These are not the same size of amplifier: Hegel H600 has roughly 2.4x the power of MOON 641. That is about 3.8dB, 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 H600 has more power - 303W against 125W into 8 ohms. That is about 3.8dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate MOON 641 the better fit for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room, and Hegel H600 for a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Speaker load rating | B | Hegel H600 is rated down to 2 ohms against 4, so it is the safer partner for a low-impedance speaker. |
| Bass control | B | Hegel H600 has the higher damping factor (4000 vs 700), 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 | A | MOON 641 is the quieter design on paper - 109dB against 100dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Hegel H600 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | A | MOON 641 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 4. |
| Shelf space | depends | Hegel H600 takes up about 15% less shelf area (1914cm² against 2239cm²), and it is 20mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | MOON 641 costs less - $11,000 against $13,800 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Hegel H600 is the cheaper watt - about $46 per watt against $88. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A MOON 641 B Hegel H600
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 H600 leads across most of the measured areas for a fairly modest premium, so it is the easier pick if the budget stretches. MOON 641 is the one to take if it does not. 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 H600 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 125 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 178 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Hegel H600 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason. If you already own a DAC or a streamer, the built-in one is money you are paying twice for, and MOON 641 becomes the more rational buy.
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.