Hegel h190

steve59

steve59

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Is out and I had it for 3 days! It made my v1 salon speakers sound unfreakinbelievable on nearly everything I listened to. It sounds like a hegel, cost $4000, the display looks professional, actually letters that spell words What a concept. I really wanted to buy it and the only time I thought it was running out of steam was playing old cd recordings where the treble would harden up when the dial was turned to 80 otherwise the soundstage was wide, tall,vsome recordings would place the drums above the rest of the music and a little more forward than previously. When I sold my f52's and bought the salons I was disappointed with the presentation of the big speakers big, wide, but distant soundstage after the f52 intimate, headphone like experience. The H190 made me laugh out loud at some of the tracks I played thru it.
For reference it replaced a krell kav300il pre with a halo A21 amp and rega jupiter cd player using both coax and analog outputs, and on that point the dac on the h190 made my cd player sound as old as it is. I bought the h360 because I don't want to overheat a 150 wpc playing my music at 100db but, sonically I really hope my h360 sounds as good as the h190 when I get it home tomorrow.
 
Howdy steve59, I came across this post while in the midst of trying to decide between the A21, H190 and H360 for a new system I'm putting together.

Sounds like you really like the 190 and assume you prefer it to the A21. What did you think of the H360?

Speakers in my build are LS50s for now but may change to some Dali's.

Thanks for any input!
 
steve59 said:
Is out and I had it for 3 days! It made my v1 salon speakers sound unfreakinbelievable on nearly everything I listened to. It sounds like a hegel, cost $4000, the display looks professional, actually letters that spell words What a concept. I really wanted to buy it and the only time I thought it was running out of steam was playing old cd recordings where the treble would harden up when the dial was turned to 80 otherwise the soundstage was wide, tall,vsome recordings would place the drums above the rest of the music and a little more forward than previously. When I sold my f52's and bought the salons I was disappointed with the presentation of the big speakers big, wide, but distant soundstage after the f52 intimate, headphone like experience. The H190 made me laugh out loud at some of the tracks I played thru it.
For reference it replaced a krell kav300il pre with a halo A21 amp and rega jupiter cd player using both coax and analog outputs, and on that point the dac on the h190 made my cd player sound as old as it is. I bought the h360 because I don't want to overheat a 150 wpc playing my music at 100db but, sonically I really hope my h360 sounds as good as the h190 when I get it home tomorrow.
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Hi Steve59, Just wondering if you have had the time to compare the h190 against the h360? Would love to hear your views. I am thinking of buying one of these two amps and from the little that I have read, the h190 is equal (if not better) to h360 in sound quality. If so, I could save myself some $$$ by buying the h190 as its power is sufficient for my 93db effciency speakers.

Thanks!
 
We have a H190 coming shortly for one of our demo systems. I may have it by Friday if I'm lucky. From what I know so far, if you don't need the extra power of the H360, save yourself some money and get the H190.
 
charan said:
Hi Steve59, Just wondering if you have had the time to compare the h190 against the h360? Would love to hear your views. I am thinking of buying one of these two amps and from the little that I have read, the h190 is equal (if not better) to h360 in sound quality. If so, I could save myself some $$$ by buying the h190 as its power is sufficient for my 93db effciency speakers.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Driving my Salon1's in a 18'x26'x7' basement room treated with sheetrock ceiling and walls, carpet and padded floor, and 12"x12" acoustic ceiling tiles my room is pretty absorptive. First I listened to the H360 and compared to the parasound A21 I was floored by how much it brought out the mids I had it for 3 days and it was as all the other gear I demoed broke in. next was the rost with my A21 driving the bass. I found the rost to have as much control as the h360 with a little more sound up top, not like turning up the knob to +1 on back but actually more going on with the snare drum and cymbals with no added sibilance, still not enough power for the salon1. Dealer gets the H190 and runs it for several days straight and sends me home with it. For the 3 days I had it I thought it sounded more like the rost than the H360 in a good way! It brought out the mid range like the 360 but also added detail at both highs and lows. It's possible I would tire of the extra detail up top in the long term, but after 3 days I decided I preferred its sound to the 360. My serious listening is done in the mid 90db range and +100 on the 'get up and dance' songs and after a couple hours I put my hand on the top of the H190 and it was a little to warm for me to seriously consider it. I returned the h190 did my best deal on the dealers demo of the h360 and bought it... After hooking the 360 up after having the 190 in I was a little underwhelmed, no buyers remorse, just that the h360 is a little less exciting compared to the new model. If there was an H390, a 250 wpc sounding H190 I would have bought it. For sure worth a listen.
 
Thought I would revive this thread and offer some feedback on the H190 in my system.

Went to see Mike at Suncoast yesterday and grabbed a customer trade in H190 to test out. I disconnected my Meitner STR55/ PA6i combo and Autonomic MMS server that had been powering my Sonus Faber Cremona M's and connected the H190. For source, I connected my Control4 EA controller digital output directly to the H190 coaxial input and run Tidal in MQA. All cabling by Audioquest.

First impression on the H190 is that it seems very well built and solid. I logged in to the unit via IP and found only basic settings, primarily focused on Network settings. I then went into the unit through the front panel with the IR remote, and again very basic settings. I had expected native audio streaming settings, roon endpoint settings and maybe even audio adjustments. None of those exist.

After letting it warm up for about 30 minutes, I fired up Tidal on the Cremona M's and played Ray Charles/ Norah Jones "here we go again" off the Genius Loves Company Album, followed by Keiko Matsui's "Wind and the wolf". Two tracks I am very familiar with.

First impressions on the sound are that the Hegel is VERY detailed. VERY clean. Soundstage is very good in the upper range. Female vocals and anything in that frequency range really open up, which is what the Cremona M's are known for. The Hegel really helps emphasize this. Instrument separation is very good. Low end is ok. In order to hit every check box with the Sonus Fabers and the Hegel, I would definitely need to reinforce the bottom end with a sub. I moved the speakers around a little bit using the Rob Wasserman/ Jennifer Warnes "balled of the runaway horse" to try and lock in the best bass anchor locations.

Overall, not bad. Definitely not night and day over the Meitner which is really saying something about the STR55 which is barely 50wpc, 30 + years old and still hasn't been back to Canada for a refresh. I'm going to bounce around and listen to some different music over the weekend and see how things open up and progress.

More to come...
 
Now I’ve got the h590 driving my blades. I’m beginning to think that with the 590 built in dac 24/192 sounds better in mqa. I’m not saying mqa is better and ive only had qubuz a little while, but I think Hegel took mqa seriously with this dac.
 
steve59 said:
Now I’ve got the h590 driving my blades. I’m beginning to think that with the 590 built in dac 24/192 sounds better in mqa. I’m not saying mqa is better and ive only had qubuz a little while, but I think Hegel took mqa seriously with this dac.
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The 590 is KILLA! Dual mono design. Love it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
steve59 said:
Now I’ve got the h590 driving my blades. I’m beginning to think that with the 590 built in dac 24/192 sounds better in mqa. I’m not saying mqa is better and ive only had qubuz a little while, but I think Hegel took mqa seriously with this dac.
Click to expand...

Hey Steve - how are you feeling?????
 
reality kicks in next week. I've decided to tap the brakes on selling off my stuff and just see how it goes. I think I started to panic a bit when I was going to sell off my system, that option will be there when treatments are done.
 
steve59 said:
reality kicks in next week. I've decided to tap the brakes on selling off my stuff and just see how it goes. I think I started to panic a bit when I was going to sell off my system, that option will be there when treatments are done.
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I think it's good to hang on to the system until you know for sure. I know how much you love those KEF Blades. Keep us updated on how it all goes.
 
I'm kicking myself for bringing my personal baggage here. I come to this forum because I enjoy it's friendly hifi focused purpose, and it's such a resource to gain insight on how to build a musical system, not to mention the leads to new music. That said lets say I brought up HPV cancer because there is a vaccine for it and i'm making sure my kids and theirs are aware. As much as I appreciate the well wishes I hope I can leave my baggage behind going forward. I'm looking at used T&A HV series to upgrade from the H590 if anyone has experience with both I would appreciate your input. Now is a good excuse for me to build that 'end game' system 'wink'
 
steve59 said:
I'm kicking myself for bringing my personal baggage here. I come to this forum because I enjoy it's friendly hifi focused purpose, and it's such a resource to gain insight on how to build a musical system, not to mention the leads to new music. That said lets say I brought up HPV cancer because there is a vaccine for it and i'm making sure my kids and theirs are aware. As much as I appreciate the well wishes I hope I can leave my baggage behind going forward. I'm looking at used T&A HV series to upgrade from the H590 if anyone has experience with both I would appreciate your input. Now is a good excuse for me to build that 'end game' system 'wink'
Click to expand...

Fair enough and consider it done. :)
 
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