SGreg you could be sort of right about the Gustard dac competing against dacs in the 5-6K my buddy with the Boulder 866 integrate and TeKton Moab speakers is happy with the Gustard for now , he bought the Gustard just to get him through a transition period until he made his mind up over integrates and possibly separate dac.
We listened to a Boulder digital 866 model with built in dac he borrowed from a dealer wether it was just better compatibility compared with analog Boulder with the Gustard the digital Boulder was clearly better sounding.
In any case I think it would be interesting to hear the Gustard with clock I can have his A26 for $900.00 clocks I’ve looked at ranging in prices from $200.00 to 1500.00 who knows it looks like fun to me with little investment.