Integrated Amplifiers

If Hegel's mammoth H590 [HFN Oct '18] and H390 [HFN Aug '19] are both kilowatt-capable integrated amplifiers then the new baby of the range is necessarily more 'measured' in its, er, measurements. It's certainly very comfortable driving 8 and 4ohm loads where its 60W specification is bested to the tune of 2x73W and 2x106W, respectively, and there's a useful amount of headroom to sustain 108W/8ohm and 196W/4ohm under dynamic conditions (all <1% THD). But with just a pair of output devices per channel, and modest power supply, current-limiting restricts its output to 79W/2ohm and just 6W/1ohm [see Graph 1, below]. Clearly, 8ohm nominal impedance speakers are the order of the day here. Otherwise the H95 is 'pure Hegel' with a sensible +31.5dB overall gain, an above-average 89dB A-wtd S/N ratio (re. 0dBW) and a frequency response tailored to ±1dB between 5Hz-45kHz (–3.5dB/100kHz). Distortion holds to <0.01% up to 10W/8ohm, increasing to 0.016% up to 50W (20Hz-1kHz), and to 0.04% at 20kHz/10W.

The Libra-sourced digital board features an AKM AK4490 DAC with its linear phase/fast roll-off filter. The preamp RCAs offer a 2.43V output from a high 778ohm source impedance, and 101dB A-wtd S/N ratio, but clips above 1V output (volume = 84) at 20kHz. The top 15dB of its digital/preamp dynamic range is sub-optimal in terms of distortion [see Graph 2] but below –15dBFs THD falls to as low as 0.001-0.0025% (20Hz-20kHz, –20dBFs) and boasts super-flat response limits of ±0.02dB/20kHz and ±0.02dB/45kHz with 48kHz and 96kHz media, respectively (192kHz inputs are downsampled to 96kHz). Jitter, meanwhile, is low at 30psec (48kHz/24-bit) and 135psec (96kHz/24-bit). PM