A portable player is the one source that has to be both things at once: quiet enough for an in-ear and strong enough for whatever full-size headphone travels with you. This lists every player here by what it delivers into 32 Ω, with the 300 Ω column beside it because that is where the difference between players actually shows.
Read the two power columns together. A player whose 300 Ω figure is about a tenth of its 32 Ω figure has run out of voltage; one where it is nearer a third has not. That ratio, not the headline milliwatt number, is what decides whether a high-impedance headphone works on the move.
| Player | Price | Into 32 Ω | Into 300 Ω | Models it reaches 100 dB on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FiiO M27 | $1799 | 1.8 W | 200 mW | 567 of 567 |
| TempoTec Variations V3 Blaze | $179 | 825 mW | 88 mW | 566 of 567 |
| HiBy R6 Pro II | $750 | 750 mW | 140 mW | 566 of 567 |
| FiiO M15S | $799 | 580 mW | 93 mW | 566 of 567 |
| iBasso DX340 | $1699 | 550 mW | 59 mW | 566 of 567 |
| Shanling M9 Plus | $2959 | 520 mW | 55 mW | 566 of 567 |
| FiiO M17 | $1799 | 500 mW | 63 mW | 567 of 567 |
| FiiO M33 R2R | $730 | 470 mW | 60 mW | 566 of 567 |
| iBasso DX270 | $1149 | 416 mW | 44 mW | 566 of 567 |
| Shanling M7 | $1249 | 406 mW | 43 mW | 566 of 567 |
| FiiO M21 | $599 | 405 mW | 45 mW | 566 of 567 |
| iBasso DX320 | $1599 | 380 mW | 40 mW | 565 of 567 |
| Astell&Kern SP3000 | $3700 | 340 mW | 36 mW | 565 of 567 |
| TempoTec Variations V6 | $369 | 330 mW | 35 mW | 565 of 567 |
| Astell&Kern SR35 | $800 | 300 mW | 32 mW | 565 of 567 |
The table shows the first 15 of 39. The rest are in the full source list, where every figure is labelled with where it came from.
241 of the 280 sources in this database are not on this list because it covers one part of the catalogue rather than all of it. Nothing was excluded for failing a test and nothing is missing a figure; this one is a category, not a ranking threshold.
This is not a ranking of sound quality and cannot be. It sorts one number that manufacturers printed, and manufacturers do not print anything about how their products sound. Every row links to that product’s own page, where each figure is labelled with the document it came from.
Quietest sources for sensitive in-ears · Lowest published output impedance · Most power into 300 Ω · Sources that drive everything here · Audio interfaces as headphone amplifiers · Sources under $100 · Hardest headphones to drive · Most sensitive in-ears · Quietest desktop sources · What balanced actually gains · Most power per dollar · High-impedance headphones