_{Prices listed in CA$.}

The Hegel room was showing off its Viking CD player ($6000), on static display when I visited, and 308Wpc, dual mono, DAC-equipped H600 integrated amplifier ($15,000). The source was FLAC files streamed from a laptop hard drive, while the speakers were Magnepan’s model 3.7i ($11,875/pair), which looked taller to me, and more attractive, than I expected them to be based on the photos I’d seen of them. The speaker incorporates a ribbon tweeter alongside quasi-ribbon bass and midrange drivers, and is listed as delivering bass extension down to 35Hz. But with a sensitivity of 86 dB into a nominal 4ohm load, the Magnepans are notorious power suckers.

But give them enough juice, and that’s what the Hegel H600 did, and they come alive and fill a room, as they did here, with sound that’s transparent, clean, harmonically detailed, and grand-sounding. Analysis Plus cabled everything together.