Another Hegel H390 vs H590 Thread

thanks. I did ask for his best price on it but haven’t heard back. I don’t want to work him over too hard though because he’s a pretty reliable dealer who delivers to my home an hour away, comes out to troubleshoot for free, reprograms my Savant remote when I need it, and will respond to a text day or night. (He has a ton ear though lol). 
 

Meant to say tin ear 

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. 

Thanks all, great input. I appreciate it. I’ve actually managed to arrange an im home demo tomorrow between the 590 and the 390 so we’ll see. 
 

@jjss49 thanks for your excellent take!  Btw, the MQA decode through only USB has apparently been solved for about a year. The newer 590s with a standby function also will decode MQA through all inputs, just like a 390. (Not that I really care, as a Qobuz user…) 

@jjss49 my understanding is that it is a hardware implementation in the 590 from late 2020.  They came out with a new version  that had power standby as well as MQA on all inputs:  

Direct quote from a Hegel employee on the hegel Facebook page: 

 “MQA is a hardware feature, so this has nothing to do with firmware upgrades. H590 with standby has the same DAC implementation as H390 with MQA on all inputs.”