Gustard R26 vs hi end streamer

I have the Gustard R26.

I have yet to see the firmware for the streamer portion for which it is supposed to be capable.

i have paired it with an innuous pulse mini.

I do like the r2r sound over a delta sigma type dac for almost everything I listen to.  But with the pulse mini, you can have multiple dacs, so I may either get my smsl 10 fixed or get another for electronica type music.  I did consider a couple other streamers, but they were limited to output to a single dac.  Just a choice..

On your gustard r26:

Did you compare the fast/medium/slow?

I find the slow well suited for tracks that are heavily acoustic with the fast being better suited to electronica and/or many instruments with fast changes.. ie metallica and Iron Maiden.

Slow seems to me to give a more full and rich sound, but also seems like it “can’t keep up” when the track has many things changing quickly, especially the triplet bass kicks.. gets “muddy”... if that makes sense.. I do not have the whole jargon thing down yet.. But changing those settings does really affect how different tracks sound.  I am not really into the “medium”.. it just seems to show the worst in different tracks..

Am with you on the streamer.  I tried streaming to it first with a node2i that I could NOT, even after multiple “factory resets”, get to use the wired ethernet… it wouldn’t “forget” the wireless and would only use that connection..  which is why I got the innuos pulse mini just for streaming and the node 2i is a bookend right now.

regards

matt

Hi arafiq,

I do not use roon. An expense I don’t need.

Inuos pulse mini is fed from ethernet, with the long 25 ft run between router and mini converter to fiber, then back to ethernet.  I wanted strictly a streamer, it can send to many dacs. In the sense app, just choose setting standalone and choose mini out to another dac.. make sure the dac, if using as preamp, is turned down, before connecting.  On pulse mini, choose the dac you want to be playing, must set mini’s volume out to max, and enjoy (i have two dacs I switched between going into preamp..). I have an smsl su-10 for the electronica stuff.. for me some type of music sounds “better” on a delta sigma, while almost all of what I listen to sounds better on r2r.  By the way, you can really hear the difference twixt fast and slow if playing iron maiden or metallica at… unhealthy levels   ;-p   The dac included with the mini will be ok if I ever have an issue with the gustard, so it is a “decent” back up.

The only other “streamer” I’ve ever had was a bluesound node 2i and there is just no comparison there.

I am still exploring all the features of the mini though.  

but, I can for sure say that I am happy with the pulse mini and it doing what I wanted it to do… hardwired network streaming…. nothing else.

And I could not care less what places like asr say, I can hear the difference and I know what is pleasing to me.