EPZ TP50 vs FiiO KA17

Both are dongles, $210 against $149. 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?

The FiiO KA17 reaches 100 dB on 564 of the 567 models here, the EPZ TP50 on 561.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationEPZ TP50FiiO KA17
Power into 32Ω121 mW140 mW
Power into 150Ω26 mW34 mW
Power into 300Ω13 mW20 mW
Power into 600Ω6.5 mW10.0 mW
Output impedancenot published1.0 Ω
Output noise1.0 µV2.0 µV
Price$210$149
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
561564

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.

The headphones that tell them apart

3 headphones reach 100 dB on the FiiO KA17 but not on the EPZ TP50 — Moondrop COSMO, Symphonium Helios, Symphonium Zenith.

5 headphones stay below the audible-hiss threshold on the EPZ TP50 but cross it on the FiiO KA17 (64 Audio Fourte, Campfire Audio Clara, Shure SE846, 2 more).

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.

Both pages in full

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: EPZ TP50 and FiiO KA17. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.