Run Roon directly to Hegel H390 or via Bluesound Node?

Audio Gear Talk Hegel
1

What gives the best sound?

2

The Hegel H390 is Roon Ready, thus I’d recommend hooking it up your network so that Roon’s RAAT network protocol can discover and stream to it. No need or advantage in adding additional hardware or software stacks.

1 Like
3

I would doubt the Node would give any noticeable advantage over the Hegel’s built-in Roon streaming implementation and DAC. That being said if you are willing to explore better quality DAC/streaming options then the benefits are, in my experience, very clear indeed - the H390’s real strengths are in the amplification.

2 Likes
4

I found the 390’s DAC to be lacking in my system, but what the 390 does that is super handy, is give you the ability to use it’s streaming section to run an external DAC on a loop. Which means I can use roon to control the hegel, standby, volume and auto switching to network input, but with the sonics of a much better external DAC

2 Likes
5

Indeed. If I were serious about playing discs I’d have a different solution, but I have a Cambridge Audio CXC transport hooked up to the H390’s DAC - sounds perfectly acceptable, but I never use it.

1 Like
6

I don’t think it would matter as both Bluesound and Hegel are Roon Ready. Hegel re-samples its DAC input to 105.47 kHz for all sources, so everything is re-sampled internally regardless of the file’s native sampling rate.

1 Like
7

The H390 does not resample.

1 Like
8

Thanks for all sharings. :grinning: I have another topic/question too you.

What alternatives gives the best sound ?

  1. TIDAL MQA via Bluesound Node via coax to Hegel H390 or
  2. Roon/TIDAL directly to Hegel H390

Thanks. :grin:

9

Seems pretty much like the same question to me :man_shrugging:

1 Like
10

IIRC, there is no final MQA rendering allowed on digital outputs, so in both cases it will be H390 doing final MQA processing and analog conversion. In other words, no difference whatsoever.

1 Like