ART HeadAmp 4 Pro vs Schiit Magni Heresy

Both are desktop amplifiers, $130 against $99. This page puts them side by side on the only three things a maker can be held to — power, output impedance and noise — and then asks the question that actually matters: which headphones do they treat differently?

The Schiit Magni Heresy reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 models here, the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro on 561.

A figure marked not published is missing from the maker’s own material, which is not the same as being good or bad. Where one of these two publishes a number and the other does not, the comparison on that axis cannot be made at all — and saying so is more useful than guessing.

Only one of these two columns starts from a power rating. Schiit Magni Heresy publishes one at 32 Ω, at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω; ART HeadAmp 4 Pro publishes none at any of these four loads, so its column is worked out from power it published at other loads. Both are arithmetic on a maker’s own figures rather than guesses, and the method used for the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro understates rather than flatters — but at 32 Ω, at 300 Ω and at 600 Ω are the only loads here at which its maker can be held to a figure.

What each of these labels means, and why a derived figure is still worth printing, is set out in how this data was built.

6 headphones reach 100 dB on the Schiit Magni Heresy but not on the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro — Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA, Symphonium Crimson, 3 more.

561 headphones are left alone by the Schiit Magni Heresy under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 558 more).

561 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both. That is a power count and nothing more; whether either source suits a given headphone also depends on the two lines above.

The counts above say how many models the two treat differently. This says by how much. The same 8 headphones appear on every page of this kind, ordered from the easiest to drive to the hardest, so a row can be read across pages as well as across columns. Headroom is at a 100 dB SPL peak.

The widest gap on the list is the Shure SE846: Schiit Magni Heresy has +46 dB of headroom there against +29 dB. 17 dB is about 53 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for ART HeadAmp 4 Pro and Schiit Magni Heresy because neither maker publishes no output noise figure. That is a gap in the specification, not a quiet amplifier, and it is left blank here rather than filled with a plausible number.

The ART HeadAmp 4 Pro costs $31 more than the Schiit Magni Heresy, and on these three axes the money buys nothing: among the 567 models here there is not one that the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro handles and the Schiit Magni Heresy does not — not on power, not on the one-eighth rule, not on hiss. The traffic runs the other way: the cheaper Schiit Magni Heresy drives 6 models to 100 dB and leaves 561 alone under the one-eighth rule that the ART HeadAmp 4 Pro does not.

Everything in this paragraph counts only figures the two makers published. An advantage on an axis one of them leaves blank cannot be counted, and is not counted — how often that happens is its own page.

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: ART HeadAmp 4 Pro and Schiit Magni Heresy. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.