Lotoo PAW 6000: power output and what it will drive

The Lotoo PAW 6000 is a portable player at $1200. It delivers 300 mW into 32Ω and 32 mW into 300Ω, which ranks it 133 of 280 for raw power among the sources in this database.

Measured at 100 dB SPL it has comfortable headroom on 547 of the 567 dynamic and planar headphones catalogued here, enough but not generous on 16, only marginal on 2 and not enough power for 2. Power is published at 32Ω; the rest of the table is derived from those figures. Output impedance is not published.

The manufacturer publishes 300 mW into 32Ω. The rest of the table is worked out from those.

The balanced output is rated separately: 300 mW into 32Ω through the 4.4mm jack.

Derived rows hold output voltage steady, as an amplifier does (method).

Source: lotoo.cn, lotoo.cn.

Easiest to hardest to drive, with headroom at a 100 dB SPL peak.

At 0.975 µV of output noise, here is where that noise lands in the five most revealing in-ears in the database.

This one hisses. With the most sensitive in-ears in the database its own noise lands around 21 dB SPL, which you will hear between tracks and in quiet passages.

The manufacturer does not publish an output impedance for this source. Without it, nothing here can say how this source will behave with a multi-driver in-ear.

With a measured figure, the checker works out the consequence.

Of the 280 sources here, 10 do everything the Lotoo PAW 6000 does as a headphone output: reach 100 dB on every headphone it reaches and stay under the audible-hiss threshold wherever it does. The cheapest of them is the FiiO BTR13 at $59, against this one’s $1200 — $1141 less, and a Bluetooth receiver rather than a portable player.

The cheaper one also publishes an output impedance, which the Lotoo PAW 6000 does not — so on the paperwork it is ahead, not merely level.

This counts the headphone output only; inputs, converters, the volume control and the build are outside it.

Compared with its closest rivals: vs FiiO M17 · vs FiiO M27 · vs iBasso DX270 · vs Shanling M7 · vs Sony NW-WM1AM2.

Compare any two or match your own headphones. Every Lotoo source here.