Hegel H160 and Focal Electra 1008Be sounding bass-less


Hi - 

When I had auditioned the H160 at the dealer with the same set of speakers it sounded gorgeous with meaty bass even on the bookshelves. When i received the new H160 6 years ago we thought it would open up eventually but its been 6 years and about 50 hours or so on it and yet it continues to remain dry. Any clues what might be going on. Also recently I had crackling in the left channel for which I had to drop it off at the service center to get it fixed. I have another Marantz built like a tank and have owned it for 15 years+ with no trouble. Not sure if there are any similar issues folks are seeing with Hegel in general.
Thx

pkolakkar3

Hegel amps have a high damping factor which will lean towards tight fast bass. I brought home the Kanta 3 and that big flpoorstander had a 10 db peak at 100 hz and was -20 db at 80 hz. so placement is critical and subs might be necessary. 

The first thing I would do is try to borrow a different  with similar power ratings and compare, That will give you a starting point.

Sounds like it could be a room/speaker placement issue assuming there’s nothing wrong with the amp or speakers.  

You put 50hrs on the amp in 6 years? Usually amps and most other components need about 200hrs to sound their best. 

Anyways as to your bass issues, you may be sitting in the bass null point. To test it, set it all up in another room. With small speakers and small integrated it’s a quick test.

It’s not the amp. Most Focal speakers I’ve heard (except for the Utopia range) are bass shy. I’ve owned Hegel amps and they will produce the bass the speakers are capable of unless your speakers need more power than what the amp can produce, which is not the case here. Get a sub or position the speakers closer to the back wall to enhance the bass

I owned the H160 paired with Dali Fazon F5 speakers.

It sounded lifeless so I sold it. There wasn't much bass 

at all with it. I hooked the same speakers up to a NAD M10

and it sounded better. The bass improved quite a bit

which was surprising to me because on paper it's a

far less powerful amp.

 

so I let the amp run for about 10 hours yesterday. I started listening to it today morning and it had fair amount of bass that was non existent before. the speakers are next to the wall (ports facing the wall 1ft away). The room is treated. The same speakers produced ample bass during the audition at the dealers place but I am assuming the dealer's amp was already run in for hundreds of hours. I am probably going to go with the less number of hours I have put on it. It just sounded so bland and bleh that i was never interested in listening to it once i got it home. Oh well - gotta keep listening to it in order to get it to open up I guess. 

Thanks for all the inputs guys I highly appreciate your time and effort to help me. I will still check the room and see if it needs any more further treatment as advised.

Leave the amp on 24/7 for a week even better if you can play some music through it during that time. At that point it will have another 168 hours on it. At that point IMO that's pretty much what you are going to get but small changes could occur past that I guess. If there is no difference go back to what you were doing. My guess is it will be better and you may want to consider leaving it on all the time as lots of us do. If I go on vacation I may shut it down but otherwise I leave it on. Great speakers IMO. I heard them and they didn't go real deep but were punchy and not bass shy. I'm a big Focal fan. 

I think that the responders have given you some great info.  I don't know if it was mentioned but running in the speakers will help too.  Don't forget that the speakers that you demoed were likely fully run in.  Speaker placement is everything.  I have a Hegel H590 paired with Focal's Sopra no2 and they play very well together, plenty of bass response.  I find the be tweeters very powerful and therefore are very responsive to placement/toe in.  Take some time and really move them around and see what sounds best to you after they are run in.  I just did a quick measurement for you to use as a reference point.  Measured to the middle of the tweeter they are 40" from the front wall and 35" from the side wall.  Medium/Small size room.  Our speakers are different animals but I hope this helps.  I've found that Focal's sound better when they have room to "work".

If it sounded better at the dealer, see what the difference is between their setup and yours. Position? Cabling? Room?

Check it out.