Schiit Valhalla 3 vs Topping A90

Both are desktop amplifiers, $499 against $499. 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 Topping A90 reaches 100 dB on 567 of the 567 models here, the Schiit Valhalla 3 on 566.

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. Schiit Valhalla 3 publishes at 32 Ω and at 300 Ω; Topping A90 at 32 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 Schiit Valhalla 3 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 Topping A90 but not on the Schiit Valhalla 3 — Symphonium Titan.

535 headphones are left alone by the Topping A90 under the one-eighth rule but coloured by the Schiit Valhalla 3 (64 Audio Aspire 1, 64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 532 more).

102 headphones stay below the audible-hiss threshold on the Topping A90 but cross it on the Schiit Valhalla 3 (64 Audio Fourte, 64 Audio Nio, 64 Audio U12t, 99 more).

566 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 HE400se: Topping A90 has +23 dB of headroom there against +19 dB. 4 dB is about 2.7 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.

Hiss is this source’s own noise, in decibels SPL, in that headphone — not a rating. Below about 20 dB SPL it is under the threshold of hearing in a quiet room; a negative figure means it is far below it.

These two cost the same, $499, so price settles nothing. Out of the 567 models here, the Topping A90 drives one model to 100 dB, leaves 535 alone under the one-eighth rule and keeps 102 below the audible-hiss threshold — 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.

Each has a page of its own with every power figure traced to what the maker published and a full headphone list: Schiit Valhalla 3 and Topping A90. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.