Schiit Lyr+ vs SMSL HO200: Which Drives More Headphones?

Schiit Lyr+ vs SMSL HO200

Short answer

More power: the Schiit Lyr+, with 6.00 W into 32 Ω; the SMSL HO200 has 3.00 W. Both drive 567 of the 567 non-electrostatic headphones here to 100 dB, so on that test the difference changes nothing.
Hiss with sensitive IEMs: cannot be compared — the maker of the Schiit Lyr+ publishes no noise figure.
Output impedance: 1 headphone is left alone by the SMSL HO200 under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the Schiit Lyr+ (Symphonium Titan).
Price: the SMSL HO200 costs $50 less, and wherever both makers publish a figure the Schiit Lyr+ shows no advantage for the extra money.

Both are desktop amplifiers, $449 against $399.

On raw power they are level: each reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 non-electrostatic models here.

Every published figure, next to each other

Specification	Schiit Lyr+	SMSL HO200
Power into 32Ω	6.0 W	3.0 W
Power into 150Ω	1.5 W	640 mW
Power into 300Ω	900 mW	320 mW
Power into 600Ω	450 mW	160 mW
Output impedance	0.4 Ω	<0.1 Ω
Output noise	not published	1.0 µV
Price	$449	$399
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on out of 567	567	567

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

Where each power figure comes from

Load	Schiit Lyr+	SMSL HO200
32 Ω	Published	Published
150 Ω	Derived	Derived
300 Ω	Published	Derived
600 Ω	Published	Derived

Both makers publish a power rating. Schiit Lyr+ publishes at 32 Ω, at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω; SMSL HO200 at 32 Ω. The other rows are worked out from those.

So the two columns are not equally firm row by row: at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω only the Schiit Lyr+ figure is the maker’s own. On those rows the derived number is the one to doubt first.

What the labels mean.

The headphones that tell them apart

On power they are interchangeable across this whole database: there is no headphone here that one reaches 100 dB on and the other does not.

1 headphone is left alone by the SMSL HO200 under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the Schiit Lyr+ (Symphonium Titan).

567 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 Sennheiser HD 600: Schiit Lyr+ has +21 dB of headroom there against +17 dB. 4 dB is about 2.8 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Schiit Lyr+ because that maker publishes no output noise figure.

Headphone	Impedance	Needs	Schiit Lyr+ headroom	SMSL HO200 headroom	Schiit Lyr+ hiss	SMSL HO200 hiss
Shure SE846	9 Ω	0.04 mW	+51 dB	+49 dB	not published	14 dB
Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020	9 Ω	4.0 mW	+31 dB	+29 dB	not published	-6 dB
Audeze LCD-2 Classic	70 Ω	0.79 mW	+36 dB	+32 dB	not published	-7 dB
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)	250 Ω	0.63 mW	+32 dB	+28 dB	not published	-12 dB
HiFiMAN HE400se	25 Ω	7.9 mW	+29 dB	+27 dB	not published	-13 dB
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X	470 Ω	1.6 mW	+26 dB	+21 dB	not published	-19 dB
Sennheiser HD 600	300 Ω	6.6 mW	+21 dB	+17 dB	not published	-23 dB
HiFiMAN Susvara	60 Ω	50 mW	+18 dB	+15 dB	not published	-25 dB

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The Schiit Lyr+ costs $50 more than the SMSL HO200, and on these three axes the money buys nothing: among the 567 models here there is not one that the Schiit Lyr+ handles and the SMSL HO200 does not — not on power, not on the one-eighth rule, not on hiss. The traffic runs the other way: the cheaper SMSL HO200 leaves one model alone under the one-eighth rule that the Schiit Lyr+ does not.

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