I have always bought cables from Audio Sensibility, who make really excellent cables at a reasonable price. Don’t know if they do USB C to B though.
@Rockhound Thanks for this. I just browsed their site. What do you think about: Testament Loudspeaker - Banana Plugs. Do they make a difference. Seems like they would be worth a try at only $40. But wonder if they are snake oilish.
NTL wish I had found this site before ordering my silver dragon cable… thanks.
@Atanarjuat99 I have a pair of theTestament speaker cables and they are excellent - sure there’s a lot of snake oil out there but these were an improvement over the old QED cables I had. I think they’re about $400 not $40! I also bought some Statement XE XLRs last year to hook up my T2. I also like to support this Canadian company.
I believe that the Testament plugs that I mentioned were for grounding the signals coming into the existing speaker cables (which are Nordost in my case). I was wondering if they made a difference. Thanks again.
Ah, sorry misunderstood. No idea if they are any good.
Finally pulled the trigger and traded my H190 for an H390. Even straight out of the box it sounds fantastic - the bass is much better, it sounds cleaner and richer with really tight control of the speakers. Soundstage is bigger and instrument placement is also better. My 2 takeaways: 1) the H390 is definitely a very significant step up in sound quality and should be considered extraordinary value for money, 2) the H190 is still one hell of a good amp, albeit without the effortless control of my Dynaudio Contour 30s afforded by the H390 and its roughly 490 watts into their 4 ohms.
The 390 is what I’d like to get for my Dynaudios. Enjoy!
If it was the same depth as h120, I would trade it as well… It just don’t fit my shelf :(.
Could be as tall as h590 or taller, but can’t go deeper than h120.
Sounds like you need to get a bigger shelf then .
I spent ages wrestling with this dilemma when buying an H360. In the end, I just changed where I was putting the amp, a bit like the suggestion from @Rockhound. Tbh, I just wished I’d done that from the start rather than faffing around looking at other amps which weren’t what I really wanted. Appreciate that this isn’t always an option though!
@Rockhound will be very interested in your comparison of the H390 DAC to the T2 given the previous posts on this.
Early impressions definitely give the nod to the T2 (bigger soundstage/better instrument placing/overall clarity better), although the DAC in the H390 is certainly better than that in the H190 - my CD player is a Cambridge Audio CXC transport and it sounds really really good through the H390’s optical input. I think if I didn’t have the T2, I’d be pretty happy with the DAC in the H390. Will be interesting to hear what Roon Ready sounds like if/when Hegel ever gets round to it.
Thanks for feeding back - sounds like it’s quite a step up from their previous generation implementations.
@Rockhound Still will be limited, especially comparing to T2. I mean H390 gives an ability to power the soundstage of whole symphonic orchestra, which is better to power through the DSD. So far I wasn’t impressed with native DSD via Hegel’s 390 DAC (Delta-sigma modulation).
P.S. You haven’t break it in yet, will see how it only gets better after 70 hours of active listening
@paxromana I haven’t tried it yet with DSD (although I don’t have too much in that format). Will also need to revisit upscaling in the T2, which I did not really like through the H190.
@Rockhound Wait. All this time you’ve been recommending T2 but haven’t tried DSD yourself. You would be extremely surprised then! Can’t speak objectively on upscaling, still playing with it!
I have tried a few DSD albums, but felt that DXD sounded better - small sample size though, I will admit.
I admit my >60 YO ears may not be SOTA analytical equipment .