![]() ![]() The bass impact is notable but not bloated or muddy instead, I would say it's precise and tight. The H10 is very equilibrate, not bright, but not even too dark. ![]() I never noticed any channel imbalance, even at low volumes. Also detail retrieval is on higher levels than with the Yulong D200 (a unit I still love though). My favourite albums now sound smooth and lush, and more dynamic than before. ![]() Switching to the Gustard U12/X12/H10 has been a very relevant upgrade, in terms of both transparency of the DAC and output power of the amplifier. It can also drive my vintage Yamaha HP-3 (orthodynamic) quite well.īefore the H10, I was using the headphone output of the Yulong D200 DAC/Amp. It has the power to drive my current headphones (the best being the Sennheiser HD650) effortlessly. The Listening The H10 is currently my best headphone amp. ![]() Of course other tracks were used, these being the most relevant ones. Sting - 'A thousand years' from the album 'Brand New Day'.Īll the tracks come from flac files ripped from my precious personal CD collection with Exact Audio Copy, except when otherwise noted (HDTracks downloads). Sting - 'Consider me gone', Moon over Bourbon street', 'Fortress around your heart' from the album 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' 'They dance alone', 'Little wing', 'History will teach us nothing' from the album '. Rebecca Pidgeon - '24 hours of love', 'Primitive Man' from the album 'The New York Girl's Club', also purchased on HDTracks (16bit/44.1kHz only, sadly) Janine Jansen - 'Le quattro stagioni' (Antonio Vivaldi), purchased on HDTracks (24bit/96kHz) Miles Davis - 'So What' from the 1959 album 'Kind of blue', purchased on HDTracks (24bit/192kHz)Įric Clapton - 'Tears in Heaven', 'Running on Faith', 'Layla', and really most tracks from the 'Unplugged' albumĭire Straits - 'Money for nothing' and 'Brothers in Arms' from the omonimous album 'Fade to Black', 'Planet of New Orleans', 'My Parties' from the album 'On Every Street' The Tracks For this review, I mostly used the following tracks:Ĭarlos Santana - 'Aqua Marine' from 'The Ultimate Collection' I also used upsampling and with sox, alternated with a more native configuration (a.k.a. I find the Linux setup so clearly superior to the Windows counterpart that I do use the latter only occasionally: the Gustard X12 is connected via usb to the desktop PC, while the Gustard U12 is connected to the Linux box, with the Schiit Wyrd in the middle. I consider the Schiit Wyrd one of my best audio purchases ever. In my experience, the use of the Schiit Wyrd is very effective, altough the improvement is less evident when used before a dedicated interface like the Gustard U12. The Linux box also benefits of a Schiit Wyrd, which supposedly "cleans" the usb signal and has its own separated power supply, isolating the DAC from the noisy PC environment. The setup All listening tests were made using the mentioned dedicated Linux box with mpd, either with the mediation of upmpdcli or natively. Headphones Headphones: Sennheiser HD650 Sennheiser Momentum On Ear Denon AH1001 Yamaha HP-3 (Orthodynamic, modded) HDMI Cable (I2S): Ricable HDMI Supreme F1 Software: UPMPDCli (Upnp Renderer plugin for MPD - )Īdditional software Windows 7 desktop PC, used to run GMPC/Cantata as MPD clients and Linn Kinsky/Kazoo as UpNP control pointīubbleUpNP on Android as UpNP control pointĪnother Debian-based Linux box is dedicated to file sharing (via Samba and via MinimServer, a UpNP server)Ĭables USB Cables: Audioquest Cinnamon 0.75m Software: Currently running Ubuntu Server 15.04, 64bit, Low Latency Kernel Hardware: Linear PSU from italian brand ZetaGi (set 1x1GB + 1x2GB RAM Hardware Dedicated Mini PC with Intel Atom D510 1.66GHz (dual core, Hyper Threading) TL DR: An AMAZING upgrade for an already very good amplifier!Īssociated Equipment, including Hardware and Software I used both the single "S" and the Dual "D" series of the OP-AMPs. Recently I upgraded the H10 with a full Burson V5-OPA-D / V5-OPA-S op-amp Kit. The stack is composed of the U12 (a USB interface), the X12 DAC and the H10 headphone amplifier. Introduction I bought the full Gustard Stack early this year, after long work of selection and long time spent reading the corresponding threads on head-fi as well as other sources. ![]()
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