Audio Esoterica (Australia)

Hegel makes many
claims for its H590...
ordinarily, I’d
dismiss such claims
as advertising
puffery, except
that in this case,
the company is
absolutely correct.
079078
H
egel is a small company based in
Norway that had been flying under
the radar for more than twenty years,
until about five years ago it became a
huge blip on the screens of audio-
philes right around the world, and
sales of its amplifiers went through the roof. Which was a
problem at the time, because the company was literally
too small to meet demand. It now manages to keep
up with demand… just… but the company is still very
small — currently just nine people, according to Anders
Ertzeid, Hegel’s VP of Marketing and Sales — though he
was quick to point out that that figure does not include
those whose job it is to assemble its products… and if
you take a peek inside one of those products you’ll
immediately realise that some of Hegel’s ‘employees’ are
in fact very sophisticated robots!
One reason the company flew under the radar
for so long is that it isn’t at all interested in gimmicky
marketing slogans or self-promotion, and seemingly not
even overly interested in the appearance of its products,
all of which look pretty much identical. In fact, when
asked to describe Hegel’s corporate ethos, Ertzeid had to
think for a moment before saying: “All we have is good
sound quality: There is nothing else.”
Pushed to elaborate further on this mission
statement, he thought a while more before adding:
“It’s a no-nonsense product. Everything is measurable
and quantifiable. And, for the high end, it’s very
reasonably priced.”
If you’ve glanced at the price of the Hegel H590
you might be wondering about it being ‘very reasonably
priced’… or you might until you find that not only is it a
extremely powerful integrated amplifier, one rated with
an output of 301 watts per channel into eight ohms, but
that it’s also a full-featured DAC (with MQA… though
only via USB), Spotify and AirPlay, as well as a full-
featured streamer. So you’re getting rather more for your
money than would first appear to be the case.
EQUIPMENT
There’s certainly nothing nonsensical about the front
panel of the Hegel H590. As you can see, there are
just two rotary controls and a front panel display,
Hegel having decided to hide the main ‘Power’ switch
underneath the amplifier. This is, as Ertzeid said, a
‘no-nonsense product.’
The rotary control on the left side of the front-panel
display is an encoder that allows you to select the
input you wish to listen to, offering a choice of five
line-level analogue inputs — two balanced (via XLR
connectors), and three unbalanced (RCA) — and seven
digital inputs: one coaxial BNC, one coaxial RCA, three
optical Toslink, one USB Type B, and one network (RJ45).
You can, if you wish, change one of the analogue inputs
to be a ‘home theatre’ input, to facilitate using the Hegel
H590 to drive the front left and right speakers in a multi-
channel home theatre system. (If you do this, you need
to exercise caution, because it bypasses the Hegel’s
volume control.)
The rotary control on the right is the volume
control encoder (that is, it’s not a standard
potentiometer, but digitally controls a switched
resistor network). This control has two really
neat features. The first one is that you can set
the switch-on volume so that whenever you
bring the amplifier out of standby, the volume
level will be the same level… not the level you
were last using. The second neat feature is that
you can set a maximum level. Once this is set, it
doesn’t matter how far you (or more importantly,
someone else!) rotates the volume control to the
right, you won’t run the risk of overpowering your
loudspeakers… or of upsetting the neighbours.
As you can probably tell from the
photographs accompanying this review, the
front panel display is blue on black, and shows
the selected input (XLR1, XLR2, etc.) at the left and
the selected volume level — shown as numerals
from 0 (no sound) to 99 (maximum output) —
at the right. When the amplifier is muted, the
numerals flash.
The Hegel H590 comes standard with the
same Hegel RC8 remote control that is supplied
with Hegel’s other products, so it can control
them as well as the H590, but means that in some
cases, some of the buttons on it do nothing when
operating the H590. However, because Hegel
is using standard infra-red command codes, it’s
likely you’ll be able to use it to control play and
pause functions on many products that are not
made by Hegel. What the Hegel RC8 remote
definitely allows you to do is control the H590’s
volume, switch inputs, mute the amplifier’s
output and switch the Hegel H590 in and out
of its Standby mode. There are no ‘direct access’
buttons on the remote, so in order to select an
input you have to step through them one by one,
using the IN– and IN+ buttons. Also, the ‘DISP’
button on the remote control does nothing at all.
I was rather expecting that it would either dim
the Hegel H590’s display or turn it off. Instead it
did neither. Presumably it dims or switches the
display on some other Hegel component, so
surely it couldn’t be too hard to arrange it to do
the same for the H590?
You can use the remote to reset the H590
to its factory default settings for switch-on level,
source and so on. All you need to do is hold
down the DAC+ button and then press and hold
the Mute button. This will clear all user-defined
settings, including IP settings.
The remote control uses two AAA batteries
which Hegel does not install inside it at the
factory in order to “avoid damage to the remote
control by leakage from the batteries during
transport and storage.” The only problem is that
the two batteries Hegel does supply so you can
install them yourself are not particularly good
quality. I would recommend you don’t use them
at all, and instead buy and install two high-quality
Eveready alkaline batteries. A word of general
advice here, which is that it’s a good idea to
replace all the batteries in all your remote controls
on January 1 each year to avoid the potential for
the batteries to leak and possibly damage the
remote. Doing them all at once makes it easy to
remember, and allows you to buy one of the ‘bulk
packs’ of AAA batteries at a discounted price.
Because the Hegel RC8 is not a cheap, plastic
‘off-the-shelf’ remote, and has a substantial
black metal case, you’ll need to use a Phillips
screwdriver to remove the screws underneath
the remote control to install (and replace)
the batteries. You’ll need to supply your own
screwdriver, because Hegel doesn’t supply one.
Rather disappointingly, although the company
specifically warns against tightening these screws
too much “as this can damage the screws and the
soft metal chassis of the remote control” two of the
screws on the remote I was supplied were so
tight I had difficulty undoing them.
The bottom edge of the remote is curved,
which makes for a more attractive appearance,
but meant that I could not stand the remote on
its end to make it easier to find, and to pick up.
(The other end of the remote — the one that
appears to be ‘flat’ — has an IR transmitter bulb
protruding through it, so you can’t stand it on
that end either.)
The Hegel H590 has sophisticated protection
circuitry built in that will protect against excessive
current and over-heating. Unlike some such
circuits, Hegel’s is self-resetting, so when the
event that required the protection to activate is
no longer present, the amplifier will switch itself
back on, but with the volume set at ‘0’. I was rather
amused by the display that shows if the amplifier
over-heats: it simply says ‘HOT!’ Speaking of which,
because all the heatsinking is inside the amplifier,
you do need to make sure the amplifier is well-
ventilated and placed on a hard surface that
allows plenty of ventilation underneath.
HEGEL H 590 INTEGRATED NETWORK AMPLIFIER
HEGEL
H590
INTEGRATED NETWORK AMPLIFIER
By greg borrowman