installed. I was thoroughly enjoying it via coaxial from a Lumin U1X streamer, till the thought of trying DSD upsampling in the Lumin hit me. Our forum member @muralimmreddy brought along his Gustard X-26 Pro for the experiment.

After feeding Tidal upsampled upto 192 khz to the Esoteric via a Hi-fidelity coaxial cable, we switched to the same tracks, upsampled to DSD 128 and fed to the Gustard via Murali's Tellurium USB cable. And there was a very noticable improvement in low level detail and clarity and the bass got firmer. Some of the bass bloat Ive been lately having, reduced significantly. Female vocals were sweeter and more focused. Though the sound stage width got reduced and centered in between the speakers, as compared to the Esoteric. Everything else was an improvement in my books.

Now this was not an apples to apples comparison for a few reasons, Linear-PCM vs upsampled DSD, Coaxial vs USB and different cables too. But it did leave me feeling that the Gustard was excellent , without even factoring what we could consider a reasonable price, going by the asking monies for today's state of the art Dac's.

And when I unplugged the Gustard, it was not even mildly warm to the touch, as we only played a few tracks. And as per the blurb on the net, those Class-A output stages run hot. So I would expect that we didnt even give the Gustard enough time to reach its ideal operating temperature, where as the Esoteric was running for almost 2 hours prior. So I expect that the Gustard had more to offer, had we had more time to spare. All in all, I was very pleased with the Gustard. And on the downside, Iam convinced I definitely need a new DSD Dac now.

 

[Sushant Sharma]

I moved from a Schitt Gungnir to Gustard x26 pro about 6 months back. I quite like it in comparison. My first impression was it not compromising on the heft that the schitt brought but it adds more detail.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I moved from a Schitt Gungnir to Gustard x26 pro about 6 months back. I quite like it in comparison. My first impression was it not compromising on the heft that the schitt brought but it adds more detail.

I would agree. Though my listening was only brief, the Gustard brought the ESS strengths to the fore, namely clarity, transparency and detail, painted on a very black and quiet back ground. I also found it to be sweet sounding on female vocals. Excellent solid bass and perfect timing. If it had a head phone output or still better an inbuilt analogue preamp, I would buy it in a heart beat. No doubt there will be better dacs out there at higher price points. But i've always been a very value conscious buyer. And the Gustard to me appears to be great value, and just below the threshold of diminishing returns.

 

[muralimmreddy]

Indeed it's superb dac. I have owned it for little more than 2 years. I have seen it perform average in my earlier chain (not the dac fault) with rest of the chain with average synergy. Now i overhauled my amps and have good resolving setup I can appreciate this dac.

@Yelamanchili manohar lend me lumin u1x and some Townshend sesimic isolation pods. Pampering the Dac scaled extraordinarly. Don't know if it's lumin or dac or both hit of santoor has that outstanding timing, charurasia palying flute has such natural whisper. Tone and timbre of the dac is very very good at least in my chain which is carefully aimed for natural tone and timbre. Its sad Gustard r26 gets all the limelight, to me its neither has good virtues of r2r nor delta sigma.

It's dangerous to have generous FM like manohar , seen first hand why transport it so important (but unfortunately super expensive)Lumin u1x is just superb.

 

[muralimmreddy]

If it had a head phone output or still better an inbuilt analogue preamp

it has decent analogue preamp

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

it has decent analogue preamp

Oops I missed trying that too

 

[amit11]

Of the few ESS chips have heard, the ES9028pro and ES9038pro (inside Gustard) are excellent. They don't give the slightest hint that they are typical ESS. As you rightly mentioned they sound sweet.

 

[ajuvignesh]

Indeed it's superb dac. I have owned it for little more than 2 years. I have seen it perform average in my earlier chain (not the dac fault) with rest of the chain with average synergy. Now i overhauled my amps and have good resolving setup I can appreciate this dac.

@Yelamanchili manohar lend me lumin u1x and some Townshend sesimic isolation pods. Pampering the Dac scaled extraordinarly. Don't know if it's lumin or dac or both hit of santoor has that outstanding timing, charurasia palying flute has such natural whisper. Tone and timbre of the dac is very very good at least in my chain which is carefully aimed for natural tone and timbre. Its sad Gustard r26 gets all the limelight, to me its neither has good virtues of r2r nor delta sigma.

It's dangerous to have generous FM like manohar , seen first hand why transport it so important (but unfortunately super expensive)Lumin u1x is just superb.

Sorry for the off-topic post, but what is Timing?

 

[muralimmreddy]

Sorry for the off-topic post, but what is Timing?

I can not elobrate in the general sense of the word used as part audiophile jargon , but can explain what i mean

When you listen to instrumental music (more so in solo instruments music), with quick transients, what is called as transient response is key factor in how music sounds real or live

when you listen santoor hit, drum hit, sarod, guitar plucks, ghatam taps etc, precision of the time is super critical to sound real, this is what i meant by timing

if the chain has better fidelity and synergy, these nuances is what makes it worthwhile

 

[Eight1zero]

I have been wanting to try this dac in my system. Have heard really good this about it. Hopefully soon

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

Sorry for the off-topic post, but what is Timing?

It’s what makes you nod your head or tap your feet when you listen to music.

 

[insane79]

Of the few ESS chips have heard, the ES9028pro and ES9038pro (inside Gustard) are excellent. They don't give the slightest hint that they are typical ESS. As you rightly mentioned they sound sweet.

I agree, i m going to get bashed for saying this but i prefer these chips from ESS then AKM.

Cheers.

 

[ajuvignesh]

when you listen santoor hit, drum hit, sarod, guitar plucks, ghatam taps etc, precision of the time is super critical to sound real, this is what i meant by timing.

Thanks for the reply. Isn't it timbre that you're referring to?

It’s what makes you nod your head or tap your feet when you listen to music.

Thank you Isn't it rhythm of music in 'PRAT' that makes the toe tapping behavior? Or am i wrong? Can you please explain more about it?

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

In hindsight, maybe I should'nt have tried the gustard. Iam spending all my waking hours researching dacs now

After 10 years of trials, tribulations and heart breaks, I finally have a sound that i can relax and enjoy entirely. I didnt want to change anything for the foreseeable future, and just wanted to enjoy music. Maybe start a SACD and Vinyl collection. But once we find that there are improvements to be had, difficult to restrain ourselves.

Started with other ESS 9038 pro chip dacs, and barked up the LKS audio MH-005DA dac, then chasing better DSD playback led me to the Cen Grand DS dac. The problem is that every dac has its fans. And trying to judge by the chatter on the forums is risky, and god knows which poster is being sponsored to push the dac sales and who is genuinely pleased as an end user. Anyways as always, I will enjoy the search, even if I end up not buying anything. As they say " The hunt is more thrilling than the kill".

 

[reignofchaos]

The closest to nice ESS I have heard so far is the Weiss 204 which someone got over to my place. However I still greatly prefer my AMR to that.

As for Gustard, I felt the R26 was quite nice. The X26 sounded alright but it sounded more like a wall of sound rather than something with a lot of soundstage depth. While the stage was wide, depth was severely lacking! This is the trouble with very many DS DACs and only the Weiss avoided this problem and had a deep stage.

 

[amit11]

I agree, i m going to get bashed for saying this but i prefer these chips from ESS then AKM.

Cheers.

+1

 

[AP@1992]

ving, reduced significantly. Female vocals were sweeter and more focused. Though the sound stage width got reduced and centered in between the speak

The closest to nice ESS I have heard so far is the Weiss 204 which someone got over to my place. However I still greatly prefer my AMR to that.

As for Gustard, I felt the R26 was quite nice. The X26 sounded alright but it sounded more like a wall of sound rather than something with a lot of soundstage depth. While the stage was wide, depth was severely lacking! This is the trouble with very many DS DACs and only the Weiss avoided this problem and had a deep stage.

I own a both a Weiss Minerva (predecessor of 204) and a Denafrips Ares. To my ears, Weiss Sounds big, bold and deeper than Denafrips. IMO Its more to do with the implementation of the chip and power supply, than the chip itself.

 

[reignofchaos]

I own a both a Weiss Minerva (predecessor of 204) and a Denafrips Ares. To my ears, Weiss Sounds big, bold and deeper than Denafrips. IMO Its more to do with the implementation of the chip and power supply, than the chip itself.

Yes there is a lot of thought put into the implementation. It also doesn't use the stock ESS filters and uses a custom filter designed by Weiss. Maybe that is also a big deal.

 

[AP@1992]

Yes there is a lot of thought put into the implementation. It also doesn't use the stock ESS filters and uses a custom filter designed by Weiss. Maybe that is also a big deal.

May that explains the exorbitant price of Weiss DAC,'s

 

[square_wave]

Overall implementation matters a lot. Although with some of the older nos chips, the chip itself can influence the sound a lot. Across the modern chips, implementation is what determine the sound by a big margin.