I recently purchased the Gustard R26. It replaced the Denafrips Ares ll. It has been fed a signal, and left powered on for approx. 240 hours. IMO it is still improving in presentation. The presentation (source dependent) is large and open in soundstage, transparent without fatigue, and well defined. I think the Ares is slightly warmer. Instrument separation is very good. When using my Rotel MCD-1572 mk2, the Rotel internal DAC sounded better than the Rotel feeding the Ares ll. With the Gustard R26, it sounds better feeding the R26 versus the Rotel internal DAC. Most of my listening is my iFi Zen Stream via 1 foot long USB from Ghent Audio ($20 shipped). I prefer the Ghent over the Cardas I have. I do have a LPS on the Zen. Output of the R26 feeds my Luxman L-550 AX ll via Anti Cable 2.2 RCA. The output of the Luxman feeds my Dynaudio Contour S 1.4's on Dynaudio stands via GR Research 16 strand cables lifted off the floor. I did put some bypass caps on the tweeters. I hope this input is of value to my fellow non-recovering audio addicts:)
Gustard R26
Is anyone else looking forward to the reviews coming out on the Gustard R26 r2rDac? I am interested to see if it can compete with the Holo Spring at a lower price point. How will it stand up to the other r2r dac’s out there right now. It does present well and is feature rich right out of the box. Is it a true proprietary resistor board or is it off the shelf and tweaked? I know the other Gustard equipment is well received and liked so my hopes are high for this as well.