Hegel H400 : Add the Hegel D50 DAC or move up to the Hegel H600?
The Hegel H390 was one of our best selling Hegel products and time after time in demonstration it won over other products – some at greatly higher price points. A blend of good solid power with a clean pre-amp made for a product that just asked you to play music. With the new H400 there have been further improvements that make it a wonderful all round amplifier and grate successor to the H390. That said there are always next steps in hi-fi and with Hegel there is a fork in the road for how to improve on the already superb H400. Presuming that you are using the internal DAC that Hegel offers in the H400 the addition of the new D50 DAC is the obvious choice. Reading around you would think a new DAC seems like a false economy as you already have one in the amplifier but the D50 really offers a large leap in performance. With all the DAC’s that we have sold almost everyone is dubious as to the merit in the investment but when we run the demonstration and let customers hear what is on offer there is no argument to the improvement. The most common comment after the comparison is, ” I wasn’t expecting it to be that good”. Looking at the specifications tells you very little – a demonstration is the only way to determine the performance in our view.
A similar instance where looking at the specifications will have you thinking, “Why would I bother? ” is the Hegel H600 vs the H400. The H400 appears to have it all with plenty of power and a very similar feature set to the H600 but as with the DAC if you hear them side by side it is clear they are very different. The H600 has more power and that doesn’t need a large speaker to make itself known. On our PMC Prophecy 5’s ( a speaker we regularly pair with the Hegel H150 and H400 amplifiers) the H600 brings more control and pushes the soundstage further. When we move further up the scale to the PMC Prophecy 9 and ART Emotion Carbon 6’s – neither that demanding a speaker – the grip the Hegel has is more apparent still.
In isolation the H600 is a clear step up over the H400 and adding the D50 makes perfect sense as well. Presuming we can only buy one which offers the most? In our tests and when we have performed these options for customers the H600 wins the day in most cases . There is no doubting the impact the DAC makes and it is much greater than most expect but the extra foundation that the H600 lays in the music helps by a larger margin. The fact that you can easily hear the benefit the better amplifier makes even on modest speakers ( where the DAC may not be so readily apparent ) helps seal the deal. Even for those with higher resolution speakers like our Vivid Kaya’s where the DAC shines the improvement in the control of the sound that the H600 brings wins the day for us.
The best thing in either instance is to listen as the scepticism that both upgrades are not worth it is easily dismissed with an audition. We have the H400 and H600 along with the D50 in store with a variety of different speakers ready for your music. Please contact us to see what we can offer, we know the products we support inside out and we answer the phone.
Read more here:
https://thesoundcounsel.com/hegel-h600-integrated-amplifier/
