Schiit Magni Unity: power output and what it will drive

The Schiit Magni Unity is a desktop amplifier at $119. It delivers 2.5 W into 32Ω and 415 mW into 300Ω, which ranks it 33 of 280 for raw power among the sources in this database.

Measured at 100 dB SPL it has comfortable headroom on 566 of the 567 dynamic and planar headphones catalogued here and enough but not generous on 1. Schiit's entry amp with a DAC folded in. Published power at five loads, which almost nobody at this price does.

The manufacturer publishes 3.0 W into 16Ω, 2.5 W into 32Ω, 1.5 W into 50Ω, 415 mW into 300Ω, 220 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: “Low Gain: Greater than 122dB, referenced to 2V RMS”. From those two numbers the noise follows by one division — 2.0 V ÷ 10^(122/20) — which is where the 1.59 µV comes from, at the low gain setting. 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 1.59 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 25 dB SPL, which you will hear between tracks and in quiet passages.

At 0.1Ω output impedance this source satisfies the one-eighth rule with every headphone in the database, down to the 3Ω in-ears. Nothing here will have its frequency response shaped by the source.

Check any pair.

Nothing cheaper in this database does everything the Schiit Magni Unity does. Of the 280 sources here, not one at a lower price will 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. That is a plain result and it is not the usual one — most of the catalogue has something cheaper that matches it.

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

Compared with its closest rivals: vs ART HeadAmp 4 Pro · vs JDS Labs Atom Amp 2 · vs Schiit Lyr 5 · vs Schiit Lyr+ · vs Schiit Magni Piety · vs Schiit Mjolnir 3 · vs Schiit Valhalla 2 · vs Schiit Valhalla 3 · vs Schiit Vali 2+ · vs Schiit Vali 3.

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