Audiophile (Germany)

AUDIOphile Potential
Recommendation
Offers as much control and
dynamic as possible at this price.
Choice of speakers is only limited
by owner´s taste.
effortlessly
spacious and soft
Neutral
Authentic
Hegel
P30
List price: 5,800 Euro
Warranty period: 2 years
Weight: 10 kg
Dimensions (W x H x D):
43 x 8 x 30 cm
Surfaces: Silver, Black
H4ASE
List price: 7.000 Euro
Weight: 45 kg
Dimensions: 43 x 21 x 55 cm
Surfaces: Silver, Black
Sales:
Connect Audio
Neue Straße 11
D-65520 Bad Camberg
Phone: 0 64 34 / 50 01
Internet: www.connectaudio.de
Stability
H4ASE offers an extremely wide
and linear frequency response (not
shown) and excellent Signal/Noi-
se Ratio of 106 dB (via RCA). RMS
output power is 2x 310/615 Watt for
8/4 Ohm load. Sounds like it looks:
perfectly stable.
Test-CD
Thomas Dolby
– A Map Of The
Floating City
Yes, he’s still around, the brilliant sound
freak from the 1980s („She Blinded
Me With Science“). This may not be
his strongest album, but at least it’s a
tasty production as usual and for once
contains no remixes of old songs.
The Author
Stefan
Schickedanz
prefers classical music and jazz because
of the natural instruments and pure
voices to remove doubts as to tonality –
even if the spatiality is not fully conclu-
sive due to the spot microphones. When
it’s about fun, he’s putting on rock and
pop.
AUDIOphile Character
grippingly
emotional and
dynamic
Immediacy
high resolution
desktop cassette recorder – a radio re-
cording, far away from today’s digital
studio standards. But with the Hegels it
sounded just infectious. Although there
were still quite some tracks I wanted to
listen into, I absolutely had to wait for the
drum solo. The waiting was worthwhile
– you won’t hear it with so much power
and punch every day. Like I know it from
a real drumset in a cultural pub in my
hometown where I sometimes listen to a
technically pretty brilliant cover band at
close range. The long-haired drummer is
nicknamed ”The Beast”, which speaks
for itself when he’s punishing his huge
drumkit in a sweat. Beastly good also the
Hegels: The drums had the typical kick.
Size, timbre and sustain were also consi-
stent.
On one of my in-car CDs was then
”Speed Demon“ by Michael Jackson with
its fat synthesizer bass notes and artificial
engine sounds. This goes down to the
core of a sports car and speed freak:
truly ”fat“, but nonetheless controlled
and not a bit boomy. Difficult to say
when I last enjoyed music so much.
So breathtaking, so authentic. But what’s
the point of the most beautiful timbres
when the drive is missing and the timing
hits the wall? After all it’s those factors
which are largely responsible if the music
goes straight into your tummy, making
your feet tap and your head spin
round.
But: More than once I caught myself
playing air guitar and – which happens
even more rarely – with beefy air drum
solos. For these electronics manage the
split: They live up to the highest demands
from sound engineers with regard to to-
nality, resolution, stability, imaging, trans-
parence and focus. On the other hand
they can play extremely clean, crisp and
loud and when teamed up with the Dy-
naudio C4, their attack and dynamics
reminded me of a PA. This listening check,
which I had approached with no expec-
tations at all, therefore ended with an
ardent enthusiam for the intriguing per-
formance. So the philosopher will pro-
bably no longer come to my mind first
when I hear the name Hegel drop. Rather
a rock band I was adoring in my early
youth.
<
Hegel Studies
If a band can’t afford to buy the new desperately needed stage amplifiers, this is
usually the end. In the case of talented musician, bandleader and electronics engine-
er Bent Holter it was the onset of an unprecedented career.
By: Stefan Schickedanz
W
hen in the late 1980s some stu-
dents in the remote Norwegian
city of Trondheim form a
Thin Lizzy cover band, it’s rarely to
make musical history. Strangely enough
that the performance of the microelec-
tronics engineer Bent Holter and his
friends reached cult status in the Norwe-
gian ”Samfundet“ scene. But things got
even better: Today the name of the He-
gel band decorates the otherwise very
plain front panels of the amplifiers from
Norway which are valued by insiders from
all over the world.
Not only do they owe their name to
the group, but their existence as well.
Because the students needed new stage
amps, yet were lacking the necessary
wherewithal, Bent Holter offered to build
his own which he named Hegel Audio to
match their purpose. The experience
gathered on the way also inspired him
to choose the topic of negative feedback
for his diploma thesis. For while a nega-
tive feedback improves the bass control
via the damping factor, it causes distor-
tion to rise. At the university Holter was
using one of the first computers for this
project which were able to simulate elec-
tronic circuitry. That research culminated
in a patent which until today is the basis
of all Hegel amplifiers: the ”SoundEngi-
ne“ with its adaptive feed forward con-
cept. It improves the damping factor,
reduces distortions and also the power
consumption. During the mid 1990s this
patented solution earned Holter the sup-
port of a big telecommunictions firm who
purchased Hegel company shares which
he bought back then after the burst of
the hightech bubble in 2000. The com-
The cartoon illustrates the connection
to the Hegel band Holter used to play
with.
The Hegel DACs enjoy an
excellent reputation.
With a PA company founder Bent
Holter made the first Hegel Audio
components.
Hegel founder Bent Holter:
”Our band Hegel needed new stage
amps, but couldn’t afford to buy any. So
I built my own.“
‚‚
pany which had collected a small profit
every year used next stock market crash
in 2008 as an opportunity to really step
on the gas while others were stepping
on the cost brake. Holter felt the time
was ripe: ”Hegel was supposed to get
started and conquer the world.“ So he
hired more engineers and skilled sales
force, which brought the company a con-
siderable growth. Apart from the ampli-
fiers, which can’t conceal their PA kinship,
Hegel’s reputation is based today on
excellent DACs.
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Amplifiers Pre & Power Amp
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