FiiO M11S vs Sony NW-A306

Both are portable players, $499 against $350. 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 M11S reaches 100 dB on 566 of the 567 models here, the Sony NW-A306 on 530.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationFiiO M11SSony NW-A306
Power into 32Ω200 mW18 mW
Power into 150Ω44 mW3.7 mW
Power into 300Ω23 mW1.9 mW
Power into 600Ω12 mW0.90 mW
Output impedance1.5 Ω1.5 Ω unverified
Output noise1.8 µV5 µV unverified
Price$499$350
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
566530

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

36 headphones reach 100 dB on the FiiO M11S but not on the Sony NW-A306 — AKG K612 Pro, Abyss AB-1266 Phi CC, Abyss AB-1266 Phi TC, 33 more.

530 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: FiiO M11S and Sony NW-A306. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.