There’s been a lot of heat around the Hegel brand in recent times. Especially because of the delayed Roon Ready certification, (more or less) hidden made in China labelling and subpar DAC measurements on ASR.
I recently bought a H190 and I will say, that I really enjoy that amp. To my ears it sounds fantastic in my setup (despite poor DAC measurements and weird up/down sampling in Roon), and the Hegel remote and Roon integration works perfectly for me. I honestly never understood why you would put more than a basic screen on Hi Fi equipment anyway. Especially on Roon Ready gear, where I presume most people use a tablet as navigation anyway. I love that I can turn volume up/down, play/pause and skip tracks with a physical remote. And Roon reacts to the remote instantaneously.
A feature that I really love, and I’ve never seen before, is that for the first few seconds after you turn on your amp, the amp is muted, so you don’t get that awful pop in your speakers. This is a brilliant feature!
Another thing that many people not seem to put much thought in, is the power consumption of the gear. My H190 uses less than one (1!) Watt in standby and 30-40 Watt when in use for powering speakers. For comparison, the wiim amp uses 5 Watts in idle and 10 Watts in use. I have way more hours on a yearly basis where my amp is turned off, so in the long run it’s a win for the Hegel hands down.
Lastly the minimal and scandinavian look and design of the unit is just so beautiful (to my eyes). My unit is white, and I love that Hi Fi does not always have to be black or silver. So despite all of it’s “shortcomings”, I really enjoy my Hegel amp and the pleasure it gives me when listening to music on Roon.
I agree that it’s a nice feature. However, it has been around for a long time. My 25 year old Denon AVR 3801 has it.
However, as a feature it is not without problems - when my son was a toddler, he started fiddling with the Hifi and managed to turn on the Denon (which just so happened to have the built in tuner selected) and then proceeded to wind the volume up - all before the amp unmuted. When the amp did unmute, it started kicking out near maximum volume (~100W/channel) into my speakers (which weren’t rated that high). Two things then happened in very quick succession:
My son ran out of the room as fast as he could crying.
I ran into the room as fast as I could to turn down the volume before damage was done to my speakers (or the ears of my family).
Fortunately no damage was done. On the bright side, my son never touched the amp again!
Yes, Roon Ready integration is certainly great to have. I went from Roon Ready to Roon Tested with my setup, and now have to keep the remote handy. Enjoy your Hegel.
We’re on the same boat, as I have and truly enjoy the H120. Just a few additional comments. There’s nothing weird about the resampling done within the DAC. It just resamples everything to 105.47. I believe Benchmark did this as well (but may be wrong). With Roon integration, data is converted outside the amp to the nearest multiple of 44.1 and then to 105.47 by the DAC itself. Hegel say that this is better than forcing the DAC to do all the conversion, as it happens when you’re not using Roon. The fact is that it sounds very good, very natural, excellent tonal balance and timber, uncolored (at least to my ears). Well, before someone jumps in and says I shouldn’t trust my ears, you have these measurements of the H95, that houses exactly the same DAC section of the H120 and H190: SoundStageNetwork.com | SoundStage.com - Hegel Music Systems H95 Integrated Amplifier-DAC Measurements.
Btw, the TV remote function also works very well and easily integrated my TV (as well as the Apple TV) with the amp. At first I didn’t care much for such function but have to recognise that it came in handy.
I should stress that I’m not saying this to claim that Hegel integrateds are the best or better than brand x or y. I couldn’t care less about it. It works great to me and part of it is due to Roon. I believe that most of Roon magic is to bring back the joy of listening and enjoying music in the streaming and digital age, by offering a rather comprehensive and agreable interface that is so easy to navigate with your phone, tablet or PC (I use all of them) without the need for big screens, complex streaming functionalities, etc. The excellent integration with the amp (it turns it on, off, etc) then makes it even more enjoyable. Cheers
Can you say more about using the amp with Apple TV? The only distributor/ retail seller of Hegel in the country where I live, told me that the Hegel “remote learn” function only works on IR remotes. The Apple TV (4K) uses bluetooth I was told, and therefore does not work together. Can you use your Apple TV to control the Hegel? If so, I could remove an AV-R and an extra set of speakers from my listeningroom!
Edit. I might have to look into that. It seems that the remote on the Apple TV 4K uses both BT and IR. I have to investigate. If it works, my life just became a whole lot easier !
Edit II: Holy smoly! I just set up the Apple TV remote to control the volume on the Hegel. Now I just need to add the optical cable to the TV and the Hegel, and then it should respond to on / off also! I can’t thank you enough @Vitor_Goncalves !
Don’t thank me for that, thank Hegel (LOL). For me, it works with any remote that’s integrated with the TV. Incidentally, yesterday I used, by mistake, the remote of my Rega Apollo CD player to turn the volume up on the Hegel and it worked (LOl). So, now I use it to operate the volume because the Hegel chunky metal remote is not so responsive.
I can’t remember what those functions are. What mine does is, after turning the TV on with the Apple TV remote (or its own remote), I hit the volume key and it turns the amp on in Optical 1 mode, after which I can control the volume with the Apple remote. In addition, if I’m using the amp for music and the TV is on, hitting the Apple volume key will automatically switch the amp to Optical 1. My Apple TV is 4K, bought in 2020.
Thanks. I can’t seem to get the amp to start. I can control volume and mute with the Apple TV remote, but the amp does not start when I touch the volume buttons on the remote. Strange.
You mean, when the TV is on, touching the volume button won’t start the amp? Have you checked the generation of your Apple TV and remote? it seems that some functions are not available for all versions. You may contact Hegel directly via email. They usually respond to such queries.
Exactly. My version of the Apple TV is the one with a USB C port on the remote. I tried with a Samsung TV remote, and that remote turns on the amp with volume up/down and shuts it down with triple clicking the mute button. But unfortunately we only use the Apple TV remote in our house. I’ll try to mail Hegel next week. I just hoped that it would work with the newest version of the Apple TV.
I just tried with three different Apple TV remote’s, and non of them seem to can wake the amp. Are you sure you can turn on the amp with the volume on the Apple TV remote? Can you also turn it off? Can you remember if you only used the Hegel remote to “teach” the Apple TV remote to operate the Hegel amp?
Left to right - Older, newer (Lightning) and newest (USB C version)
It’s not clear what the Apple TV remote actually can do. And I don’t understand what you should use a remote from a TV for, if you don’t have a TV with that brand.
Mine is the small black one. I can’t remember exactly what I’ve done, it was in April 2023. Just followed the instructions. Clicking 3 times on the mute button of the Samsung or the Cable Box remotes switches the amp off. I don’t do it with the Apple TV remote because I don’t know where is the mute function and the amp will turn itself off after 15m if not in use. But the Apple TV remote definitely turns it on after the TV is on.
Just a reminder: you may also connect your AV receiver to one of the analog inputs of the H190, in which case the input should be set to HT (home theater mode).
If so, I could remove an AV-R and an extra set of speakers from my listeningroom!
