These are not the same size of amplifier: Hegel H190v has roughly 2x the power of Hegel H150. That is about 3dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Hegel H190v has more power - 150W against 75W into 8 ohms. That is about 3dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Hegel H150 the better fit for a small room, and Hegel H190v for a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Bass control | B | Hegel H190v has the higher damping factor (4000 vs 2000), which usually means a tighter grip on a woofer. Above about 100 the returns flatten out, so read this as a tendency rather than a ranking. |
| Noise floor | evenly matched | Much the same signal-to-noise ratio (100dB vs 100dB). |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | The same streaming platforms and services on both. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (3). |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Hegel H190v has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Shelf space | depends | Hegel H150 takes up about 15% less shelf area (1505cm² against 1763cm²), and it is 60mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Hegel H190v costs less - $3,200 against $3,600 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Hegel H190v is the cheaper watt - about $21 per watt against $48. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Hegel H150 B Hegel H190v
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Hegel H190v is the easier recommendation: it leads on most of the measured areas and costs less. Take Hegel H150 if one of the "depends" rows above describes your system. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Hegel H190v has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 75 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 75 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Hegel H190v poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.