Thoughts on Hegel's D50 DAC?

im also interested in this dac, does not appear to be too many out in the wild

Indeed. In fact, my local Hegel dealer in MTL doesn't even have 1 in his listening room at the moment. I wanted to audition it with the gear I currently use.

I spent an hour with the D50 at Axpona in April. It was compared to the built in Dac in the Hegel H400 Integrated amp. The 50 outperformed the internal Dac as you would expect. It had a nice 3D soundstage,, instrument separation was excellent and the highs were warm yet still there with air, plenty of bottom and nice midrange, all the things you expect in a nice DAC nowadays. I prefer my Denafrips Terminator 2, which is really benefitting due to my system components which I preferred over the system Hegel had at Axpona. My DT2 sounds great with my LAIV uDDC and NA Eno 2. You’ll just have to get one to check out in your own system, the only way to tell if ifs right for you. Happy hunting.

I haven't heard this yet as a Hegel dealer.  Tariffs created a lot of uncertainty around shipments.  If it is anything like what is in the H600 it will be very similar in sound to the Audiobyte HydraVox (I know...could I pick a more obscure reference).  

I had a customer in doing a demo of the HydraVox in the Hegel and we switched back and fourth between the Hegel internal and the HydraVox and they were insanely close.  The Hegel had better central image depth.  The HydraVox had a bit more scale.  

Little details on the Audiobyte (now discontinued) was a $4500 FPGA DAC and is produced by a sister company of Rockne.  The unit is neutral, highly detailed with Rockna's signature massive soundstage.  It lacks a bit of depth.  It is a touch warmer and maybe a hair less detailed than the Chord TT2 but the Chord's image barely extends beyond the speakers in terms of height wand width the Audiobyte Sounds massive.  The Chord has the best depth of any DAC in this price range.  

I would expect the Hegel to have very close to TT2 level detail, be a bit less bright compared to Chord with a much bigger soundstage in terms of height and width and somewhat inferior depth.  This would make it a very fair compromise in its price class.  

Again, I am inferring this based on my experience with the H600.  That said, you just reminded me I need to get one of these and I am going to go send the PO in now for it.  

Full disclosure, I am a Hegel Dealer, former Chord Dealer (I recently dropped the line) and obviously an Audiobyte dealer.  

Thanks for this. Word is that the D50 is significantly more revealing than the DAC inside the H600, which is no slouch. I own the latter and currently don't use an external DAC. It's the above claim I will want to ascertain when I finally get to demo the new DAC.

@m_lefebvre 

This may or not be helpful...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGyTsOLg67E

Thanks!

@m_lefebvre 

FYI, Listen Up! Is a chain (brick and mortar and online) in Colorado that sells Hegel and offers a return policy. I bought my H390 from them. You could get the DAC, try it for yourself and send it back if you didn’t like it. 

It's great that they do this -- but I'm in Canada, which means that in the current context I would likely pay duties just to listen. I'm sure I'll find a local sealer that has one.

@m_lefebvre 

Lucky you! 

Perhaps that shop with the youtube channel-- Audio Excellence? - offers returns...

@m_lefebvre 

OK. Looks like they don’t offer refunds, just exchanges. 

Here's Hegel's list of Canadian dealers. 

https://www.hegel.com/fr/canada

Good luck!