John Darko
Hegel has this week released a firmware update for its H600 integrated amplifier that adds support for Google Chromecast. This update completes the flagship amplifier’s holy quaternity of streaming. Praise be.
Say what now?
The Trinity, for Christians, is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. According to Instagram comedian Jordan Prince, we please the German Gods with the quaternity of Spargel, Lüften, Bier and Bretzen. From the streaming pulpit, we see 92% of music streaming use cases blessed by the holy quaternity of Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Roon Ready and Apple AirPlay / Google Chromecast.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cvm-mwptJrD/?hl=en
What’s the big deal?
- Google Chromecast opens the door to Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer and Qobuz apps running on Android devices as well as the numerous releases exclusive to Mixcloud and SoundCloud.
- Unlike Apple AirPlay, Google’s streaming system doesn’t force the stream to travel through the smartphone or tablet on its way to the streaming endpoint in the hi-fi rack. We push play in the streaming app, press the Chromecast button and nominate our intended destination to see it – in this case, the Hegel H600 – pull down the stream directly from the cloud.
- Google Chromecast gives us none of the lossy compression shenanigans that plague Apple AirPlay 2 apps streaming to Apple AirPlay 2-equipped devices. Google’s streaming protocol is lossless.
My enthusiasm for Google Chromecast is, however, cooled by a gotcha: it isn’t gapless. When playing a multi-track album or playlist, Chromecast must stop streaming one track before it can start streaming the next*; and that changeover causes a tiny audible gap between tracks. Most users won’t notice this gap (or care that it exists) but some of us streaming a classical album from Qobuz, a DJ mix from Apple Music, a Tool album from Tidal or a Pink Floyd classic from Deezer most definitely will.
Lastly, Hegel’s press release says that the Google Chromecast update is not compatible with the H590 or any other *95 or *90 amplifier and, according to Hegel’s website, the H600’s Roon Readiness is still ‘in progress’.
Further information: Hegel
* Footnote #1: Roon streaming to a Google Chromecast endpoint doesn’t suffer the same gapped playback problem because Roon loads all tracks from an album or playlist into a continuous single stream of audio data.
