Another Hegel H390 vs H590 Thread

Thanks Audio Troy. That’s what I thought. He’s a new Hegel dealer (actually picked them up because I asked him if he could get Hegel). I think you’re right that  he got a better price and he also dropped a bit as well because he felt that the 590 simply wasn’t worth that much of a premium over the 390. Incidentally I’ve been lurking here for a while, and I just love your posts and your information. I think it was you that caused me to buy the Innuos Zan streamer last year. Love that thing. (But I am curious how it will compare to using the Hegel streaming capability. We’ll see. 

Hi Missioncoonery, I like the primaluna a lot but there are two reasons to move on: 

1. I just replaced my Maggies (1.7i) with Duevel Venus omnis. They work ok with the prima but need more power I think. They’re fairly inefficient. 
 

2. Tube amps can’t be left on all the time. This system is in a vacation house which gets a lot of use by my adult children. More than once I’ve come back after one of them has been up here to find the amp left on for several days or even as much as a week. Ugh. It’s bad for the amp and it’s using like 500 watts continuously just sitting there doing nothing. 

I understand totally. I ran with tubes for the longest time, mainly Jadis then several other including Prima Luna for a couple years. I prefer the faster attack ,better bass control,wider sound stage I get with solid state...i was curious, thanks

The 390 is an excellent piece, but the 590 just does everything a bit better. The 390 is the sweet spot, but the 590 is worth it IMO over the 390. 

i agree w @geof3

590 subtly but noticeably better sounding than 390 -- if the system is quite resolving

that said, the 390 is very very very good sounding, well above its price point (~5 grand) ... only in direct comparison, immediately switching over to the 590 (or an h20) will one hear that the 390 is a touch smoother, duller, less ultimately transparent -- the 590 has more pure, more specific image focus, better retrieval of detail without any added solid state harshness... but the other side of this same coin is that the 390 can be somewhat more forgiving sounding if the particular setup can benefit from this based on source material or rest of the system

finally, the 390 has a specific functionality that the slightly earlier-released 590 lacks, and that is the 390 can fully decode/unfold tidal mqa through all its relevant digital inputs, whereas the 590 can do so only over its usb input

power wise, pretty much any speaker that one unit will comfortably drive, so will the other (one must have a pretty darn inefficient/reactive speaker load, or huge room, exhaust a 390 where a 590 will hold it together... in my use, the 390 never even remotely breathed hard...)

to me, these are the salient differences between the two... the op can determine one his/her own whether the price difference is worth spending in the specific application