FiiO K17: power output and what it will drive

The FiiO K17 is a desktop DAC/amp at $990. It delivers 1.9 W into 32Ω and 240 mW into 300Ω, which ranks it 53 of 280 for raw power among the sources in this database.

Measured at 100 dB SPL it has comfortable headroom on 565 of the 567 dynamic and planar headphones catalogued here and enough but not generous on 2. Power is published at 16Ω, 32Ω, 300Ω; the rest of the table is derived from those figures.

The manufacturer publishes 1.8 W into 16Ω, 1.9 W into 32Ω, 240 mW into 300Ω. Everything else in the table above is worked out from those figures, and this table says which is which.

The balanced output is rated separately: 4.0 W into 32Ω through the 4.4mm / XLR4 jack.

Derivation holds output voltage steady between and beyond the published loads rather than output power, because that is what an amplifier actually does. The full method is written up here.

Source: fiio.com, fiio.com.

Ordered from easiest to hardest to drive. Headroom is measured at 100 dB SPL, which is louder than almost anyone listens — a small negative number means the source still plays loud, just without reserve for peaks.

These figures come from each manufacturer's own sensitivity rating. A handful of planars — the HiFiMAN Susvara and the Abyss AB-1266 in particular — are widely reported to need far more than their published sensitivity implies, so treat a bare pass on those as optimistic rather than settled.

At 5.0 µV of output noise, here is where that noise lands in the five most revealing in-ears in the database.

This one hisses. With the most sensitive in-ears in the database its own noise lands around 35 dB SPL, which you will hear between tracks and in quiet passages.

At 1Ω output impedance, the one-eighth rule says this source suits headphones of 8.0Ω and above. 15 of the 567 models here fall below that. Most of them are multi-driver in-ears, and the mismatch tilts the frequency response audibly rather than subtly.

The rule is a rule of thumb, not physics: a source impedance below one eighth of the headphone's keeps the interaction under about 1 dB. The checker works it out for any pair.

Of the 280 sources here, 18 do everything the FiiO K17 does as a headphone output: reach 100 dB on every headphone it reaches, stay inside the one-eighth rule wherever it does and stay under the audible-hiss threshold wherever it does. The cheapest of them is the Schiit Magni Unity at $119, against this one’s $990 — $871 less, and a desktop amplifier rather than a desktop DAC/amp.

This counts a headphone output and nothing else. Inputs, converters, microphone preamps, balanced outputs, the volume control, the case and the warranty are all outside it, and any of them can be the reason to buy the dearer box. What the count does say is that the three numbers a maker can be held to do not separate them.

Worked out in advance against its closest rivals: vs FiiO K11 · vs FiiO K11 R2R · vs FiiO K19 · vs FiiO K7 · vs FiiO K9 Pro · vs Matrix mini-i Pro 4. Each of those pages lists the headphones that tell the two apart.

Or put any two side by side in the source comparison tool, or run your own headphones through the amplifier matcher. Or see every FiiO source in the database, and how much of what this site says about them came from FiiO’s own documents.