Dark Horse DAC

Came close to buying the Gustard R 26 Discrete DAC. My hearing seems to be ultra-sensitive to brightness/glare and I didn't want to take the chance.

Your Doge must sound amazing with the NOS tubes. I will probably try that at some point. 

Let me know how your new DAC stacks up.

The Gustard R2R26  is a very good dac with exceptional Japanese build quality 

and as with any dac uses respectable aftermarket powercord ,the Pangea awg14-MK2 which uses Cardas best -0 crystal copper ,and synergistic Purple fuse 

really brings out addeddetail and resolution a 2.5amp slow blow fuse 

Jays Iyagi is a shill 🙄 I never take anything he says about gear seriously. 

Here is a great sentence from a very good paper on DAC's and digital audioi.

"And don't even get me started on DACs with tube output stages: the lowest noise floor of a tube output stage is about 90dB which means despite whatever a manufacturer may claim no tube DAC can even resolve the dynamic range in a 16-bit recording let alone a 24-bit recording."

Here is the link to the paper

https://www.mojo-audio.com/blog/the-24bit-delusion/

I know Michael Lavorgna at Twitter Machines site really likes his Total Dac which has a tube in it. I have never heard one but love love my Reimyo solid state DAC that only plays redbook standard

jh