Dunu: what they publish

In this database12 headphones and 1 source
Figures from their own material7 of 15
Share47%

This page does not review anything Dunu makes. It counts one thing: how much of what this database says about their products came out of their own documents, and how much had to be worked out or left blank.

Where each sensitivity figure came from

ModelImpedanceSensitivitySource of the figure
Alpha 332 Ω105.0 dBUnit not stated
DK3001 BD26 Ω108.0 dB/mWPublished per mW
DN-14237 Ω107.0 dB/mWPublished per mW
Falcon Ultra16 Ω108.0 dBUnit not stated
Glacier43 Ω109.0 dB/mWPublished per mW
Kima32 Ω108.0 dBUnit not stated
KIMA 220 Ω108.0 dB/mWPublished per mW
SA6 MKII24 Ω114.0 dBUnit not stated
Titan S32 Ω110.0 dBUnit not stated
Titan S216 Ω107.0 dB/mWPublished per mW
Vulkan15 Ω109.0 dBUnit not stated
Vulkan 235 Ω113.0 dB/mWPublished per mW

Impedance is almost always printed. Sensitivity is the one that goes wrong, because a decibel figure means two very different things depending on whether it is per milliwatt or per volt — about five decibels apart at 300 Ω and eighteen at 16 Ω. The conversion is here.

  • Published per mW — 6: the maker prints a decibel figure per milliwatt, which is what the database stores
  • Unit not stated — 6: the maker prints a decibel figure with no reference unit, so it is shown as printed and flagged rather than quietly converted

What they print, and what it is worth

ModelAs printedToleranceStandard
Alpha 35Hz-40kHznot printednot printed
DK3001 BD5 Hz - 40 kHznot printednot printed
DN-1425Hz – 40kHznot printednot printed
Falcon Ultra5Hz-40kHznot printednot printed
Glacier5 Hz - 40 kHznot printednot printed
Kima5Hz-40kHznot printednot printed
KIMA 25 Hz - 40 kHznot printednot printed
SA6 MKII5 Hz - 40 kHznot printednot printed
Titan S5 Hz – 40 kHznot printednot printed
Titan S25 Hz - 40 kHznot printednot printed
Vulkan5 Hz – 40 kHz (HI-RES Certified)not printednot printed
Vulkan 25Hz – 40kHznot printednot printed

Dunu prints a frequency range for all 12 models here whose sheets have been read.

Not one of those ranges comes with a tolerance in decibels. Without a ±dB figure a range says nothing about how loud the headphone is at either end of it, which puts Dunu with the majority: of the 490 models across this database whose maker prints a range, 58 print the tolerance.

Every range stands under the same heading, give or take a capital letter: “FREQUENCY RESPONSE”.

No measurement is published here — only what was printed. The whole count, maker by maker, is in the frequency response audit.

What reaches 100 dB on all 12

The hardest of the 12 to drive is the Dunu Alpha 3: 0.32 mW and 0.10 V for a 100 dB SPL peak. Their impedances run from 15 to 43 Ω, which matters because the voltage a headphone wants rises with impedance while the power falls.

280 of the 280 sources here reach 100 dB on all 12, and the cheapest of them is the Apple USB-C dongle (EU) at $9. “Reaches” means the maker’s own published power figure is enough at that load; it is not a judgement of how it sounds.

On hiss the count is smaller, because most of the industry does not publish a noise figure at all: of the 83 sources here that do, 66 stay under the threshold of hearing on all 9 of their in-ears. The one to watch is the Dunu Vulkan 2 at 128 dB/V — the more sensitive the in-ear, the more of the amplifier’s own noise you hear.

Their lowest impedance is the Dunu Vulkan at 15 Ω, so a source wants an output impedance at or below 1.9 Ω to satisfy the one-eighth rule on everything they make. 131 of the 169 sources that publish an output impedance manage that.

These counts use figures the source makers published themselves. A product that publishes nothing is not counted as a pass anywhere above, which is why the three numbers differ so much. The collection matcher runs the same arithmetic over whatever you actually own.

The three figures that decide a match

ProductInto 32ΩOutput impedanceOutput noise
DUNU DTC 48065 mWnot publishednot published

Power decides whether it gets loud enough, output impedance decides whether it tilts the response of a multi-driver in-ear, and the noise figure decides whether you hear hiss with sensitive ones. All three fit on one line of a spec sheet; most of the industry prints one of them.

Dunu publishes a power figure at a stated load on 1 of 1, output impedance on 0, a noise figure on 0. Of the 4 power figures this site displays for them at 32, 150, 300 and 600 Ω: 1 printed by Dunu at that exact load, 3 worked out by holding output voltage steady across loads.

What the paperwork adds up to

Rather less than half of what this site says about Dunu came from them. The rest is arithmetic, and it is marked as arithmetic on every page.

The rule used here is the same for every maker and is described on the manufacturer index. Every figure behind it can be opened on the product page it came from, with the document it came from linked.

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