"Blown away by KEF/Hegel combo!!!!"

Since I started this post expressing how much I was thoroughly and absolutely blown away by the wonderful sound I heard from a pair of KEF Blade One Meta speakers being driven by a Hegel H600 integrated amp (using it's internal DAC), it's been very interesting and insightful to hear of others experiences with various KEF speakers, and particularly Hegel amplification.  Ultimately, we all have to find our own little piece of audio heaven in our own listing rooms during the coarse of our audiophile journeys.  Incredibly, I have found that wonderful little piece of musical nirvana in my own listening room via a pair of Revel Salon 2 speakers, a Hegel H590 integrated amp, and an Ayre Acoustics QX-5 Twenty Streaming DAC etc., which absolutely blows me away as well.  I hope all of you have found yours.  Happy listening.            

When I bought my H390, Hegel was using KEF speakers at all the shows.  I ended up buying a pair of Reference 5’s and had issues from day one.  No there is nothing wrong with either the amp or the speakers. The issue is with my ears. The H390 is a wonderful neutral sounding piece and the Reference 5’s are very accurate speakers. The problem for me is in the upper midrange.  I couldn’t listen for more than a few minutes @ 65-70db, before Saxophone's, Xylophones, Electric Guitars were painfully drilling into my ears. Sadly the KEF’s didn’t work me.  I’ve since replaced them with Sonus Farber Amati G5’s and most of my problems are gone.

All the best.

@soix Just noting my experience with Hegel amps. Yes, the retail on the SimAudio is considerably more than the Hegel but it’s still a SS to SS amp comparison. Nothing against Hegels, the H20 just didn’t work for me..

i still have my h20 ... to me it is a sweetheart ... it is an older gen feed forward implementation (h360 gen1 ’sound engine’) and i agree this amp exhibits an ever so slightly leaner quality to its sound in the midbass, while still delivering excellent clarity, absolutely zero ss sizzle, and iron grip on the speakers...

interestingly, later, when they came out with the h390, they purposely tried to imbue a slight warmer hue to the sound with different parts selection in the pre stage, but achieved this at a slight loss of transparency, to my ear at least (i am speaking of using the 390 as an amp, not the digital section) -- this was not the case in the 590 which maintained its pristine clarity

my understanding is that with the h600 they are trying again to find that goldilocks yin vs yang middle ground 

the current gen top rotels are very nice too, i have heard them in other systems, they are highly regarded, i have not been motivated to own one 

i think one of the issues here that many systems contend with, as streaming becomes more common place, is that many mid-upper tier streamer/dac implementations still have a residual digital leanness glassiness harshness, and the top hegels as amps do not cover this fault up ... and i would go so far as to say that some dealers and their demo/show systems also fail to adequately contend with this

Sounds like you heard what you want for Christmas.  Make it happen.  Dreams do come true.