ART HeadAmp 4 Pro vs Schiit Magni Piety

Short answer

  • More power: the Schiit Magni Piety, with 1.00 W into 32 Ω; the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro has 98 mW. The Schiit Magni Piety drives 6 headphones to 100 dB that the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro cannot (Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA, Symphonium Crimson, 3 more).
  • Hiss with sensitive IEMs: cannot be compared — neither maker publishes a noise figure.
  • Output impedance: 560 headphones are left alone by the Schiit Magni Piety under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 557 more).
  • Price: the Schiit Magni Piety costs $70 more; what that buys on these numbers is set out further down, under What the price difference buys.

Both are desktop amplifiers, $130 against $200.

The Schiit Magni Piety reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 models here, the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro on 561.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationART HeadAmp 4 ProSchiit Magni Piety
Power into 32Ω98 mW1.0 W
Power into 150Ω67 mW446 mW
Power into 300Ω33 mW400 mW
Power into 600Ω17 mW200 mW
Output impedance47.0 Ω0.6 Ω
Output noisenot publishednot published
Price$130$200
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
561567

Not published means the maker leaves it out, so that axis cannot be compared.

Where each power figure comes from

LoadART HeadAmp 4 ProSchiit Magni Piety
32 ΩDerivedPublished
150 ΩDerivedDerived
300 ΩDerivedPublished
600 ΩDerivedPublished

Only one of these two columns starts from a power rating. Schiit Magni Piety publishes one at 32 Ω, at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω; ART HeadAmp 4 Pro publishes none at any of these four loads, so its column is worked out from power it published at other loads. Both are arithmetic on a maker’s own figures rather than guesses, and the method used for the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro understates rather than flatters — but at 32 Ω, at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω are the only loads here at which its maker can be held to a figure.

What the labels mean.

The headphones that tell them apart

6 headphones reach 100 dB on the Schiit Magni Piety but not on the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro — Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA, Symphonium Crimson, 3 more.

560 headphones are left alone by the Schiit Magni Piety under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 557 more).

561 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both.

Headroom and hiss on 8 models, both sources

Headroom is at a 100 dB SPL peak.

The widest gap on the list is the Shure SE846: Schiit Magni Piety has +42 dB of headroom there against +29 dB. 14 dB is about 23 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for ART HeadAmp 4 Pro and Schiit Magni Piety because neither maker publishes no output noise figure.

HeadphoneImpedanceNeedsART HeadAmp 4 Pro headroomSchiit Magni Piety headroomART HeadAmp 4 Pro hissSchiit Magni Piety hiss
Shure SE8469 Ω0.04 mW+29 dB damping+42 dBnot publishednot published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 20209 Ω4.0 mW+9 dB damping+22 dBnot publishednot published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic70 Ω0.79 mW+21 dB damping+29 dBnot publishednot published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)250 Ω0.63 mW+18 dB damping+28 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN HE400se25 Ω7.9 mW+10 dB damping+21 dBnot publishednot published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X470 Ω1.6 mW+11 dB+22 dBnot publishednot published
Sennheiser HD 600300 Ω6.6 mW+7 dB damping+18 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN Susvara60 Ω50 mW+3 dB damping+11 dBnot publishednot published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The Schiit Magni Piety costs $70 more than the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 6 more models driven to 100 dB and 560 more models left alone under the one-eighth rule.

Nothing runs the other way: there is no axis here on which the cheaper of the two does better.

Only published figures count here; blank axes are counted separately.

Both pages in full

↑