John
Powerhouse — that’s how Hegel is describing the soon-to-arrive H600 flagship integrated amplifier that will replace the H590.
The press shots show the H600 as looking somewhat similar to the H590 so let’s take a closer look at what’s changed in the new model.
With a manufacturer rating of 303 Watts of Class A/B power into 8 Ohms, the H600 offers slightly more go juice than the H590; and its dual mono circuit remains stable down to 2 Ohms. The damping factor on the H600 is rated at 4000.
The H600’s pre-amplifier section borrows its volume attenuator from the Norwegian company’s P30A pre-amplifier and the SoundEngine 2 feed-forward correction that aims to drive down distortion throughout the signal path, especially crossover distortion in the output stage, has also been recooked.
The H600’s DAC is brand new too. It’s a bit-perfect design (so no upsampling) that is a) fed by its own power supply and b) sectioned off from the rest of the amplifier’s internals by way of a thick steel plate to reduce the negative influence of EMI.
The streaming portion of the H600 has also reportedly been rebuilt from the ground up to support UPnP, Spotify Connect and (pending) Roon Ready – just like the H590 – but the Norwegians have slipped Tidal Connect onto the H600’s spec sheet.
Other niceties include user-specifiable volume limits, auto-sensing digital inputs (excluding USB) – that bring the amplifier out of standby to the chosen input – and remote controllability by third-party TV remote wands (via a little bit of user programming).
On hard-wired digital connectivity, we note a similar array of inputs to the H590: 3 x TOSLINK, coaxial, 75-Ohm BNC and USB plus a BNC digital output. On the analogue side, we get two balanced XLR inputs (which have been improved for the H600), two single-ended RCA inputs, variable analogue outputs (for a subwoofer) and a line-level output.
The H600’s feature set is rounded out by big “anti-scratch” aluminium feet that aim to reduce the negative influence of vibrations and two large control knobs that double as touch controllers. Hegel says we can expect further features and improvements to arrive at the H600 via future firmware updates.
Shipping on the H600 is slated for the end of September when pricing will land at €11,500 or US$12,500.
Further information: Hegel
