PreSonus HP4 vs xDuoo MT-604

Both are desktop amplifiers, $150 against $169. 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 xDuoo MT-604 reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 models here, the PreSonus HP4 on 558.

Every published figure, next to each other

SpecificationPreSonus HP4xDuoo MT-604
Power into 32Ω69 mW2.0 W
Power into 150Ω52 mW427 mW
Power into 300Ω26 mW213 mW
Power into 600Ω13 mW107 mW
Output impedancenot publishednot published
Output noisenot publishednot published
Price$150$169
Headphones it reaches 100 dB on
out of 567
558567

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

LoadPreSonus HP4xDuoo MT-604
32 ΩDerivedPublished
150 ΩDerivedDerived
300 ΩDerivedDerived
600 ΩDerivedDerived

Only one of these two columns starts from a power rating. xDuoo MT-604 publishes one at 32 Ω; PreSonus HP4 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 PreSonus HP4 understates rather than flatters — but at 32 Ω is the only load 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.

The headphones that tell them apart

9 headphones reach 100 dB on the xDuoo MT-604 but not on the PreSonus HP4 — Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA, Moondrop PARA 2, 6 more.

558 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 HiFiMAN HE400se: xDuoo MT-604 has +23 dB of headroom there against +8 dB. 15 dB is about 29 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

The hiss columns are empty for PreSonus HP4 and xDuoo MT-604 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.

HeadphoneImpedanceNeedsPreSonus HP4 headroomxDuoo MT-604 headroomPreSonus HP4 hissxDuoo MT-604 hiss
Shure SE8469 Ω0.04 mW+27 dB+42 dBnot publishednot published
Campfire Audio Andromeda 20209 Ω4.0 mW+7 dB+22 dBnot publishednot published
Audeze LCD-2 Classic70 Ω0.79 mW+21 dB+31 dBnot publishednot published
Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω)250 Ω0.63 mW+17 dB+26 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN HE400se25 Ω7.9 mW+8 dB+23 dBnot publishednot published
Audio-Technica ATH-R70X470 Ω1.6 mW+10 dB+19 dBnot publishednot published
Sennheiser HD 600300 Ω6.6 mW+6 dB+15 dBnot publishednot published
HiFiMAN Susvara60 Ω50 mW+4 dB+13 dBnot publishednot published

The gap in dollars, against the gap in numbers

The xDuoo MT-604 costs $19 more than the PreSonus HP4. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 9 more models driven to 100 dB.

Nothing runs the other way: there is no axis here on which the cheaper of the two does better.

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: PreSonus HP4 and xDuoo MT-604. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.

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