Hegel H95 Review (Streaming Amplifier)

[voodooless]

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.

That just means you'll need to adjust the criteria for performance accordingly. The same goes for @caught gesture. Performance can be many things, including social responsibility figures.

Sorry, you seem to have no clue about what drives the price of a product.

Oh, I very well do. The problem is just that the effort is not the only driver here. Next to the cost of components, production cost and amortisation of the design, certification and other upfront costs, distribution, etc, there is always some kind of intrinsic market price. Some things simply don't sell if the price is too low (or too high). Some (if not most) audiophile stuff definitely falls in this quality.

The point is: if the effort is very high, one can never have a low-cost product and still make money. It just doesn't add up.

Now the question is how much the Chinese companies cheat in this aspect? Do they get state subsidies for their products? Who knows..

 

[orangejello]

This guy deleted my comment and ASR link for this review too.

I followed the link to “This guy” and read some of the comments (couldn‘t bother with the video). Wow. Rather nauseating that he deleted your comment and link. He has a number of obsequious followers that seem to fluff him. To leave your comment and link in place would damage his authority - and he won’t let that happen.

To me it is a perfect example of the mess that is today’s internet. There is so much disinformation in every quarter that it leaves many people either misinformed or confused. When it comes to audio the stakes are not very high. But in matters of health or politics, the consequences are much more serious. One root cause of all of this disinformation is that people are making money by setting themselves up as authorities and developing a following. The worst thing that can happen to their efforts is for their authority to be called into question. Truth and accuracy are the casualties. This guy seems be just another example of that phenomenon.

Back to the Hegel. From my experience with their equipment, I never was able to understand the attraction that some have for the stuff. It just seemed overpriced and unremarkable. This review seems to bear that out. (Not to mention that its aesthetic appeal is non-existent for me)

 

[Lambda]

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

We have some data for vol = 98.

What if the It would reach SINAD of ~90 at vol = 50?
Can you show from this data it would not?

 

[Tangband]

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.

Dont agree.
Offering 96 kHz is maybe good enough if the jitter is low but not up to date 2021.

The TE7022 was probably chosen only because of low cost. This tested amplifier is expensive. The Chinese brands Topping and S.M.S.L offers xu208 and xu216 chips with super low jitter, with sometimes good volume implementation in the digital domain thats superior to TE7022 and does 192 kHz or 384 kHz.

 

[Hegel Music System]

First of all thank you for taking the time to measure the H95. Immediately upon seeing the measurements we realized that something was very different to our own. We could not recognize ourselves in the results or in the conclusion.

Please consider this as a manufacturers comment. One where we totally respect the work that has been put down, and peoples views on the product. But where we want to comment the findings, where these does not match our own. So this will typically be our only comment on the issue.

We promised our own findings today. I will therefore present what we disagree on and why.

1) All the DAC measurements are in our mind misleading. They were measured at a level where the amplifier is clipping. In our view, they should be dismissed completely.

1.1) There has been some debate on how we can allow the RCA pre out to be optimized at 550mV, which actually is a fair question. The reasoning behind this is that we mainly see this as a subwoofer connection. Obviously you can debate wether that is a good or a bad choice.

When the pre amp output is more than 550 mV, the speaker output will be clipping and that will influence the performance of the pre out.

The pre-out on the H95 is taken directly from the power amplifiers input stage. See figure below:

When the power amplifier starts clipping, this will reflect in the RCA pre out as well. As such, the RCA pre out can NOT be used as a 2V DAC output. When we measure the DAC performance we connect Audio Precision directly to the output stage of the DAC board. You can of course also measure the DAC on the RCA output, but with a lower setting than 98 and it will include factors from the preamp.

Notes on why;
We used to have a lower output level on the RCA Pre out (earlier models), but since we have 32 dB gain in our power amplifiers we had to raise it to allow for easier subwoofer integration.

Actually we used to run the output from the preamp at a level where it never really started clipping (also earlier models), but on a 60w/pc amplifier consumers did not like to have the volume control at “98” to play loud. And what if you played an old Pink Floyd piece, with low gain… it would never be loud enough.


2) The stability measurement THD + N from ASR claims that the amplifier never reaches stability after warm up.

This measurement is, in our view, wrong. This is how it should look (our own test on AP 2722 today)

We have only almost managed to recreate the ASR measurement if we wiggle the speaker cables in the H95 terminals or tap the output relays.

We disagree with the comment about the power amplifier not being stable. The Hegel output stage is a no-feedback design, and since the distortion characteristics of the power transistor change somewhat with temperature, the total distortion will have a small increase with temperature. In a high open loop gain feedback-design this effect will be much smaller.


3) Distortion measurements in analog mode. These do match ours and are in our minds absolutely fine. We only have some comments.

We could obviously also achieve a super low 0,0001% THD by using lots of feedback. That is a fairly easy design.

But we don’t and the reason is that global feedback amplifiers, in our minds, doesn’t sound very good. Subjective, we take that, but it is our experience. So, we use our SoundEngine to dynamically reduce distortion instead. In the integrated amplifiers the soundEngine is only used in the output stage where we believe it is most important.

Finally, thank you for reading this rather long feedback. I am sure not all f you will agree in our thoughts and comment above. That is fair and it is really what a forum is about. Debating ones hobby.

And if you are ever in doubt, we urge you to visit your Hegel dealer for an audition.

Hegel Music System AS
Anders Ertzeid
VP Sales & Marketing

 

[Hegel Music System]

One more thing that I forgot. Yesterday we linked to Paul Millers (HiFi News) lab report in our post #101. His results looked more like our own. We were obviously not the first as it was presented earlier in post #59, and then @amirm dismissed Paul in post #62 insinuating he was a “has been” and asked how Paul could be satisfied with 86dB signal to noise ratio. First of all, Paul wasn’t happy with 86dB. He was happy with 100,9dB, if you look closer. Second, Paul is an expert at measuring with 40 years of experience and one of the few in this industry who has actually designed and built high performance measurement equipment.

 

[jensgk]

Amir doing this for free does not imply that sloppiness is excusable, in my view.

This is not some unimportant random blog with zero hit rates. You have to get real and serious if you really claim to be the lighthouse in the dark.

So it is ok for the Line Out to clip severely at Volume 98? I think it is a sign of bad engineering.

 

[PeteL]

Your oncept of amplifiers putting out "Watts" is wrong to begin with.
Your Amplifier amplifies voltage and it puts out voltage. The speaker might be pulling amps depending on the voltage but Volts times Amps is VA
not Watts only if the Current and voltage is in phase its real power.

Most Amps have a fixed Gain an Analog Attenuation.
The designer knows Exactly how many Volts the DAC outputs at 0dBFS and how mush gain the Amplifier has.
If it can’t Handel this badly designed.

The limiting factor shuld never be how many Volts your Amp can output but how loud you want to listen.

If for some wired reasoning you want excessive gain over 0dB (and you don't want to boost in digital)
It shuld Clearly be labeled as excessive gain region with clipping to the user.
For example if the volume controls go from 0 to 100% (like in usually in bad consumer gear)
It shuld go from 0 to 150% ore something

I find it strange that you seem to want your amp to be clipping at full volume?!
I want an amplifier to never Clip and to never be the limiting factor.

Well, gain is Vout/Vin by definition an amplifier with volume control have variable gain, in the sense of this definition.
Yes, I want my weakest sources to be able to reach full output, this mean the loudest sources will clip at full volume, that's quite common. Yes there are digital content that wont reach 0 dBFS, and yes the designer knows how much volt it is at the output of the dac, before volume control. The point is? You'll attenuate this voltage, and then you'll amplify it. I stand than not being able to reach full output with a weaker signal is a bigger problem than being able to clip an amp when the volume is maxed out on some sources.

 

[sarumbear]

Current Yamaha amplifier AS-501:
View attachment 168097

Accuphase E-5000 current model:
View attachment 168098

150mV was typical in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It's now around 200-250mV on line inputs for full rated power on SE RCAs. Power amplifiers are usually from 1.0V-2.0V for full rated power.

But why would you feed an integrated amplifier's "line output" to another integrated amplifier's Aux/CD input?

 

[Chagall]

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.

Although I empathize, this is how the world works. People don't seem to care when they buy millions of those assembled in China, design in California products.

 

[pma]

So it is ok for the Line Out to clip severely at Volume 98? I think it is a sign of bad engineering.

It is not and look at my post with real life measured values

Hegel H95 Review (Streaming Amplifier)

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...

www.audiosciencereview.com

There are moments we need full output which has been 2V for digital sources in the past 2-3 decades. We do not live in cassette age anymore. For 400W/4ohm (or 200W/8ohm) and 26dB gain I need 2V input.

 

[Lambda]

1.1) There has been some debate on how we can allow the RCA pre out to be optimized at 550mV, which actually is a fair question. The reasoning behind this is that we mainly see this as a subwoofer connection. Obviously you can debate wether that is a good or a bad choice.

When the pre amp output is more than 550 mV, the speaker output will be clipping and that will influence the performance of the pre out.

At what volume level is 0dDFS = 550 mV?
Or what is the maximum volume level to avoid clipping with a digital full scale signal?
At what volume level digital in an analog preamp would this am Measure the best?

What is he ideal and maximum innput level for the analog input?

 

[sarumbear]

There is a huge responsibility and sorry to say it so directly to you, @amirm, you seem to lack that engineering thoroughness that is required by now. 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.

I totally disagree! He is doing a stellar job. He is open and transparent. If a device is not up to standard that "he" expects, he says it as "he" feels like it. A manufacturer have the same rights as any member and like me and you, they can reply.

You are mistaking ASR with an industry forum. It is not. It is a consumer forum and @amirm is the consumer advocate. It is up to the manufacturers to prove him wrong.

 

[sarumbear]

AMIR KILLED NETSCAPE!!!

I think he is talking about Real Networks. Do you remember the Real Player?

 

[Koeitje]

But why would you feed an integrated amplifier's "line output" to another integrated amplifier's Aux/CD input?

That other amplifier might be more powerful and you want to use the streaming/digital functions from this one.

 

[caught gesture]

I totally disagree! He is doing a stellar job. He is open and transparent. If a device is not up to standard that "he" expects, he says it as "he" feels like it. A manufacturer have the same rights as any member and like me and you, they can reply.

You are mistaking ASR with an industry forum. It is not. It is a consumer forum and @amirm is the consumer advocate. It is up to the manufacturers to prove him wrong.

+1000

 

[voodooless]

I think he is talking about Real Networks. Do you remember the Real Player?

Exactly

 

[sarumbear]

That other amplifier might be more powerful and you want to use the streaming/digital functions from this one.

So you will cascade two preamplifiers and two volume controls?

 

[solderdude]

1) All the DAC measurements are in our mind misleading. They were measured at a level where the amplifier is clipping. In our view, they should be dismissed completely.

1.1) There has been some debate on how we can allow the RCA pre out to be optimized at 550mV, which actually is a fair question. The reasoning behind this is that we mainly see this as a subwoofer connection. Obviously you can debate wether that is a good or a bad choice.

When the pre amp output is more than 550 mV, the speaker output will be clipping and that will influence the performance of the pre out.

The pre-out on the H95 is taken directly from the power amplifiers input stage. See figure below:

View attachment 168201
When the power amplifier starts clipping, this will reflect in the RCA pre out as well. As such, the RCA pre out can NOT be used as a 2V DAC output. When we measure the DAC performance we connect Audio Precision directly to the output stage of the DAC board. You can of course also measure the DAC on the RCA output, but with a lower setting than 98 and it will include factors from the preamp.

That explanation makes perfect sense.
We can see the 'clipping alike' behavior we see is also seen in the knee at -11dB which not surprisingly calculates to 0.56V.

Indeed, as @KSTR also mentioned, the DAC measurements are not correct and would advice @amirm to either re-measure at 550mV as 0dB or remove the line-out measurements or make a note stating that the line-out is 550mV FSD instead of the usual 2V.

Now... below 560mV the performance isn't great either though and about similar in performance to the cheap Razor USB dongle.

And as you say the line-out with 0,55V is a strange decision. Why not add a simple opamp with say 4x gain and line-out would have complied more to current line-levels instead of 5-pole DIN plug line level values.
Even when using the outs for subs (could have called it sub-out ?) the 2V would still make sense.

Another thing.. why is there NOTHING in the sparse data sheet about the line output and headphone out level/impedance ?

Perhaps in the future create a bit better specifications ? This wcould have prevented the DAC measurements made on false premises that line-out would be a rather 'standard' 2V.

Devices look nice.. maybe get your specifications in order as well ?

 

[voodooless]

We promised our own findings today. I will therefore present what we disagree on and why.

Finally some decent feedback from your side. That is really appreciated!

1) All the DAC measurements are in our mind misleading. They were measured at a level where the amplifier is clipping. In our view, they should be dismissed completely.

How can the amplifier be clipping even with the lower level measurements? Certainly, the IMD sweep is representative up to the clipping point?

When we measure the DAC performance we connect Audio Precision directly to the output stage of the DAC board. You can of course also measure the DAC on the RCA output, but with a lower setting than 98 and it will include factors from the preamp.

Once more the question: isn't that what the IMD sweep already did?

Actually we used to run the output from the preamp at a level where it never really started clipping (also earlier models), but on a 60w/pc amplifier consumers did not like to have the volume control at “98” to play loud. And what if you played an old Pink Floyd piece, with low gain… it would never be loud enough.

So the clipping is to make sure that lower gain digital sources can still reach proper levels? Sounds sensible. Most AVR's also clip before they search maximum volume.

2) The stability measurement THD + N from ASR claims that the amplifier never reaches stability after warm up.

This measurement is, in our view, wrong. This is how it should look (our own test on AP 2722 today)

View attachment 168202
We have only almost managed to recreate the ASR measurement if we wiggle the speaker cables in the H95 terminals or tap the output relays.

We disagree with the comment about the power amplifier not being stable. The Hegel output stage is a no-feedback design, and since the distortion characteristics of the power transistor change somewhat with temperature, the total distortion will have a small increase with temperature. In a high open loop gain feedback-design this effect will be much smaller.

How can the measurements be wrong? From what I see here, you just have different measurements with a different sample and different circumstances. We can only guess as to the cause of @amirm's findings. He has done these many times, and it seems straightforward to do.