Ken Micallef of Stereophile tried the Heed Elixir on a pair of Snell speakers he had owned since about 1989. Their bass became "full and ripe," and he wrote that not even his Shindo tube amplifier made them sound this human. Heed builds on an idea most of the industry dropped decades ago. In a typical solid-state amp the transistors connect straight to the speaker. In a Heed amp they charge large capacitors, parts that store energy and pass only the changing music signal, and those capacitors drive the speaker. Zsolt Huszti, Heed's founder, told Stereophile that sound is "tiny changes in air pressure," so the speaker should be driven by the changes alone. Heed calls the approach Transcap. Micallef heard a tone on "the darker side of neutral," and Jeff Maltby of StereoNET wrote that "You could listen all day to the Elixir." Heed suits listeners who play record after record.

The Elixir is the way in. It has a phono stage and a headphone amp built in, and Chris Kelly of The Ear called it "a real pocket rocket." The Obelisk is the step up, in a full-width case with its own phono stage and room to add an external power supply later. Don't judge Heed by its power ratings. John Darko said the modest Obelisk Si "plays like so much more" and that Heed watts should be thought of as tube watts. Kelly found his Harbeths too loud at 75% on the volume dial, and he expects only the most difficult speakers to give the Obelisk trouble. If you do add the power supply, Darko heard a tighter, deeper soundstage with it, most of all on less efficient speakers. Be patient at first. His Obelisk Si showed its best after about a week.

In 1980s Hungary, Zsolt Huszti published his own hifi magazine and imported equipment from the West, and Darko lists Creek, Naim, Exposure, Arcam and Rega among the British brands he and his brother Alpar brought in. Another import was the Ion Obelisk, a small integrated by the British engineer Richard Hay. Heed says it was far from love at first sight for Huszti, but "the music just poured out of it." He and Hay became friends and assembled Ion amplifiers in Hungary. Later Hay stepped away from amplifier design and gave Huszti his blessing to carry on, and the Obelisk One, Heed's first in-house design, started the brand. Stereophile reports that the name is pronounced hid, Hungarian for bridge, which Huszti means as a bridge between music and electronics. In 2005 László Evellei helped redesign the Obelisk as a shoebox-sized amp. Attila Oláh joined later, became chief engineer and laid the foundations of Transcap. Hay worked with Heed again and said the Obelisk "has been a huge part of my life."