This is a review and detailed measurements of the Gustard A26 network streamer and balanced stereo DAC.

The case is extremely heavy and stout. It looks more modern than previous Gustard products which I much appreciated. FYI the display is near white, not blue as you see in the image. Back side shows the differentiation from typical balanced DAC:

The Ethernet “LAN” input allows streaming from Roon player or UpNP servers. The interface was easy to navigate with the remote. I like the longer timeout on such settings as Filter so you could change them without going through the menu sequence again.

Gustard A26 Measurements
Let’s start with our usual dashboard of USB in and XLR output with volume adjusted by -2 dB to get us nominal 4 volts output:

Combination of noise and distortion lands at -120 dB which is well below threshold of audibility so transparency is proven. Competition is tough though:

Zooming in:

Here is dashboard with RCA output:

Still transparent. Same when we use the LAN input and stream to it:

The reason SINAD is not any better despite vanishingly low distortion spikes at -135 dB is because noise while excellent, is not class leading (as far as DACs are concerned):

Multitone showcases the superbly low distortion:

There is a bit of jitter/spikes but fortunately well below audibility:

Linearity is perfect:

IMD is excellent but again, a touch noisier than best of the best DACs:

We have the usual AKM DAC filters:

 

We see the impact of noise once again in our wideband THD+N measurement:

Conclusions
The Gustard A26 gives up a tiny bit of measured performance compared to best of the best DACs but compensates by giving you a streamer. I am quite fine with that trade off especially since performance is provably transparent still. The overall design is professional looking and fits better in a home stereo rack than many desktop products do.

Overall I am happy to recommend the Gustard A26 DAC and streamer.