Gustard R26 - good but not the one
I have owned a Chord Qutest for quite some time, maybe 5-years. I power it with a SBooter power supply and feed it USB from a SoTM SMS200 Ultra with SPS500 power supply. Overall it sounds great. It's been a great purchase.
But 5-year old DACs are getting long in the tooth. As Ferris Bueller said, "digital tech moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
So, I've been looking at new DACs as a possible replacement. It's tough because the Qutest is pretty darn good for it's price and bettering it takes a leap in spending.
The Gustard R26 R2R DAC has been widely praised all over the internet and it went on sale 10% off the other day (8/26/2023). So, I picked it up on Amazon with free Prime Shipping and 30-day free returns.
This was more of a learning experience than anything else. I'm sending it back 3-days later, but I wanted to say it is a fine sounding piece of equipment. IF I had not spent a long time with the Chord Qutest I would have been over the moon for the R26. I did run it continually for the 3-days it was here - not fully bedded in, but close.
It's well built, super sturdy, easy to live with, great sounding and very versatile. There was not a huge difference from the Qutest, but the Chord was just that much better to my ears and I don't want to spend $1,460 to get not quite as good sound quality.
The streamer was super convenient and sounded fine. Not SoTM great, but certainly sounded fine.
It has one flaw. when you switch inputs, and there are lots to choose from, it totally drops the input you've been on. You have to reestablish the entire setup in your player. Using Roon > HQ Player that meant going into HQP's preferences and selecting the Gustard anew.
So, that's my take on the Gustard R26 - very good but not Qutest good.
The Qutest is better in overall tonal balance and soundstage. Instruments and voices are separate and placed specifically in space. The R26 had good clarity and decent staging but things were just not as precisely placed. My speakers (Harbeth P3ESR) disappear with the Chord. With the R26 I heard specific sounds coming from specific speakers. It wasn't a massive difference and it took 2-days of back and forth to confirm what I was hearing. |
@tiggerfc I do realize that perhaps much more break in could have certainly made a difference. What I didn't think was that 100-200 hours would vault the R26 past my Qutest. And, I didn't want a new $1500 DAC that just was as good as what I've been living with all these years. I have to admit, I regularly find myself thinking how great the Chord sounds compared to my previous DACs. And this is what makes me wonder about the next step up and what it would be like. I will agree that for a new DAC with tons of functionality, that the R26 is great value for money. For years when I've posted about a "next DAC" the Hugo TT2 is most often mentioned to me because of how the Qutest suits me. Perhaps, I'll save up enough to make that happen. |
I agree, I didn't intend to make a review as such and would not with only 48 hours of constant use. My comments are solely a reflection of my initial take when compared with a well-used Chord DAC. Nothing more. |
Yep, that’s exactly what I feel about the Qutest vs the R26. |
I ended up getting a Chord Hugo TT2 and I'm very happy with the sound improvement over the Qutest. To me, it's a great sounding piece of equipment. I realize folks didn't like me preferring the Qutest over the R26. I said lots of nice things about the R26, but that did not seem to register to many. Oh, well. Just posting my opinion and you know what they say about "opinions," they're like... well, you probably know the phrase. |
