Ayre v Hegel sound

very similar sonic profiles up the frequency range, smooth refined well detailed treble and silky yet textured voices and mids, both are holographic and well defined with soundstage/imaging -- hegel will have superb bass control (among the very best out there), ayre a touch looser, boomier in midbass, hegel will dig deeper into deep bass but the overall bass presentation will be a touch drier... so preferences and speaker/room choice will dictate what sounds better

we are a kef and Hegel dealer so we can give you some feedback

the hegel and Ayre both lean towards meutral and clesn type of sound the hegel has a higher damping factor so its bass will be tighter

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect nj

Kef and Hegel dealers

@dbphd "Anyone out there have an opinion?"  That had me laughing.  I have owned the H390 and found it a wonderful amp.  Did everything and did it well.  You don't indicate if you are looking at new or used equipment.  If new, I would encourage you to look for a lightly used H590.  Dollar for dollar the 390 is the much better deal, but the 590 is the better overall package.  Used may bring the cost in line?

slightly off topic to the op's query, but i would agree, a used h590 at a good (current) price is an excellent buy if you have the budget

the used price delta between the 390 and 590 currently makes the 590 well worth having -- by my estimation, it is better by about 10-15%, so not really worth what was the 2x msrp difference, but at $4500 vs $6500, the 590 is compelling imo, it is simply superb

The dacs in any of the h3xx integrateds are not that good. I used to own a Hegel h3xx integrated and used the dac for maybe 1 hour in the years that I owned it. I used a dac that cost more than the Hegel integrated itself and it blew away the internal dac.

At rmaf, I had the Hegel room compare the internal dac in the h360 to their standalone dac, it wasn’t even close in sq. But I do like the sound of the hegels they just didn’t have the power I need