FiiO M15S vs FiiO M27

Both are portable players, $799 against $1799. 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 M27 reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 models here, the FiiO M15S on 566.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationFiiO M15SFiiO M27
Power into 32Ω580 mW1.8 W
Power into 150Ω150 mW391 mW
Power into 300Ω93 mW200 mW
Power into 600Ω47 mW100 mW
Output impedance1.4 Ω0.5 Ω
Output noise3.2 µV3.9 µV
Price$799$1799
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
566567

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

1 headphone reaches 100 dB on the FiiO M27 but not on the FiiO M15S — Symphonium Titan.

50 headphones are left alone by the FiiO M27 under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the FiiO M15S (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 47 more).

14 headphones stay below the audible-hiss threshold on the FiiO M15S but cross it on the FiiO M27 (Audio-Technica ATH-CKS1100, Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT, Beyerdynamic DJ 300 PRO X, 11 more).

566 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 M15S and FiiO M27. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.

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