NiceHCK F1 Pro: how much amplifier do you need?

The NiceHCK F1 Pro is 16Ω with a sensitivity of 104.0 dB/mW, which is 122.0 dB/V. To reach 100 dB SPL — genuinely loud, louder than most people listen — it needs 0.40 mW, or 80 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.

The two numbers that decide everything

Impedance16 Ω
Sensitivity104.0 dB/mW
Sensitivity (voltage)122.0 dB/V
Power for 100 dB SPL0.40 mW
Voltage for 100 dB SPL80 mV
TypeIn-ear monitor
Easy to drive — anything will do it
All 280 sources at 100 dB SPL into 16Ω
Comfortable 280Enough 0Marginal 0Not enough 0
Cheapest portable source that does it
$9 · USB dongle · +16 dB headroom
Cheapest desktop amp with 10 dB to spare
$75 · desktop DAC/amp · +23 dB headroom

Sensitivity here is in dB per milliwatt. Why the unit matters.

Where this sensitivity figure comes from

NiceHCK, as the shop reproduces it, publishes this directly as 104 dB/mW, per milliwatt, so nothing was converted.

One caveat about the source. Almost everything in this database comes from a document the maker published. This entry does not: the figures above stand on someone else's product page — Concept Kart, a retailer — and not on any page NiceHCK publishes. Shops usually copy the factory table faithfully and this one may well be exact — but a shop can also carry an old revision, and if NiceHCK changes the number there is nothing here that would notice. It is the weakest provenance on this site, which is why it is written on the page rather than left in a footnote.

NiceHCK runs its own shop, but this model has been delisted from it — its product URL returns 404. The figures survive only on the pages of other retailers.

Source: conceptkart.com. How this data was built.

What the shop lists, and what it is worth

As it is labelledAs printedToleranceStandard
Frequency Response20Hz-28kHznot printednot printed

Concept Kart, a retailer, lists 20Hz-28kHz for the NiceHCK F1 Pro, under the heading “Frequency Response”. Source: conceptkart.com. No document published by NiceHCK carries this figure, so it is the shop's number, not the maker's.

No tolerance is printed with it, so “20Hz-28kHz” says nothing about how loud this headphone actually is at 20 Hz.

Only what the maker printed; maker by maker.

Power, voltage and current by listening level

LevelWhat it isPowerVoltageCurrent
85 dB SPLquiet background listening0.01 mW14 mV0.9 mA
95 dB SPLnormal listening0.13 mW45 mV2.8 mA
100 dB SPLloud listening0.40 mW80 mV5.0 mA
105 dB SPLvery loud1.3 mW0.14 V8.9 mA
110 dB SPLpeaks on dynamic music4.0 mW0.25 V15.8 mA

Most people listen between 75 and 85 dB; the 100 dB row leaves room for peaks.

The cheapest sources that drive them with room to spare

The 15 cheapest of the 280 sources here that reach 100 dB SPL into 16Ω 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.

SourceTypePricePower into 16ΩHeadroomVerdict
FiiO SnowSky Tiny AUSB dongle$2245 mW+21 dBComfortable
FiiO SnowSky Tiny BUSB dongle$2268 mW+22 dBComfortable
Tanchjim Stargate IIUSB dongle$4082 mW+23 dBComfortable
ddHiFi TC35ALUSB dongle$46105 mW+24 dBComfortable
ddHiFi TC35AirUSB dongle$46105 mW+24 dBComfortable
Fosi Audio N3Bluetooth receiver$5069 mW+22 dBComfortable
Hidizs SD2USB dongle$5035 mW+19 dBComfortable
iFi GO linkUSB dongle$5935 mW+19 dBComfortable
Kiwi Ears Allegro ProUSB dongle$6034 mW+19 dBComfortable
ddHiFi TC35Pro (Mountain2)USB dongle$6633 mW+19 dBComfortable
DUNU DTC 480USB dongle$7033 mW+19 dBComfortable
EPZ TP35 ProUSB dongle$7056 mW+21 dBComfortable
Aiyima A2 Prodesktop DAC/amp$7575 mW+23 dBComfortable
ddHiFi TC35Pro (Eye2)USB dongle$7633 mW+19 dBComfortable
ddHiFi TC44 Pro E2USB dongle$99125 mW+25 dBComfortable

The three ways a source goes wrong

Hiss. At 122.0 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 30 dB SPL in these headphones — clearly audible in quiet passages. Check your own source.

Output impedance. At 16Ω these want a source output impedance below 2.00Ω to satisfy the one-eighth rule; 35 of the 192 sources that publish one miss it. Check yours here.

Similar headphones

Compared with its stablemates: vs DB2 · vs Himalaya.

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