These are not the same size of amplifier: Hegel H600 has roughly 2x the power of Technics SU-R1000. That is about 3.1dB, 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 150W into 8 ohms. That is about 3.1dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Technics SU-R1000 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. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Hegel H600 handles DSD and MQA. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Technics SU-R1000 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 4. |
| Phono stage | depends | Technics SU-R1000 has a built-in phono stage (MM/MC on RCA plus MC on XLR, four-level gain adjustment) and Hegel H600 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Technics SU-R1000 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Technics SU-R1000 is Class D and Hegel H600 is Class A/B. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | A | Technics SU-R1000 costs less - $11,999 against $13,800 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Hegel H600 is the cheaper watt - about $46 per watt against $80. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Technics SU-R1000 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. Technics SU-R1000 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, 150 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 153 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 play records, Technics SU-R1000 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
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.