I bought the Pontus II and the Gustard X26 16 months ago. After going back and forth for nearly three months I decided to keep the X26 and sell the Pontus II. I preferred the better soundstage and sense of space the X26 offered vs a somewhat richer, warmer presentation of the Pontus II. After the R26 was introduced I read the glowing reviews and decided to leap on a Black Friday sale last November and bought the R26 in part because I felt streaming Roon through a Raspberry Pi might be one of the weak points in my system. Within the first day of using the R26 with the LAN connection as a Roon endpoint I knew that I liked it a lot more than the X26. The R26 is very musical and dynamic while preserving the great soundstage etc. of the X26. It sounded like a big tube upgrade in a preamp or even the difference between streaming and vinyl. I love it and feel it has got to be one of the best DACs out there for the money and probably for a lot more money. Note my experience is only relevant to using it as the LAN connection to Roon but I have no reason to believe any of the other inputs are less than stellar. And right now ShenzhenAudio has the R26 on sale.