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Intg Amps: Hegel 590 vs NAD M33 Masters vs Gryphon Diablo 120

Hi All: I am getting an itch to upgrade my integrated amp from Hegel 190 to something more robust that facilitates future speaker swapping.  And no, I'm not presently interested in separating components that much further (e.g. separate DAC; separate amp; clock; etc. etc).  I mainly interested in the following 3 on a used basis:

Hegel 590 OR NAD Masters 33 OR Gryphon Diablo 120

Max budget is $7500 if I choose to go towards the Gryphon (used), but curious if it's really THAT much better.   I'm particularly interested to hear from people that have had or auditioned at 2 out of 3.  The room correction on NAD is very appealing but I quite like my Hegel and it's tight control, and so something nice about staying true.

 

Current Setup:

* Unideal Brooklyn Apartment living room into Kitchen

* Hegel 190

* Monitor Audio Silver 7G 500

* Pine Tree Audio Cables

* Dual 1216

* Schiit Mani 2 (though I hear the phono preamp on some of above may make this superfluous)

* Spotify/Tidal (main streaming source)

128x128gill_benedek

Showing 1 response by kairosman

kairosman's avatar
kairosman
260 posts
 

Auditioned many integrateds including the 3 the OP is asking about, bought the 300, to my ears the best of the lot.

Here is my informal ranking of the integrateds:

Gryphon 300

Accuphase E-5000

Aesthetix Mimas

Mcintosh MA12000

Hegel 590 <-> Gryphon 120

Luxman 509

NAD M33

My system:

B&W 804 D4s

Lumin P1 streamer/DAC

Lampizator Baltic V4 DAC

Linn LP12 Selekt TT

Primaluna EVO 100 phono stage

Transparent and Audioquest cabling

Puritan power conditioner and ground system

The Accuphase I suspect for most ears is as good as the Gryphon, just not to my ears for my musical tastes which run the gamut from ambient electronica to jazz to chamber music to classic rock etc. Those with less broad musical tastes - vocals and acoustic instruments for example - might even prefer the Accuphase for its more refined tone/timbre. The gap between the 300 and the Accuphase and the rest of the amps on the list is large IMHO.

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