The Campfire Audio Chimera is 5.5Ω with a sensitivity of 108.1 dB/mW, which is 130.7 dB/V. To reach 100 dB SPL — genuinely loud, louder than most people listen — it needs 0.15 mW, or 29 mV across the drivers.
That puts it in the easy category. A phone, a laptop headphone jack or the cheapest USB dongle will drive it to painful levels. Of the 280 sources in the database, 280 have at least 10 dB of headroom and another 0 have enough. The cheapest portable source that does the job is the Apple USB-C dongle (US) at $9.
Sensitivity here is in dB per milliwatt. Why the unit matters.
Campfire Audio does something unusual: it publishes 94 dB at 94db @ 1 kHz- 14.6 mVrms, an SPL at one specific drive voltage rather than per milliwatt or per volt. That is convertible — at 5.5Ω that voltage works out to a known power — and the 108.1 dB/mW above is the result. It is a real figure, just stated in a way nothing else in this database uses.
Campfire Audio prints the impedance as 5.5Ω @ 1kHz, not as a bare number. Everything on this page is calculated with the nominal 5.5Ω, and the rest of that line is quoted here rather than tidied away, because how a figure is qualified is part of the specification too.
Source: campfireaudio.com. How this data was built.
| As it is labelled | As printed | Tolerance | Standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frequency Response | 5-20 kHz | not printed | not printed |
Campfire Audio prints 5-20 kHz for the Campfire Audio Chimera, under the heading “Frequency Response”. Source: campfireaudio.com.
No tolerance is printed with it, so “5-20 kHz” says nothing about how loud this headphone actually is at 5 Hz.
Only what the maker printed; maker by maker.
| Level | What it is | Power | Voltage | Current |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85 dB SPL | quiet background listening | 0.00 mW | 5 mV | 0.9 mA |
| 95 dB SPL | normal listening | 0.05 mW | 16 mV | 3.0 mA |
| 100 dB SPL | loud listening | 0.15 mW | 29 mV | 5.3 mA |
| 105 dB SPL | very loud | 0.49 mW | 52 mV | 9.4 mA |
| 110 dB SPL | peaks on dynamic music | 1.5 mW | 92 mV | 16.8 mA |
Most people listen between 75 and 85 dB; the 100 dB row leaves room for peaks.
The 15 cheapest of the 280 sources here that reach 100 dB SPL into 5.5Ω with at least 10 dB of headroom and no known hiss or output-impedance problem with these headphones. All 280 sources, judged for these headphones.
| Source | Type | Price | Power into 5.5Ω | Headroom | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FiiO SnowSky Tiny A | USB dongle | $22 | 15 mW | +20 dB | Comfortable |
| Tanchjim Stargate II | USB dongle | $40 | 28 mW | +23 dB | Comfortable |
| ddHiFi TC35AL | USB dongle | $46 | 36 mW | +24 dB | Comfortable |
| ddHiFi TC35Air | USB dongle | $46 | 36 mW | +24 dB | Comfortable |
| Fosi Audio N3 | Bluetooth receiver | $50 | 24 mW | +22 dB | Comfortable |
| Hidizs SD2 | USB dongle | $50 | 12 mW | +19 dB | Comfortable |
| iFi GO link | USB dongle | $59 | 12 mW | +19 dB | Comfortable |
| Kiwi Ears Allegro Pro | USB dongle | $60 | 12 mW | +19 dB | Comfortable |
| ddHiFi TC35Pro (Mountain2) | USB dongle | $66 | 11 mW | +19 dB | Comfortable |
| DUNU DTC 480 | USB dongle | $70 | 11 mW | +19 dB | Comfortable |
| EPZ TP35 Pro | USB dongle | $70 | 19 mW | +21 dB | Comfortable |
| Aiyima A2 Pro | desktop DAC/amp | $75 | 26 mW | +22 dB | Comfortable |
| ddHiFi TC35Pro (Eye2) | USB dongle | $76 | 11 mW | +19 dB | Comfortable |
| ddHiFi TC44 Pro E2 | USB dongle | $99 | 43 mW | +24 dB | Comfortable |
| Creative Sound Blaster X3 | desktop DAC/amp | $100 | 7.7 mW | +17 dB | Comfortable |
Hiss. At 130.7 dB/V these are sensitive enough to reveal a source's own noise floor. The noisiest source in the database, the Schiit Mjolnir 3, would put its hiss at roughly 39 dB SPL in these headphones — clearly audible in quiet passages. Check your own source.
Output impedance. At 5.5Ω these want a source output impedance below 0.69Ω to satisfy the one-eighth rule; 95 of the 192 sources that publish one miss it. Check yours here.
6.375Ω · 110.6 dB/mW · Easy
See requirements →8Ω · 94.0 dB · Easy
See requirements →8Ω · 94.0 dB · Easy
See requirements →30Ω · 115.0 dB · Easy
See requirements →18Ω · 114.0 dB · Easy
See requirements →16Ω · 112.0 dB · Easy
See requirements →Compared with its stablemates: vs Andromeda 10 · vs Andromeda 2020 · vs Andromeda 2023 · vs Ara · vs Astrolith · vs Clara · vs Holocene · vs Mammoth · vs Solaris 2020.