Schiit Valhalla 2 vs SMSL H300: Which Drives More Headphones?

Schiit Valhalla 2 vs SMSL H300

Short answer

More power: the SMSL H300, with 5.00 W into 32 Ω; the Schiit Valhalla 2 has 115 mW. The SMSL H300 drives 6 headphones to 100 dB that the Schiit Valhalla 2 cannot (Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA, Symphonium Crimson, 3 more).
Hiss with sensitive IEMs: cannot be compared — neither maker publishes a noise figure.
Output impedance: 522 headphones are left alone by the SMSL H300 under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the Schiit Valhalla 2 (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 519 more).
Price: the SMSL H300 costs $53 less, and wherever both makers publish a figure the Schiit Valhalla 2 shows no advantage for the extra money.

Both are desktop amplifiers, $349 against $296.

The SMSL H300 reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 models here, the Schiit Valhalla 2 on 561.

Every published figure, next to each other

Specification	Schiit Valhalla 2	SMSL H300
Power into 32Ω	115 mW	5.0 W
Power into 150Ω	426 mW	1.1 W
Power into 300Ω	800 mW	533 mW
Power into 600Ω	450 mW	267 mW
Output impedance	14.0 Ω	<0.1 Ω
Output noise	not published	not published
Price	$349	$296
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on out of 567	561	567

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

Where each power figure comes from

Load	Schiit Valhalla 2	SMSL H300
32 Ω	Derived	Published
150 Ω	Derived	Derived
300 Ω	Published	Derived
600 Ω	Published	Derived

Both makers publish a power rating. Schiit Valhalla 2 publishes at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω; SMSL H300 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 Valhalla 2 figure is the maker’s own and at 32 Ω only the SMSL H300 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

6 headphones reach 100 dB on the SMSL H300 but not on the Schiit Valhalla 2 — Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA, Symphonium Crimson, 3 more.

522 headphones are left alone by the SMSL H300 under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the Schiit Valhalla 2 (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 519 more).

561 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 Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020: SMSL H300 has +32 dB of headroom there against +9 dB. 22 dB is about 174 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Schiit Valhalla 2 and SMSL H300 because neither maker publishes no output noise figure.

Headphone	Impedance	Needs	Schiit Valhalla 2 headroom	SMSL H300 headroom	Schiit Valhalla 2 hiss	SMSL H300 hiss
Shure SE846	9 Ω	0.04 mW	+29 dB damping	+52 dB	not published	not published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020	9 Ω	4.0 mW	+9 dB damping	+32 dB	not published	not published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic	70 Ω	0.79 mW	+25 dB damping	+35 dB	not published	not published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)	250 Ω	0.63 mW	+30 dB	+30 dB	not published	not published
HiFiMAN HE400se	25 Ω	7.9 mW	+11 dB damping	+29 dB	not published	not published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X	470 Ω	1.6 mW	+25 dB	+23 dB	not published	not published
Sennheiser HD 600	300 Ω	6.6 mW	+21 dB	+19 dB	not published	not published
HiFiMAN Susvara	60 Ω	50 mW	+6 dB damping	+17 dB	not published	not published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The Schiit Valhalla 2 costs $53 more than the SMSL H300, and on these three axes the money buys nothing: among the 567 models here there is not one that the Schiit Valhalla 2 handles and the SMSL H300 does not — not on power, not on the one-eighth rule, not on hiss. The traffic runs the other way: the cheaper SMSL H300 drives 6 models to 100 dB and leaves 522 alone under the one-eighth rule that the Schiit Valhalla 2 does not.

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