Luxman 509x vs Hegel H390

FWIW I’ve owned both of these and like them both a lot. I would say Luxman sounds more natural tonally with a clean and clear presentation that is also sweet, liquid, and a touch warm. Hegel also has a sweet, but a touch drier and meatier sound, a bit darker, more clearly defined soundstage, better control and bass authority. Maybe a little too much control, meaning tone seems to be subtly lacking some harmonic complexity and natural decay compared to Luxman. Luxman can sound a bit thin at times.

Good description eugene81. Although I do not have experience with Hegel amps, your description pretty much mirrors mine with regards to the Luxman in my case L-590AXII vs a dozen other assortment of amps both integrated and pre/power. The Luxman excels in reproducing the nuance and fine detail in the music. It’s a more delicate sounding amp in comparison to other alternatives which may sound bolder, more dynamic or with more impactful bass etc. But in turn some of the nuance and fine detail are masked or not reproduced as effectively as the Luxman.

The speakers that will be matched to the amp will play a huge role too as the speaker-amp interface is of utmost importance. Different speakers, different result. Nevertheless, generally in my book :

LUXMAN (L-590AXII) - clean, refined, delicate, detailed, sweet and slightly warm at the top

OTHER SELECTED AMPS - slightly hazy, not as clean, refined and detailed with a less nuanced delivery although music may sound bolder or more dynamic with punchier bass etc.

Correction to the above post;

OTHER SELECTED AMPS - slightly hazy, not as clean, *less* refined and detailed with reduced nuanced delivery although music may sound bolder or more dynamic with punchier bass etc.

Hegel is marketing their products as high end with without the high end price. No thick fancy faceplate, no power meters and if we compare them to entry amps of old, Adcom, B&K, anthem/sonic fronters even Rotel I would give the nod to Hegel. As to there being more used h390’s just look at the price difference. Luxman is up there while hegel int’s are still stepping stones in the big picture of hi end audio. Some of us can pay double for every 5-10% increase in sq and some of us are willing to pay thousands for a fancy faceplate. The Hegel line of integrateds are expensive, but not prohibitively so for those of us getting our feet wet in the hi end audio hobby and offer an audible improvement in quality at their price. Luxman, Accuphase, Gryphon, Krell, etc are a price and step above, but for many of us the hegel is as good as we’ll get.

Hegel is marketing their products as high end without the high end price.

The price may not be high end costing up to say $20k or 30k but they are not exactly cheap. The MSRP of the H390 and H590 is $6k and $11k respectively which is far from small change. No doubt the sound quality may be stellar but for the price I would expect higher build quality from Hegel. Other people may have different priorities but for me, looks, build and sound quality go hand in hand.