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Hegel H95 Review (Streaming Amplifier)

dougi

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I tend to agree... the main problem Hegel is facing here is marketing vs. reality.

Like so many manufacturers they didn't absorb that customers aren't blind mice anymore, you have to treat them at eye-level today. The days of buzzword blurb used for marketing are over because it will blow up in any indepedent technical review -- which is the main purpose of this site (and a few others).
Agreed. I took a look at the manual and it was more an advertisement for the great outdoors of Norway than objective performance of the amp!
 

KSTR

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It's a global market. It's a bit strange to complain that you produce in/from an expensive country...
By this logic you should never buy something that wasn't made in China or whereever your production and design costs are very low.
Striving to get everthing in your life at the lowest possible cost is a disaster and an egoistic concept bound to fail.

I never adhered to the idea that price/performance ratio tells us something useful at all. Performance vs Effort is the correct metric to judge a product
 

voodooless

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By this logic you should never buy something that wasn't made in China or whereever your production and design costs are very low.
Striving to get everthing in your life at the lowest possible cost is a disaster and an egoistic concept bound to fail.
I never said that one should do that, I'm just saying the company should not complain about it and neither should you ;)
I never adhered to the idea that price/performance ratio tells us something useful at all. Performance vs Effort is the correct metric to judge a product
Why?
 

Dogcoop

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By this logic you should never buy something that wasn't made in China or whereever your production and design costs are very low.
Striving to get everthing in your life at the lowest possible cost is a disaster and an egoistic concept bound to fail.

I never adhered to the idea that price/performance ratio tells us something useful at all. Performance vs Effort is the correct metric to judge a product
I’m sorry but I have a hard time understanding what you mean by ‘effort.’. What ‘effort’ are you talking about in your metric. I really would like to understand this as the topic is very interesting. Thanks for your help and I’m sorry for bothering you!
 

Lambda

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Don't post review/measurements when you are not 100% sure you can really nail down what's going on. Check back with the manufacturer in case you see unexpected behavior, or at least check back with the local forum experts, you know who those are.
And most importantly: take your time. IME (and I'm doing this for along time now), a proper device test takes at least one work day, double- and triple-checking everything. In case of odd behavior this can easily extend to several days, even up to a week, including some "settling time".
I would mostly agree!
But i would say, Release it but give everyone the benefit of the doubt and the manufacture the chance to response.
If they think your using/measuring it wrong let them Explain how to uses it properly
If performance improves drastically when used differently as advised by the manufacture or local experts
Update the review and add under what conditions best performance can be reached.
Also Automated test reports would help to pin down what went wrong... so the "local forum experts" can double check the results.
Lots of data missing in this review to make absolute conclusions.
 
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dr0ss

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The USB port shows up as a sound card in the MacBook Pro sound preference. It's labeled as “TE7022 Audio w/ SPDIF” as the Output Device. It should show up in Windows as well. It sounds great to my ears.
The Tenor TE7022 is a perfectly competent receiver chip that has been around for yonks; I have a project from 10 years ago where I used one in a daughter board for the USB interface. If I recall correctly it is limited tp 96kHz, which could be the reason for the limits in the Hegel.
 

Unground

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As irksome as folk paying 100x the price for aesthetics alone is, I'm actually considering buying one of these purely due to the name. When is it out? VU meters?
Of course! The Jizzmeister Carbon Turbo X has five Quantum VU Meters that go all the way to 11!

The base model is $19,995, or a special Black Friday price of only $23,000!

Or you can pay just a tiny $9,995 extra for the Pro version with our new PULSAR Clock Sync Module for precision field alignment of each stereo channel. PULSAR increases immersion by 20x! It's our most analogue sounding clock sync module ever!
 

KSTR

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Price/Performance ration can easily vary by a factor of ten for one and the same exact final product just by outer circumstances that have nothing to do with the product itself. As a designer of electronic products I know this all too well.

Effort/Performace always stays the same.

The H95 does not excel there but isn't too bad either.
 

phion

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Price/Performance ration can easily vary by a factor of ten for one and the same exact final product just by outer circumstances that have nothing to do with the product itself. As a designer of electronic products I know this all too well.

Effort/Performace always stays the same.

The H95 does not excel there but isn't too bad either.
What do you mean by effort here, effort on the part of the consumer to obtain the goods or on the part of the manufacturer to produce them?
 

voodooless

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Price/Performance ration can easily vary by a factor of ten for one and the same exact final product just by outer circumstances that have nothing to do with the product itself. As a designer of electronic products I know this all too well.
So what? If product X costs 100 now, and 1000 tomorrow and the performance is still the same, why would one be inclined to still buy the same product for a different price (assuming there are alternatives)? Now if all products get 10x more expensive, that is another matter.
Effort/Performace always stays the same.
What is your definition of effort?
 

KSTR

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I’m sorry but I have a hard time understanding what you mean by ‘effort.’. What ‘effort’ are you talking about in your metric. I really would like to understand this as the topic is very interesting. Thanks for your help and I’m sorry for bothering you!
The total effort that went into making the product, mostly the engineering effort, and the efficiency of the efforts as reflected in measurements, build quality etc.
 

phion

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The total effort that went into making the product, mostly the engineering effort, and the efficiency of the efforts as reflected in measurements, build quality etc.
That’s a trivially flawed metric.
 

voodooless

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The total effort that went into making the product, mostly the engineering effort, and the efficiency of the efforts as reflected in measurements, build quality etc.
I don't see the point. Design effort is always reflected in the price of a product. The money spend on it needs to be earned back somehow. As an engineer I can understand that design efficiency is a goal, but as a consumer, I really don't care too much. I want a good product, for a good price..
 

Dogcoop

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The total effort that went into making the product, mostly the engineering effort, and the efficiency of the efforts as reflected in measurements, build quality etc.
What if the engineering ‘effort’ is huge, but flawed in its approach. Even if they spend thousands of hours engineering the product and that cost is reflected in the exorbitant price, the engineering is still flawed but the ‘effort’ was huge. Is that what I should pay for?
I’m really trying, but I can’t find the logic in your statement. Thanks for your reply.
 

KSTR

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So what? If product X costs 100 now, and 1000 tomorrow and the performance is still the same, why would one be inclined to still buy the same product for a different price (assuming there are alternatives)?
That's not the scenario, the correct one is, for example: One and the same DAC (technically), one designed and manufactured by a global far-east player and one made by a small company locally in a expensive region.

Maybe you want to support a company for any number of reasons (like being local, producing local and eco-friendly and politically correct -- no sweat shops, etc).

The same reasons why not buy cheap clothes like Primark, Zara, what have you.

Of course one must be willing and be financially able to have such a supportive stance.
 

caught gesture

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I don't see the point. Design effort is always reflected in the price of a product. The money spend on it needs to be earned back somehow. As an engineer I can understand that design efficiency is a goal, but as a consumer, I really don't care too much. I want a good product, for a good price..
If a good price means that people work in sweatshop conditions without access to basic health and safety rights and reasonable pay, that the environment gets polluted to reduce the costs of getting rid of manufacturing waste, then I have to think a lot more about price. At least if I am to have a conscience about the planet and my fellow man.
 

KSTR

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What if the engineering ‘effort’ is huge, but flawed in its approach. Even if they spend thousands of hours engineering the product and that cost is reflected in the exorbitant price, the engineering is still flawed but the ‘effort’ was huge. Is that what I should pay for?
No, of course not, because then the effort/performance ratio is very bad.
 

pma

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This discussion leads to nowhere. We have measured results, we have interpretation of them so let anyone to make his own judgement.
 
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