2. digital
  3. 160515-151404

Hegel H90 external DAC setup

Hi All, I’ve got a Hegel H90 and have been trying to experiment with upgrading to an external DAC.

I purchased a Musical Fidelity MX-DAC, but not entirely sure how to use this as the main converter and bypass the H90s internal D/A conversion. I mainly use the Hegel AirPlay network functionality to stream Qobuz, don’t want to use a laptop to stream. 
I noticed that higher level Hegels have a DAC loop function where the internal converter can be disabled to allow for an external converter. My model doesn’t have this, so hoping there might be a workaround.


cd45123

Showing 2 responses by lowrider57

lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,393 posts
 
just picked up a Bluesound Node 2i, but not sure if I can connect an external DAC to this since it only has outputs. I imagine that analog out on the DAC to analog out on the streamer won’t work.

You got some bad advice. The Node2i is the source and plugs into the DAC. Use Bluesound S/PDIF coax out or Toslink to the DAC digital input.
Then Dac RCA analogue out to an analogue input on the Hegel amp.


lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,393 posts
 
The increased sound level may be due to cables, but can also be caused by the higher gain of your Dac. Most Dacs these days have a gain over 2V.


More to discover