41T vs Defiant: which needs more amplifier?

The Juzear 41T is 48Ω at 112.0 dB/mW; the Juzear Defiant is 32Ω at 109.0 dB (no reference unit printed). This page is only about what they ask of an amplifier — not how they sound, which no specification on either sheet can tell you.

The Defiant needs 3.0 dB more than the 41T to reach the same loudness — 0.13 mW against 0.06 mW.

The numbers that decide it

Specification41TDefiant
Impedance48 Ω32 Ω
Sensitivity112.0 dB/mW109.0 dB
Sensitivity (voltage)125.2 dB/V123.9 dB/V
Power for 100 dB0.06 mW0.13 mW
Voltage for 100 dB55 mV63 mV
Current for 100 dB1.1 mA2.0 mA
Highest source impedance
that leaves them alone (one-eighth rule)
6.00 Ω4.00 Ω
Sources that reach 100 dB
out of 280
280280

One caution before reading the rows. Juzear Defiant printed a decibel figure with no reference unit, so this page reads it as per milliwatt. If it is really per volt, that model needs far more than the table says. Why the two readings differ by so much.

Where the two part company

Every source in the database that drives one of them drives the other. On power, the choice between these two changes nothing about what amplifier you need.

1 source is low enough in output impedance for the 41T under the one-eighth rule but not for the Defiant (Shanling H5).

5 sources stay below the audible-hiss threshold with the Defiant but cross it with the 41T (Lake People G103-S Mk II, Schiit Valhalla 3, RME Babyface Pro FS, 2 more).

280 of the 280 sources here reach 100 dB on both. That count is about power only — the output-impedance and hiss lines above are separate questions, and a source can pass this one and fail those.

What each one needs from 80 to 105 dB

The gap between these two in decibels does not change with volume — it is a property of the two headphones. What changes is the size of the numbers, and it changes fast: every 10 dB costs ten times the power. The row that matters is the one nearest the level you listen at, and for most people that is nearer the top of this table than the bottom.

The Defiant is more demanding than 19% of the 567 non-electrostatic models in this database; the 41T than 13%. Both figures use the same measure as the rest of the site: whichever runs out first against a 2 V, 100 mW dongle, voltage or power.

dB SPL41T power41T voltageDefiant powerDefiant voltage
800.6 µW6 mV1.3 µW6 mV
852.0 µW10 mV4.0 µW11 mV
906.3 µW17 mV0.01 mW20 mV
950.02 mW31 mV0.04 mW36 mV
1000.06 mW55 mV0.13 mW63 mV
1050.20 mW98 mV0.40 mW0.11 V

105 dB is included because forum power figures are usually quoted there or higher. It is also a level that damages hearing in minutes — how many minutes is its own calculator.

The cheapest source that satisfies both

SourcePriceHeadroom, 41THeadroom, DefiantOutput impedanceNoise
JadeAudio JA11$2025.0 dB23.8 dB0.5 Ω1.7 µV
FiiO KA11$2933.3 dB32.0 dB0.7 Ω1.7 µV
FiiO BTR13$5930.2 dB29.0 dB0.6 Ω1.0 µV

Of the 280 sources here, 280 reach 100 dB on both. That is the easy axis. 62 of them also publish an output impedance low enough for both under the one-eighth rule and a noise figure that stays below the audible-hiss threshold with both — the rest either fail one of those or never printed the number at all, and 208 of them are in the second group.

The cheapest of the 62 is the JadeAudio JA11, at $20. It leaves 25.0 dB of headroom on the 41T and 23.8 dB on the Defiant, its output impedance is 0.5 Ω against a one-eighth limit of 6.00 Ω and 4.00 Ω, and its noise figure puts the hiss floor 10 dB and 11 dB below the 20 dB SPL this site treats as the point where a quiet room stops hiding it.

Cheapest that satisfies three published numbers is not the same as best, and none of it is about how either headphone sounds. To put either model against a source this page does not mention, or to change the target loudness, use the amplifier matcher.

What each sheet prints, and what it is worth

ModelAs printedToleranceStandard
41Tnothing printed——
Defiant20Hz~20kHznot printednot printed

Juzear prints nothing at all for the 41T and 20Hz~20kHz for the Defiant.

So one side of this comparison has a frequency-response number and the other does not — which changes less than it looks. The range printed for the Defiant comes with no tolerance beside it, and a range without a ±dB figure says nothing about how loud the headphone is at either end of it: thirty decibels down at the bottom and the sentence would still be true. On the only reading that would have made it a specification, the two sheets say the same amount: nothing.

None of this is a measurement. What each maker publishes, and what it is worth, is set out in the frequency response audit.

Both pages in full

Each model has a page of its own with the full source list, the hiss estimate and the provenance of every figure above: Juzear 41T and Juzear Defiant. Each figure on this page is labelled on those pages with where it came from, including the ones Juzear never published — what that maker publishes, counted.

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