Hello, I hope I’m posting in the right spot. I currently have a bluesound vault 2i and I have purchased the Hegel h190. I purchased the Hegel not knowing that it doesn’t unfold MQA but the Dac apparently reads hi Rez. So, looks like I’ll be moving to Qobuz. I want to use the bluesound as streamer but not sure how to connect to Hegel so that the Hegel uses its internal Dac to process music. Obviously I will be using roon and I have a nucleus. I suspect there could be an easy answer to this. Thanks for any help.
Hi John
you can connect the Bluesound through coax or optical to your Hegel. Deciding which one sounds best, is for you to judge. Most users with this setup seem to prefer Coax.
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If memory served me correctly from past ownership the vault has both spdif coax and toslink digital outputs and I think both are active at same time.
I don’t think it will make much difference which you use to connect to the Hegel DAC but possibly try both and see which you prefer.
Coax definitely supports 24/192 and I think the toslink did also.
IMHO the internal dac of the Vault was it’s weak link so definitely the right move to use the Hegel DAC.
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May I ask, what is the purpose of the Vault 2i in your setup? As you already own a Nucleus, why don’t you just connect it to the Hegel H190 directly through USB? For the price of a Vault 2i, you can buy a very nice USB cable and, in case you’re worrying about noise, you could add a USB isolator. Moreover, when the Hegel H190 is finally Roon Ready you could change the USB connection to Ethernet if you like.
I really don’t see the point of the Vault 2i as, in my understanding, the Nucleus and the Vault 2i basically do the same thing. My father owns a Vault 2i (with NAD M10 and no Roon) as well, and has many issues with the CD Ripper. Also, manually adjusting tags with the Vault 2i is a pain in the ***. Hence, I would always prefer to rip the CDs using my PC and tag the files correctly in the first place anyway.
Just my opinion though… 
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Can the nucleus be used as an endpoint and a core? Has anyone ever done this?
The Nucleus would feed the Hegel via USB easily. This works but Roon do not recommend it.
I have done this with other devices and they sounded fine, though many will tell you to separate the core from the endpoint as good practice.
When I did it I was using a jitterbug USB noise suppressor and a good USB cable. Eventually I bought a true RR solution and moved the Roon core to my study and that has been perfect since.
Yup, what I have described above is essentially my setup. I have built a “Nucleus” by myself (in the end it’s a NUC with ROCK as the operating system) and connected it directly through USB to my Hegel H390. My music is stored on a second SSD drive in the “Nucleus”, but you could easily use a NAS as your storage location. Even though the Hegel H390 is not Roon Ready yet, I can change volume etc. via my Roon Remote. As long as the Hegel products are not Roon Ready, this is probably the most comfortable solution, but as @Michael_Harris mentioned, I would also prefer to use the ethernet connection of the Hegel H390.
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So this was just posted in another thread I partake in. Now this made me a little jealous as I am missing any kind of Hegel amp in my set-up.
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Controlling volume of the Hegel over USB via Roon is a nice feature! I think it only available on H390 (and 590?), but unfortunately not on the H190.
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Damn, makes me wonder if I should just to the H390…my hope is that when this unit is roon ready this will not be an issue.
If this feature would be available for the H190, it would be a reasonable temporary solution before Roon Ready.
@Anders_Ertzeid if the H190 can support this just like the (my) H390, please add this with an update.
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Seems like it’s quite a big jump to the h390. I was trying out the NAD M10 and it really does everything! I went with the H190 for the sound quality but damn the NAD does make it easy
I mean you could easily test what functionality is available for the H190 through USB. Putting sound quality aside, all you need is a USB A to B cable (e.g. found at the back of many printers). Put it between the Nucleus and the H190, don’t forget to activate the H190 in Roon audio devices, and see what happens
@PeterD Unfortunately the H95/120/190 uses a simpler USB receiver chip without that possibility. So this can only be done with the H390/590
It is what it is 