Gustard H10

So, I've seen this thing get waved around on certain forums as the bestest pairing with planars like the HE-560, and possibly every other headphone under the sun. Seems like the soundstage gets particular praise.

Truth? Anyone hear this thing in comparison to something like the Asgard 2? I've already hunted around for head-to-head comparisons and haven't really found anything substantive.

 

Isn't it just a Violectric V200 clone with some minor improvements?

 

That's the thing, I was hoping someone who had heard both could comment.

 

I greatly prefer the H10 to the Asgard 1, if that's saying anything.

I find the H10 a very good value, especially for pairing with planars. It starts to become bright and strained sounding at higher gain settings so mine's set at -12 constantly. Its distortion characteristics improve with better opamps, particularly in the bass; try rolling if you find yourself dissatisfied. I'm using a pair of vintage '87 Signetic opamps myself.

That being said, I'm not super experienced with amps. I do find it much better than the Asgard 1 and Objective2 with the opamp swap, but thats about all I can say.

 

Interesting data point with the Asgard 1, thanks. I've heard the Asgard 2 is an improvement over the Asgard 1, and certainly the O2.

 

Any other thoughts on the H10? There must be someone lurking around here who has tried it.

 

So in other words, saying the H10 sounds better is not much in the way of praise.

You'd think, but despite the hype few people seem to have heard it.

 

@SteelCannon brought his to my place once to compare against my Torpedo 3 & Ragnarok using my Yggdrasil as a source for all 3 simultaneously, and it didn't fare well with any of the headphones we tried (HD650, HE400S, & especially the TH-X00 come to mind). I'm going off of memory from a few months ago, but I remember the most noticeable thing was that something seemed off with the bass/low mids with all of the dynamic headphones we tried. You may say that's to be expected because we were comparing it to more expensive gear, but I brought out my Leckerton to try with the HE400S and I thought that sounded more coherent too.

Not sure what gain settings we were using, but Steel may be able to comment further. Can't comment on how good it is with low efficiency planars or how it fares against comparably priced Schiit, but I wasn't particularly hyped.

 

I have actually done a direct comparison. Incidentally my friend @Provisus bought the H10 and I wanted to hear the V200 so I bought it myself. V200 is definitely warmer, is better at presenting lows. That said however, the H10 is more resolving, definitely more neutral and had a much more clear sound to it. Also better at low level details. Tested with HD800s with a Hugo at the time as the DAC. FWIW.

Personally I dislike the fact that the H10 copy and pasted the V200 as a design so relentlessly, that said however I would personally say H10 > V200 in terms of sonics and definitely value. So whatever they did, to me, sounds better.