Hegel H95 Review (Streaming Amplifier)

[peng]

not need to be so harsh, that option was not available some time ago... also you cannot believe tests, you will need some audible prove, right??

If you are talking about amps, audible prove is fine for making sure it works fine after all the bench tests, but if the tests are done probably, and cover the important ones such as frequency response, distortions, noise, channel balance, cross talks, input/out impedances, and at different power output levels up to their rated levels, then no, audible prove is fine but not "needed", as you will "prove" if the amp is doing its job for you once you start using it to listen to music, movies, videos etc.

and right now.... i do not do anymore tests, because my system sounds VERY D**N GOOD it might sound better with a Hegel, tho

Different cables, different measurements?

So, I finally have a proof?? I finally have the ultimate answer to the ultimate question?? (Go to bold for the resume) Hi, everyone, since I'm an engineer i don't really believed how a cable might affect sound, i mean, YES there are all types of cables and some are for specific tasks, such as...

www.audiosciencereview.com

People seem to think amps are designed to have a "sound", but there is no definition of what such "sound" should be, other than the amps should just amplify the input signal without distorting it in any shape or form, amplifier's is designed and made to amplify right? If "sound" is defined as what many may call it warm, cold, crisp, soft, sweet, musical, smooth, harsh, wide, deep, narrow blablabla and you want the amp to have the "sound" you want and "prove" that its for you, then you would have to do a lot of auditioning in order to have the "proof" right. I am glad I don't believe any of those silly things, it would have been too much work and stress if I do, it's just a hobby, the important thing is to enjoy the music and focus of acquiring high quality contents, in terms of recording and mastering, garbage in garbage out, given that amps at the level of Hegel's are pretty much not the bottleneck anyway to worry about their impact on "sound", unless they are broken.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

i want my system to sound like Hegel, so i use a custom DSP EQ with +10dB in bass region ..

There are many other quotable stuff in your post but this one spoke to me the loudest.

 

[Matt_Holland]

Over 25ish years of listening to audio equipment I’ve always thought there are audible differences between amplifiers.

Some examples have already been mentioned, but some standout memories are:
Denon PMA250 - clean, not very dynamic.
Arcam Alpha 7 - warm, wide soundstage, coloured
Cyrus 2 - clean, detailed, bit mechanical sounding in the bass
Naim Nait 3 - warm, dynamic, noisy
Naim Nait 5 - very warm, euphonic, nice bass, smooth
Linn Intek - opposite of Nait 5
Cambridge Audio from late 90s - terrible, bright, soundstage a mess, fatiguing
Marantz from mid 90s - “sparkling” treble, no soundstage depth, un-natural, not good.
Meridian Audio G57 - impression of being incredibly transparent. Very clean, complete control of speaker. One of my favourites.
Primare A25 - Similar to Primare Meridian , but perhaps smoother and more natural. Really lovely.

One of the things I hear between amplifiers is their bass control. This doesn’t seem to be related to max power output.

Could this be related to current delivery when both channels are driven (bass being mostly mono)?

 

[peng]

Could this be related to current delivery when both channels are driven (bass being mostly mono)?

Current delivery can certainly be the factor. People hearing with their eyes could be, as often mentioned, a major factor as well.

 

[Matt_Holland]

Current delivery can certainly be the factor. People hearing with their eyes could be, as often mentioned, a major factor as well.

Absolutely! And I very much opened myself up to some light hearted abuse regarding biases.

 

[Serg]

Absolutely! And I very much opened myself up to some light hearted abuse regarding biases.

I think many of us have been there as well!

 

[KneelBeforeZod]

A few years ago I bought a used Hegel H390 amplifier.

It made me want to not listen to music anymore.

I dug my 25 year old Pioneer A400 out from the attic, dusted it off and compared it to the H390. The H390 sounded VASTLY inferior to the A400 in every single regard. That's a £299 integrated amp from 1990.

I persevered for weeks (because the H390's supposed to be a great amp right?) but the reality was undeniable: I increasingly disliked listening to music. So eventually I gave up with the thing, sold it and went back to my old amps (which you'll never have heard of).

 

[NHL99]

A few years ago I bought a used Hegel H390 amplifier.

It made me want to not listen to music anymore.

I dug my 25 year old Pioneer A400 out from the attic, dusted it off and compared it to the H390. The H390 sounded VASTLY inferior to the A400 in every single regard. That's a £299 integrated amp from 1990.

I persevered for weeks (because the H390's supposed to be a great amp right?) but the reality was undeniable: I increasingly disliked listening to music. So eventually I gave up with the thing, sold it and went back to my old amps (which you'll never have heard of).

Grandma had a Pioneer SX-535 AM/FM Stereo Receiver, also nice, warm sound. How does the H390 render the audio?

 

[Chrispy]

Over 25ish years of listening to audio equipment I’ve always thought there are audible differences between amplifiers.

Some examples have already been mentioned, but some standout memories are:
Denon PMA250 - clean, not very dynamic.
Arcam Alpha 7 - warm, wide soundstage, coloured
Cyrus 2 - clean, detailed, bit mechanical sounding in the bass
Naim Nait 3 - warm, dynamic, noisy
Naim Nait 5 - very warm, euphonic, nice bass, smooth
Linn Intek - opposite of Nait 5
Cambridge Audio from late 90s - terrible, bright, soundstage a mess, fatiguing
Marantz from mid 90s - “sparkling” treble, no soundstage depth, un-natural, not good.
Meridian Audio G57 - impression of being incredibly transparent. Very clean, complete control of speaker. One of my favourites.
Primare A25 - Similar to Primare Meridian , but perhaps smoother and more natural. Really lovely.

One of the things I hear between amplifiers is their bass control. This doesn’t seem to be related to max power output.

Could this be related to current delivery when both channels are driven (bass being mostly mono)?

I'd just review your comparison methods first. Those amp descriptions are hilarious....

 

[Matt_Holland]

I'd just review your comparison methods first. Those amp descriptions are hilarious....

There were no scientific comparison methods. Just my subjective impressions. And like anyone who hears differences in audio components, the differences are subjectively there despite the fact that they are almost certainly not there objectively, and mostly formed due to biases.

I’m an objectivist, hence being on ASR. But I’ve had many many subjective experiences that suggest amplifiers sound different. I’m aware that most sound the same in reality.

 

[DSJR]

Over 25ish years of listening to audio equipment I’ve always thought there are audible differences between amplifiers.

Some examples have already been mentioned, but some standout memories are:
Denon PMA250 - clean, not very dynamic.
Arcam Alpha 7 - warm, wide soundstage, coloured
Cyrus 2 - clean, detailed, bit mechanical sounding in the bass
Naim Nait 3 - warm, dynamic, noisy
Naim Nait 5 - very warm, euphonic, nice bass, smooth
Linn Intek - opposite of Nait 5
Cambridge Audio from late 90s - terrible, bright, soundstage a mess, fatiguing
Marantz from mid 90s - “sparkling” treble, no soundstage depth, un-natural, not good.
Meridian Audio G57 - impression of being incredibly transparent. Very clean, complete control of speaker. One of my favourites.
Primare A25 - Similar to Primare Meridian , but perhaps smoother and more natural. Really lovely.

One of the things I hear between amplifiers is their bass control. This doesn’t seem to be related to max power output.

Could this be related to current delivery when both channels are driven (bass being mostly mono)?

I know some of the amps above - your opinion doesn't always match mine from my subjective days - See how useless subjective comments are? I'll give examples -

Denon PMA250 - Low powered, a bit gutless with no bass power and easily to sell up to the 350 model which had a little more 'authority' audibly
Alpha 7 - Okay but nothing special as I recall
Cyrus 2 - Too lean-n-bright 'HiFi' without the PSX which was easy to sell with it to mature this design and audibly flesh out the sound - Very good with PSX. Place on an Isoplat to 'present' the pair
Nait 3 - Worst of the Naits, absolutely ghastly, limp wristed and gutless into any speaker. Adding a Flatcap supply (with relevant socketry) helped but still no power. 92/90 exactly the same
Nait 5 - Bright, 'assertive toned' domestic low powered PA amp which HARD clipped nastily if pushed a touch too far. No idea where your 'euphonic' term comes from as we found it anything but... later 'i' version not as hard sounding below clipping - they even put a Zobel network on the output - YIKES!!!!!
Linn Intek - GRAINY and unpleasant. Pretek/Powertek same as well as the LK100 - design reasons apparently - amplifying initial distortion in the power amp input circuit. Maybe thirty years of use tames it?
Meridian were very good at changing innards every other batch on many items they made over the years we found, so jury's out on the exact samples heard

Bass control can be to do with current output certainly, but output impedance dealing with the rollercoaster speaker impedance curves below 100Hz also plays a part I suspect in perceived bass quality.

Not sure any of the above except the Cyrus 2/PSX ever got a lab report although Martin Colloms tested a full Naim Credo system in HiFi news once and may have done proper tests.

 

[DSJR]

A few years ago I bought a used Hegel H390 amplifier.

It made me want to not listen to music anymore.

I dug my 25 year old Pioneer A400 out from the attic, dusted it off and compared it to the H390. The H390 sounded VASTLY inferior to the A400 in every single regard. That's a £299 integrated amp from 1990.

I persevered for weeks (because the H390's supposed to be a great amp right?) but the reality was undeniable: I increasingly disliked listening to music. So eventually I gave up with the thing, sold it and went back to my old amps (which you'll never have heard of).

The Pioneer A400 was LOATHED in the UK subjectivist dealers of the period too, absolutely HATED and more than one dealer had one on dem to compare favourite Naim and maybe Cyrus products to..

I did a few dems with A400's customers brought in and the one thing I learned is that as well as basically being a power amp with gain control (phono stage I remember as being pretty meh), it was ruthless at showing up bad sources (and there were some really bad digital ones with 5* reviews, weren't there Mr KI Signature and Rotel BX?). The Audiolab 8000A of the times fared similarly I recall, Naim dealers hating it with a passion... A400 in a sympathetic system with better quality/less 'contrived' source was okay though. I'd love to have tried the donor 404? amp with tone controls on which was supposedly as good and cheaper too I gather

Thank heck I'm out of that rat run. Not sure many of my contemporaries still in the industry pre-post retirement ever came out of said rat-run sadly and a few survivors still spout the same old uneducated crap

I repeat, this Hegel and maybe the bigger ones to are 'good enough' and shouldn't stamp their character on the music played - they'd need the distortion side of sinad in the 50s or lower 60s for that I suspect..

 

[peng]

There were no scientific comparison methods. Just my subjective impressions. And like anyone who hears differences in audio components, the differences are subjectively there despite the fact that they are almost certainly not there objectively, and mostly formed due to biases.

I’m an objectivist, hence being on ASR. But I’ve had many many subjective experiences that suggest amplifiers sound different. I’m aware that most sound the same in reality.

I think when you say "amplifiers sound different", that is, used in just those 3 word, you are assured that no one can argue with you unless it is done for argument sake.

It is when someone, obviously not you, who states something like all amplifiers have their own sound signature (without any qualifiers, and/or supporting, background information such as test conditions) it would become controversial. Those kind of posts would then belong to other threads on ASR, where they would be free to argue all they want but expect no one will win such arguments lol...., except the subjective ones usually would present no scientific evidence, naturally but that doesn't mean they lost the argument.

 

[Chrispy]

There were no scientific comparison methods. Just my subjective impressions. And like anyone who hears differences in audio components, the differences are subjectively there despite the fact that they are almost certainly not there objectively, and mostly formed due to biases.

I’m an objectivist, hence being on ASR. But I’ve had many many subjective experiences that suggest amplifiers sound different. I’m aware that most sound the same in reality.

I've never bothered trying to gather subjective descriptions of amps, mostly because I just don't think of them in that way. Your specific impressions of such aren't something I find useful in any case.....suum quique.

 

[Alpha Oscar]

The SINAD in that DAC at -24 dBFS is around 90 dB. It would be transparent to an 81 dB amplifier. Not knock it down to 72 dB. The DAC in H95 does that because unlike the above graph, it has this kind of noise floor:

Now SINAD is around 70 dB and hence the reason it sucked the performance of the amp down. Which precisely makes my point. The internal DAC is way too noisy. Both DAC tests and integrated pipeline of the dac and amp show this.

 

[Puddingbuks]

Hegel bought an irrelevant eisa award...

 

[rank]

It's a joke ?

 

[BDWoody]

@Alpha Oscar

I know, funny right?!

It's almost like you can't really trust the propaganda machine.

Good thing we have places like ASR where we can look behind the awards curtains to see what's really there.

 

[Alpha Oscar]

È uno scherzo?

M pare dì no

 

[rank]

Yes you are right, they have won awards for several amps (integrated) and even a CD player in recent years.