Quietest desktop sources

Desktop amplifiers, DAC/amp units and audio interfaces, sorted by the noise figure their own makers published. This is a different question from the dongle list: a desktop amplifier has room for a bigger power supply and a bigger output stage, and the bigger output stage is often what you hear between tracks on a sensitive in-ear.

Only 32 of the 168 products in these three categories publish a noise figure at all, which is why this list is shorter than the category. The count in the last column is arithmetic on the maker’s own microvolts against each in-ear’s own sensitivity and impedance — not a measurement of the product.

The list

Sorted on one published figure

SourcePriceTypePublished noiseIn-ears it stays quiet with
Topping A90$499desktop amplifier0.2 µV222 of 222
Topping A90 Discrete$599desktop amplifier0.2 µV222 of 222
Topping L30 II$149desktop amplifier0.3 µV222 of 222
Topping A30 Pro$249desktop amplifier0.3 µV222 of 222
Singxer SA-1$699desktop amplifier0.3 µV222 of 222
SMSL HO200$399desktop amplifier1 µV221 of 222
SMSL HO100$160desktop amplifier1.3 µV221 of 222
JDS Labs Atom Amp 2$129desktop amplifier1.33 µV220 of 222
Chord Hugo TT 2$5695desktop DAC/amp1.7 µV220 of 222
Soncoz SGA1$600desktop amplifier1.8 µV220 of 222
SMSL SP400$529desktop amplifier1.9 µV219 of 222
JDS Labs Atom+ (2nd gen)$99desktop amplifier1.99 µV218 of 222
JDS Labs Element IV$549desktop DAC/amp2 µV217 of 222
FiiO K9 Pro$799desktop DAC/amp2 µV217 of 222
Benchmark HPA4$3499desktop amplifier2.45 µV213 of 222

The table shows the first 15 of 32. The rest are in the full source list, where every figure is labelled with where it came from.

136 of the 168 desktop amplifiers, DAC/amps and interfaces could not be placed on this list at all, because their makers never published the figure it sorts by. They are not at the bottom of the ranking; they are absent from it. Any list of this kind that does not say so is quietly presenting a fraction of the market as the whole of it.

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.

The other lists

Same database, different question

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 · What balanced actually gains · Portable players by power · Most power per dollar · High-impedance headphones

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