Schiit Lyr 5: power output and what it will drive

The Schiit Lyr 5 is a desktop amplifier at $799. It delivers 6.0 W into 32Ω and 900 mW into 300Ω, which ranks it 6 of 280 for raw power among the sources in this database.

Measured at 100 dB SPL it has comfortable headroom on 567 of the 567 dynamic and planar headphones catalogued here. Power is published at 16Ω, 32Ω, 50Ω, 300Ω, 600Ω; the rest of the table is derived from those figures. Output noise is not published, so the hiss estimate cannot be run.

The manufacturer publishes 9.0 W into 16Ω, 6.0 W into 32Ω, 4.0 W into 50Ω, 900 mW into 300Ω, 450 mW into 600Ω. The rest of the table is worked out from those.

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

The noise figure above is converted, not read. Schiit does not print microvolts for this one. It prints a signal-to-noise ratio together with the voltage that ratio is referenced to, in the same block of the same table: “SNR: > 114db, unweighted, referenced to 2V RMS”. From those two numbers the noise follows by one division — 2.0 V ÷ 10^(114/20) — which is where the 3.99 µV comes from, at the solid state, low gain setting, unweighted. The ratio is printed as a bound rather than a measurement, so the figure is a ceiling: the noise is at most that, and may be lower. This is the same situation as a sensitivity printed per volt instead of per milliwatt: published, but in a convention nobody converts.

Source: schiit.com.

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

At 3.99 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 33 dB SPL, which you will hear between tracks and in quiet passages.

At 0.4Ω output impedance, the one-eighth rule says this source suits headphones of 3.2Ω and above. 1 of the 567 models here falls below that. The one model below that line is the Symphonium Titan, and the mismatch tilts the frequency response audibly rather than subtly.

Check any pair.

Of the 280 sources here, 10 do everything the Schiit Lyr 5 does as a headphone output: reach 100 dB on every headphone it reaches, stay inside the one-eighth rule wherever it does and stay under the audible-hiss threshold wherever it does. The cheapest of them is the Schiit Magni Unity at $119, against this one’s $799 — $680 less.

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

Compared with its closest rivals: vs Aune S17 Pro EVO · vs Rupert Neve RNHP · vs Schiit Asgard 3 · vs Schiit Jotunheim 2 · vs Schiit Magni Heresy · vs Schiit Magni Unity · vs Schiit Midgard · vs Schiit Mjolnir 3 · vs Schiit Valhalla 2 · vs Schiit Valhalla 3 · vs Schiit Vali 2+ · vs Schiit Vali 3 · vs Violectric V222.

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