Cayin N3 Ultra vs FiiO M23

Both are portable players, $649 against $699. 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 FiiO M23 reaches 100 dB on 566 of the 567 models here, the Cayin N3 Ultra on 565.

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.

Both makers publish a power rating, which is less common than the table above makes it look: of the 280 sources here, 209 publish a figure at at least one load and only 2 publish one at all four. Cayin N3 Ultra publishes at 32 Ω; FiiO M23 at 32 Ω and at 300 Ω. Every other row is worked out from those — between two published loads, or beyond them holding voltage constant, which understates rather than flatters.

So the two columns are not equally firm row by row: at 300 Ω only the FiiO M23 figure is the maker’s own. On those rows the derived number is the one to doubt first.

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

1 headphone reaches 100 dB on the FiiO M23 but not on the Cayin N3 Ultra — Moondrop PARA.

14 headphones are left alone by the Cayin N3 Ultra under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the FiiO M23 (64 Audio Nio, 64 Audio Volur, Campfire Audio Andromeda 2023, 11 more).

565 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 HiFiMAN Susvara: Cayin N3 Ultra has +4 dB of headroom there against +1 dB. 3 dB is twice the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for Cayin N3 Ultra because that 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 FiiO M23 costs $50 more than the Cayin N3 Ultra. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 1 more model driven to 100 dB.

It does not run one way only: the cheaper Cayin N3 Ultra leaves 14 models alone under the one-eighth rule that the FiiO M23 does not, which is the part worth checking against your own headphones before paying the difference.

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: Cayin N3 Ultra and FiiO M23. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.