Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
I’ve ditched off-line music listening around three years ago, as streaming became a lot more convenient and more importantly, it sounds as good if you’re using the right format. My favorite streaming platform at the moment is Qobuz, as for my rusty ears it sounds better than other services I’ve tried in the past. Qobuz offers music in a lossless 24-bit 192 kHz PCM format and that’s more than enough for me. Another striking difference is that I could easier follow the trail of a musical note in busy passages with X26 PRO. There was simply more air around, the whole place felt decompressed and the musical notes had clearer leading edges. Not only the soundstage was bigger, wider and taller, but I could easier focus on anything I wanted, without stressing myself too much. X16 wasn’t that impressive with HPA4, it wasn’t that holographic and it wasn’t that deep and open wide by comparison. The less there are component on signal path, the best it is (except at very low volume). looking at the PCB Gustard have made a minimal classical perfect implementation. Out of pure curiosity, I’ve connected the U18 to a much nicer FPGA DAC that I’m using for more than a year. Even if the USB board of Audiobyte’s HydraVox is already state-of-the-art, U18 made the HydraVox tighter sounding, the speed of sound improved tremendously and for some reason, the whole dynamic range felt improved. The bass notes were more playful with U18 in place and drums were more impactful than before. If you want to squeeze the last drop of performance from your DAC, a DDC is mandatory, including the I2S connection that removes all digital receivers from the signal path. I can complain only about its case design, which looks bland and uninspiring, but everything else feels and performs at a very high level. X26 PRO just scored a Gold Award and it is fully deserved. Congratulations to the team!
I personally don’t hold a lot of respect for forgiving sounding DACs, I personally value non-forgiving sources, that are giving me everything on a plate, it should be my only decision to look and hear all those micro-details, and mastering errors or not. I can count on X16 because it always appeared as detailed and transparent sounding no matter the song. It was so obvious hearing people inhaling and exhaling air in their lungs, fingers touching musical instruments, low-level notes and air casually passing around in well-mastered music. X16 has a clean front panel with just a simple monochrome OLED screen in the middle and a nice volume wheel on the far right. If you want to use it in the DAC mode, select maximum volume of 0 dB and if you will be using it as a DAC and Preamp, you can choose the desired volume level via that remote control or via its volume wheel. In the middle of the volume wheel a button is located, a short press on it will select your desired digital input and a long press will engage its user menu, where additional setting can be found. Gustard is not forcing you to use the remote control in case you’ll want to change setting like digital filters, you can do that single-handedly, unlike Topping that is forcing to use its remote for advanced settings.In the MAC system, the volume operation in the system directly calls the "hardware volume", and the mac tries to avoid software volume due to sound quality considerations. I also noticed that the EM6L is quite dependent on the source material and the DAC amp connected to it. When I connect it with my Moondrop Moonriver 2 Ti, the mids and trebles are a bit smoother and more forgiving. Whereas with my Fiio Q3, songs with bad recordings or sibilant sounds come through as such. With the Xenns Top, either connected with Moonriver 2 Ti or Fiio Q3, songs with bad recording or sibilant in nature do not sound as bad as they are. This DAC is a killer. Detailled, dynamic, wide and deep soundstage, neutral but not cold and not so much analytical. It grooves. It outperforms my AudioGD NFB29 9038 except if i am below -30db.
For excellent recordings in general, I like almost everything from Reference Recordings (Keith Johnson & Co). I can share a list of Tidal links if anybody is interested. No MQA, all RedBook All my tests were done blindly with the help of my beloved that was switching the inputs on the HPA4. The most striking thing to know is that both devices are sounding almost indistinguishably. Both carry the same weight in the bass, both sounds exceptionally open and wide, both have natural decays but also lightning speed when asked for. Their tonalities are very alike, but still…there was a minor difference. X26 Pro was by a hair more organic sounding, its midrange was by a smidge fuller. Acoustic music was always grabbing my soul and that happened less often on the Element X. Gustard unit seems to have a slight advantage when it comes to midrange density. It is by a hair warmer sounding in here and that worked as magic for lean sounding setups. The tone is just bolder and the air is heavier on the X26 PRO, it just feels over-powerful and really effortless sounding with everything I throw at it. In terms of soundstage, it was a hit or miss, sometimes X26 PRO felt like bigger sounding, sometimes I had a better pin point location of all the notes with the Element X and other times I couldn’t spot a difference at all. If there is one, X26 Pro is maybe by a hair wider sounding from left to right, but only with live and well-mastered music. Reviewing DACs is a complicated process, as I am listening less and less often to my own setup and this comparison made me rediscover…my own DAC. I was excited this whole review, it indeed blown me away as X26 PRO really sounds like a high-end DAC from any point of view and it seems that my own unit sounds pretty much the same. How curious. For this comparison my weapon of choice was the Hifiman HE1000SE, which seems to be extremely detailed and transparent, more so than my loudspeakers and more so to the Audeze LCD-4, Kennerton Wodan and Erzetich Phobos, so it was natural using some detail-oriented headphones. My system is both audiophile and home theatre and i often switch between optical and usb. Both are consecutive on the input list so it is not difficult to switch even if i cannot read the display.In terms of build quality, both are carved on CNC machines with very tight tolerance numbers, they both look and feel like expensive units. Although in terms of looks, I’ll give an edge to the Element X which looks nicer, more futuristic and way more elegant. Element X is one of the biggest D/S DAC I’ve tested so far and it is currently the best sounding one too, it is my reference together with the Audiobyte HydraVox. Unsurprisingly, X26 PRO is even bigger, much heavier, hotter on the outside, consuming twice as much power to the Element X, thanks to its Class-A I/V conversion, LPF and output stage. Hardfloor’s Trancesript has the 303 sounding like a 303 but without quite the bite I’m used to and with the Gustard failing to capture the raspiness of the little silver acid box. It’s there, but it feels a little bit sterile and flat when compared to the other DACs we have to hand. I can still enjoy the music, and were I not such a critical person, or perhaps had I not being spoiled by having such great kit at my disposal, the Gustard would have served my needs very well – and in many ways, I think this is how to look at the X16. It’s a good sounding DAC that produces music without leaving much out, but doesn’t really excite and give that connection to the music you are listening to – perhaps the DACs further up the Gustard chain are able to offer more in this regard.
This is a good sounding and well-built DAC that takes up minimal real estate and sounds very good when it’s partnered with the right music. I certainly don’t think it will be all things to all people but for those who like this kind of presentation, it will be a big hit! AT A GLANCE Gustard X16 is the latest Desktop DAC featuring a fully Balanced output with full MQA decoding support. It houses premium chipsets including the latest ES9068AS DAC chips, XU216 USB signal receiver, and more, providing the best sound quality experience to its users. Dual ES9068AS DAC Chipset:- Multiple Interfaces: The fully balanced decoder GUSTARD DAC-X16 supports USB/I2S/COAX/OPT/BT/AES input, and has two output modes: RCA single-ended output and balanced XLR input. It is a true fully balanced decoder. Gustard squeezed the last drop of performance from that ES9038 PRO, thanks a powerful I/V and LPF stage, on top of that its channels were paralleled for a higher dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio. If we’re talking about micro-details, then the little fellow was up there with the best I’ve tried, seriously outclassing entry to mid-level converters coming from the likes of SMSL, Topping or Soncoz.If the scale of the music is important to you, being immersed in your music, having a very good placement of all the notes around you, then I just described one of the most impressive delta-sigma DACs I’ve tried of late. PCM Filter: 3 positions. Those filters will be altering the FR past 20 kHz. If you want the fastest treble roll-off, go with H-FAST and if you want the most extended treble response go with M-SLOW. Subjectively, I can’t spot a difference between them, since I don’t possess super-human hearing past 20 kHz.
The source used for the testing was a Raspberry Pi 4 with a HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro board for better digital quality through coaxial and optical outputs, running Volumio (Virtuoso subscription), using local samples files and TIDAL. Unfortunately the MQA streams some times are not correctly identified and play as normal PCM files using optical and coaxial inputs. Could also be a problem with Volumio, as to get DSD proper flagged I need to select DSD over PCM – DoP, but no option for MQA. Off course DSD is limited to DSD64 on these inputs. Thus, to fully assess the potential of MQA and DSD, the USB output was used most of the time.The mids are clean and uncolored, but I still prefer the mids from the Xenns Top because of its technical abilities, clarity, and control. When compared to the Khan, I prefer the Khan's mids because of the dynamic driver tonalities. Both the Xenns Top and the Simgot EM6L have a balanced armature tone to them.
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