You can choose for a silver or a black unit, both have anodized finishes for a better protection, but I do slightly prefer the back in black color scheme. It feels really solid, very rugged and well put together. It weights some whopping 7.5 kilos, that’s 16 fricking pounds and a half…for a simple DAC, already telling a story about its oversized power supply and its capacitance. Its side plates have huge ventilation holes, suggesting that it has a strong output stage dissipating a lot of heat and that is a good sign already. It has pretty much the same case of their A22 DAC, that is looking like an uni-body case, crafted on a CNC machine.Īll the screws were moved on its back plate and under the unit, so it would look simpler and cleaner. It might not win a beauty contest when it comes to DACs, but it’s still a very solid device that is built to high standards. It uses thick aluminum plates on all sides, a thicker front and back panel to usual kilo-buck DACs.
Let me get this straight: X26 PRO weights a ton and it’s built like a tank. So far, this is my only complaint I have for this unit.
I would personally advise Gustard putting all those drivers and user manuals online, leaving just an URL on the warranty card, so we can easier find and download them. There isn’t a single paper in the package, a spec sheet or some basic operation instructions, nothing like that.
I’m sure it’s just a mistake, X26 PRO is their freshest and newest device, most probably the ones that will hit the western market will have user manuals it in there too. Gustard stored USB drivers for all their units, some firmware upgrades and several user manuals for their units, except for…X26 PRO. Luckily, I bought an external bus-powered optical drive so I can check the contents of that Mini CD. I use a desktop computer and a laptop on a daily basis, my wife uses another laptop and my kid a Surface Pro.
It’s the same Gustard branded plastic remote, it has rubberized buttons and a nice tactile feedback.Ī mini-CD is (AGAIN) found in the package which I presume hold its USB drivers.
In that box a high-quality gold-plated USB cable can be spotted, a warranty card, an after-sales card, a power cable, a bigger Bluetooth antenna to the ones I’ve spotted on SMSL and Topping units and a nicer looking remote control. The unit itself was cuddled with foam on both sides with an accessory box put on top of it. Double boxed is already a standard procedure to ensure a safe delivery to your door.
The big fellow came in an oversized box, it was much larger and heavier making me think that an integrated amplifier was sent my way instead of a DAC. Be sure to check that out and until that happens, let’s unbox it and see what’s inside. It goes for $1500 in USA and €1400 in Europe, as a statement product I won’t go easy on it and in the latest chapters of this review I will be comparing it with another flagship ESS Sabre based DAC. This one is not targeting the mid-fi market, but the best delta-sigma modulation DACs ever made that are using commercial DAC chips. X26 PRO DAC is the pure definition of overkill in a very good way and I can’t wait to tell you more how it sounds and more importantly…why it sounds that way. Today I will be testing their best shot at high-end, their best converter that again left my jaw on the floor when I had peek inside. They even built two high-performance OCXO clock-generators – a clear sign that digital audio isn’t unknown territory anymore. As of right now they fully covered the mid-level and upper-level market with plenty of converters powered by AKM or ESS Sabre chipsets. I’m pretty sure their vast experience in building amplifiers was put to good use in their digital-to-analog converters. It seems that all their expenses are going into R&D, with very little left for anything else…In just a few years, they were able to release several DACs that are putting a bigger accent on their final output stage compared to any other DAC manufacturer from China. I still remember the shock-wave when I’ve popped the hood of their A22 DAC, as I’ve never seen two toroidal transformers, two DAC chips in a dual-mono configuration and a fully discrete class-A output stage in a DAC that costs a little over $1000. They aren’t amazing when it comes to web design, they aren’t that great when it comes to marketing, they still struggle putting their drivers online, they aren’t very talkative in a language other than Chinese…but they surely know what they are doing when it comes to digital audio. The most secretive and mysterious DAC manufacturer from China is surely Gustard.