Arturia MiniFuse 2 vs PreSonus Studio 24c

Both are audio interfaces, $149 against $149. 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 Arturia MiniFuse 2 reaches 100 dB on 562 of the 567 models here, the PreSonus Studio 24c on 552.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationArturia MiniFuse 2PreSonus Studio 24c
Power into 32Ω139 mW27 mW
Power into 150Ω45 mW18 mW
Power into 300Ω24 mW8.8 mW
Power into 600Ω12 mW4.4 mW
Output impedance10 Ωnot published
Output noisenot publishednot published
Price$149$149
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
562552

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.

Where each power figure comes from

LoadArturia MiniFuse 2PreSonus Studio 24c
32 ΩDerivedDerived
150 ΩDerivedDerived
300 ΩDerivedDerived
600 ΩDerivedDerived

Neither column is a maker’s power rating at these loads. Of the 280 sources here, 209 publish a figure at at least one load; these two do not, so every row above is derived — between or beyond the loads each maker did publish, holding output voltage as the maker’s own figures imply. The method understates rather than flatters, but it is still arithmetic rather than a rating.

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

The headphones that tell them apart

10 headphones reach 100 dB on the Arturia MiniFuse 2 but not on the PreSonus Studio 24c — HiFiMAN HE-6se V2, HiFiMAN HE6 Remastered, HiFiMAN Susvara, 7 more.

552 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.

Headroom and hiss on 8 models, both sources

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 Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020: Arturia MiniFuse 2 has +10 dB of headroom there against +3 dB. 7 dB is about 5.2 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Arturia MiniFuse 2 and PreSonus Studio 24c 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.

HeadphoneImpedanceNeedsArturia MiniFuse 2 headroomPreSonus Studio 24c headroomArturia MiniFuse 2 hissPreSonus Studio 24c hiss
Shure SE8469 Ω0.04 mW+30 dB damping+23 dBnot publishednot published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 20209 Ω4.0 mW+10 dB damping+3 dBnot publishednot published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic70 Ω0.79 mW+20 dB damping+17 dBnot publishednot published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)250 Ω0.63 mW+17 dB+12 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN HE400se25 Ω7.9 mW+11 dB damping+4 dBnot publishednot published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X470 Ω1.6 mW+10 dB+5 dBnot publishednot published
Sennheiser HD 600300 Ω6.6 mW+6 dB+1 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN Susvara60 Ω50 mW+2 dB damping-1 dBnot publishednot published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

These two cost the same, $149, so price settles nothing. Out of the 567 models here, the Arturia MiniFuse 2 drives 10 models to 100 dB — and on the other side there is no such advantage at all.

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.

Both pages in full

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: Arturia MiniFuse 2 and PreSonus Studio 24c. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.

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