Hey there.
I just came across the Gustard Audalytic DR70 R2R Streaming Dac. It is said to be equipped with Roon Bridge. Does this mean I can use it as an endpoint and simple stream into it? I just upgraded my B&O system with a set of Beolab 1s which has given me a pair Beolab 8000s to play with, I was going to buy a WiiM Ultra and a DAC to set them up as a new zone, but if this Gustard DR70 can do it… One of them is going in the shopping cart!
Yes, it should. Although it is new and not many people have tried it to report back yet on how well it works.
Only read a quick report which found that the DSD output was sub-par, but, more listening was going to be done. As much as it sounds like a good deal, I wanted to read more feedback from a variety of users before purchasing.
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Howard I had one delivered yesterday but had been in transit for a couple of weeks and was freezing.
I will be testing it out tomorrow afternoon so I will let you know how I get on.
It’s a very well built and nice device and well packaged.
I am hoping it will work well with Roon, HQPlayer and UPNP
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Thanks Michael.
I think many of us will look forward to your impressions and experience with it. Ill be watching!
Merry Christmas
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So I had to strip my rack down to fit the DR70 in, so it took longer than planned. Been playing music through Roon Ready for the last hour or two and currently I am running a firmware update using the built-in web server.
I am starting with a focus on Roon Ready which has so far worked beautifully for both PCM 768 and DSD512
I will move on to HQPlayer and UPNP after playing various album and trying different settings.
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Saw some measurements over on HQPlayer threads and it doesn’t look too good…
Hoping we will see more soon as this is a newish product.
And to your ear, how’s it sounding so far? I know R2Rs open with a few hours, just went through that with my Laiv Harmony - but so far, what are your impressions?
Even now, it feels like a big step up from the current DACs for both internal Streaming DAC in the Arcam SA30 and the iFi Zen DAC 2 Signature that I have.
I don’t get any of the minor issues I see at high bit rates into the SA30 either so I am currently counting it as a success.
Hopefully it will continue to upen up and sound better and I will test more and feedback.
I have also not rebooted it with the updated firmware yet, I will do that later as well.
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Where have you seen measurements? Can you link
I was assuming he meant your measurements.
Got to say whether it measures well or not it certainly sounds pretty good for me in my setup. Though I guess you were looking specifically looking for 1 bit DSD direct measurements.
Did you update to the latest firmware and turn off the musicality setting that is defaulted on in the web settings under Sound Mode. I can’t see that anywhere else? (There seems to be a limited set of options available at this point).
I
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Been testing HQPlayer through NAA for the last couple of hours after tweaking settings mentioned above.
I will look at 48K DSD tomorrow, but not expecting that to work (but hoping it will). I might have a M4 Pro Mac Mini coming in a couple of weeks that will replace the M1 and allow me to switch to DSD512 and open up some potentially more powerful filter options as well.
M5 max and M5 ultra are out 2026. I’d hold out for one of those.
I believe 512 is still limited with M4. As with most dacs… I’m willing to bet 256DSD is probably the sweet spot.
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DSD256 with harder to run options enabled more than good enough for me 
(my M1 has struggled to run these without throttling)
The M4 Pro is going to be a great deal, which is why I will take it at a big discount now rather than a full price M5 
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What filters , modulators would you like testing at DSD512? I have a Mac mini m4 in front of me at the moment. So whatever I can run will for sure work on the pro version.
Cheers
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Thanks for the kind offer, but in truth I just need to run through them all again and find what sounds great with my new setup without killing the Mac.
As @ffk says, I might well find that DSD256 is actually probably the sweet spot and the M4 pro will have plenty of headroom for that
I’ve been using this streamer for several weeks now, but until recently I hadn’t had the time to really dive into it. I compared the DAC section of this streamer with my Metrum Amethyst DAC 3, using the same streamer as a source, and to my ears they sound completely identical.
By the way, how did you perform the firmware update?
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Has there even been a firmware update yet? If so what do the release notes say?
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I got firmware update 1.0 build 59 a couple of days ago (up from 29).
Your can get it from the web server at DR70.local address.
I could not find any release notes for it beyond bug fixes and an improved musicality note
That’s why I asked you if you had been on the web page and looked at the settings there. It looks like the default settings would maybe be more pleasing but measure worse. Similar DAD Direct is also off by default.
The firmware needs a bit of work to offer some more features like fix 100% volume output and it would be great to have per input settings for NOS, DSD direct settings, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope.
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The sound I really good. The only thing I miss is that don’t an icon. Only a speaker. Gustard not listed as a partner.
I agree with this based on about 24 listening so far compared to my other devices. It did seem to improve for the first couple of days.
Gustard are not a Roon partner, they use Roon Bridge so the device is not really Roon Ready and doesn’t get a dedicated icon, but works really well in my experience so far.
I was expecting to use HQPlayer most of the time, but PCM up sampling to 768 has been sounding wonderful as well.
I am expecting my M4 Mac Pro to arrive tomorrow or Wednesday so I will get that set up and can see what the sweetspot for DSD out of HQPlayer is then.
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