GUSTARD - U18

Gustard U18 is the latest high-end USB audio interface that is equipped with an XU216 chip from XMOS. This high-end chip has dedicated 16 cores for audio processing and brings unmatched clarity and an immersive audio listening experience. With this chip, the U18 is capable of playing DSD512 and PCM768kHz natively. This XMOS chip works in conjunction with two hi-end audio oscillators from Accusilicon. U18 is equipped with two AS338 audio oscillators to deliver artefact free audio. To deliver pristine sound, each crystal is packaged with nitrogen gas and checked by a phase noise analyser. The jitter is also as low as 38fs, which greatly improves the bass quality.

The Gustard U18 has been engineered with the highest quality components and the audio circuit has been carefully isolated from the grounding loop. U18 offers complete grounding isolation, which is achieved by a 200 Mbps isolator to eliminate all interference from your PC. This isolator efficiently reduces any external noise interfering with the audio signal. This grounding isolation is further enhanced with a 2nd generation OCXO K2 clock synthesiser that has an ultra-low noise floor. The K2 chip can generate audio-specific frequency using a 10MHz clock source with extremely low loss.

The Gustard U18 features Altera Independent CPLD for signal shaping. In the CLPO for signal processing, the isolated IIS signal is reshaped to remove the jitter introduced by the isolator. This is very carefully implemented to balance out the effects of the isolator on the audio signal. These Altera CPLD are supported by the high-end toroidal transformers by Nichicon. The Nichicon Fine Gold transformer has been utilised to deliver a stable and artefact free audio signal.

The Gustard U18 is built with IIS connectors to offer the highest quality of audio. The IIS connection is H configurable and offers 4 modes of operation, including Stock mode and DSDFlag mode. All you need to do is click right to change pinout and long push to change to DSDFlag mode. For its audio outputs, the Gustard U18 offers Toslink Optical, Coaxial, AES and I2S via HDMI. The power supply for the U18 has been carefully selected with LT3054 linear power supply to deliver high performance, low-dropout linear power to the device and the clock. The RMS noise is only 0.8uVRMS and ensures clean audio.