Schiit Valhalla 3: power output and what it will drive

The Schiit Valhalla 3 is a desktop amplifier at $499. It delivers 750 mW into 32Ω and 250 mW into 300Ω, which ranks it 92 of 280 for raw power among the sources in this database.

Measured at 100 dB SPL it has comfortable headroom on 557 of the 567 dynamic and planar headphones catalogued here, enough but not generous on 8, only marginal on 1 and not enough power for 1. Power is published at 32Ω, 300Ω; the rest of the table is derived from those figures. Output noise is not published, so the hiss estimate cannot be run.

The manufacturer publishes 750 mW into 32Ω, 250 mW into 300Ω. Everything else in the table above is worked out from those figures, and this table says which is which.

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.

The noise figure above is converted, not read. Schiit does not print microvolts for this one. It prints a signal-to-noise ratio together with the voltage that ratio is referenced to, in the same block of the same table: “Low Gain: Greater than 110dB, referenced to 2V RMS, A weighted”. From those two numbers the noise follows by one division — 2.0 V ÷ 10^(110/20) — which is where the 6.32 µV comes from, at the low gain setting, A weighted. The ratio is printed as a bound rather than a measurement, so the figure is a ceiling: the noise is at most that, and may be lower. This is the same situation as a sensitivity printed per volt instead of per milliwatt: published, but in a convention nobody converts.

Source: schiit.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 6.32 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 37 dB SPL, which you will hear between tracks and in quiet passages.

At 25Ω output impedance, the one-eighth rule says this source suits headphones of 200.0Ω and above. 535 of the 567 models here fall below that. That is most of the database, not a niche — 222 of them 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 Schiit Valhalla 3 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 FiiO KA11 at $29, against this one’s $499 — $470 less, and a USB dongle rather than a desktop amplifier.

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 Grace Design m900 · vs Lake People G103-S Mk II · vs Lake People G111 Mk II · vs Little Dot MK III SE · vs Rupert Neve RNHP · vs Schiit Asgard 3 · vs Schiit Jotunheim 2 · vs Schiit Lyr 5 · vs Schiit Lyr+ · vs Schiit Magni Heresy · vs Schiit Magni Piety · vs Schiit Magni Unity · vs Schiit Magni+ · vs Schiit Midgard · vs Schiit Mjolnir 3 · vs Schiit Ragnarok 2 · vs Schiit Valhalla 2 · vs Schiit Vali 2+ · vs Schiit Vali 3 · vs Singxer SA-1 · vs SMSL H200 · vs SMSL H400 MK2 · vs SMSL HO200 · vs SMSL SH-X · vs SMSL SP400 · vs Soncoz SGA1 · vs Topping A90 · vs Topping A90 Discrete · vs xDuoo TA-30. 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 Schiit source in the database, and how much of what this site says about them came from Schiit’s own documents.