Both are dongles, $299 against $449. This page puts them side by side on the only three things a maker can be held to — power, output impedance and noise — and then asks the question that actually matters: which headphones do they treat differently?
On raw power they are level: each reaches 100 dB on 563 of the 567 non-electrostatic models here.
| Specification | EarMen Colibri | iBasso DC-Elite |
|---|---|---|
| Power into 32Ω | 75 mW | 162 mW |
| Power into 150Ω | 16 mW | 35 mW |
| Power into 300Ω | 8.0 mW | 17 mW |
| Power into 600Ω | 4.0 mW | 8.6 mW |
| Output impedance | not published | not published |
| Output noise | not published | not published |
| Price | $299 | $449 |
| Headphones it reaches 100 dB on out of 567 | 563 | 563 |
A figure marked not published is missing from the maker’s own material, which is not the same as being good or bad. Where one of these two publishes a number and the other does not, the comparison on that axis cannot be made at all — and saying so is more useful than guessing.
2 headphones reach 100 dB on the EarMen Colibri but not on the iBasso DC-Elite — Symphonium Crimson, Symphonium Helios.
2 headphones reach 100 dB on the iBasso DC-Elite but not on the EarMen Colibri — HiFiMAN Susvara, Moondrop SKYLAND.
561 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both. That is a power count and nothing more; whether either source suits a given headphone also depends on the two lines above.
Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: EarMen Colibri and iBasso DC-Elite. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.