That would coincide with what several others said in that a better — and sometimes a much more expensive — HDMI cable made a slight improvement. I’m definitely gonna give one a try at some point, and if you get any clearer picture down the road I’m all ears to what you find, and thanks a lot for the follow up!
Gustard U18 with Gustard R26 dac?
Greetings.
I've done some searching in the forum and I know there are people with the Gustard R26 dac and/or the U18. I currently have a R26 dac and I'm quite happy with it. I'm just wondering if I might get a bit of improvement if I add a U18.
I'm using the R26 with an Innuos Zen Mk3 streamer via a Inakustik usb cable.
If I add a U18, I've read that the I2s connection would be best. Questions that I have are:
- is this a worthwhile upgrade? I think the rest of my system is revealing enough.
- will I need an expensive I2s cable?
- does the I2s cable need to be really short? I can make it work if I rearrange my gear.
Thank you for any input.
Showing 4 responses by soix
I added a Denafrips Iris DDC to be able to take advantage of the i2S connection in my Musician Pegasus R2R DAC. I honestly didn’t go in with high expectations and bought the Iris used so I could easily resell it if the improvement proved marginal, but it was far from marginal. Adding the Iris was on the order of doing a complete DAC upgrade — the noise level dropped so images popped more out of nothingness and the 3D soundstage expanded in all directions. And yes, ideally the HDMI cable should be 1 foot or less as the i2S signal degrades quickly over distance because it was initially designed only for internal connections within a component. As I was just dipping my toe in I bought a $7 cable from Monoprice mainly because it was available in as little as 6” length and I wouldn’t be out much if I sold the Iris, but as it was more than capable of conveying the substantial benefits I heard I haven’t felt the need to upgrade to date. I’ve read several people say they didn’t experience big improvements from spending a lot more on an HDMI cable for i2S so that may be at play, but if I did upgrade it’d be to the DHLabs HDMI 2.1 that gets solid feedback but still not too pricey. Here are the links to both cables in case it helps. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=13578 https://silversonic.com/products/digital-cables/hdmi-2-1/ Anyway, that was my experience going this route and I know several others here expressed similar results so I’d definitely say it’s worth trying. Hope this helps, and best of luck. |