"Which of these gives me the most power for the money" is one of the most common questions we get, and it is annoyingly hard to answer by eye. Every maker quotes watts per channel, the prices are all different, and some of these boxes are stereo while others are not.
So we did it properly, for one shelf of the shop: streaming integrated amplifiers under 1,000 dollars. Twenty-three of them in our database have both a published 8 ohm power figure and a price.
Streaming amp dollars per watt ranking
Quick facts
- FiiO's AIR AMP leads at 1.67 dollars a watt, well clear of everything else here.
- WiiM take three of the next four places, which is the reason they are hard to argue with at this price.
- The Sonos Amp gives the most total power in the group at 250 watts, and still comes 4th on value.
- We divide by TOTAL watts, not watts per channel. It changes the order.
- Cheap watts are not good watts. That caveat is the last section and it matters.
The ranking
The FiiO wins because it is priced like a WiiM Amp and makes half as much power again: 90 watts a channel against 60, for a dollar more. We wrote about it when it launched, and this is the number that was behind that piece.
FiiO AIR AMP streaming amplifier
WiiM are the reason this category is hard to shop. Three of the next four places are theirs, at three different prices, and they are all within touching distance of each other on this measure. The plain WiiM Amp at 299 dollars is the cheapest way into the group and still finishes second.
WiiM Amp second on value
Sonos is the one that surprised us. The Amp is the oldest and most expensive thing near the top of this table, and it still lands 4th. It also puts out more power than anything else here: 125 watts a channel, 250 in total. If you want the most watts rather than the cheapest watts, it is the one to look at.
Sonos Amp most power in the group
The measurement that changes the order
Every maker quotes watts per channel. If you divide price by that number you get a figure that quietly flatters monoblocks, because a mono amplifier gives you that power once and you need two of them.
We divide by total output instead, so a stereo amplifier gets credit for both channels. Inside Emotiva's own range it flips the result: the stereo BasX A2-Plus looks worse per channel than the A1 monoblock, and is better value once you count what actually comes out.
What this number does not mean
Here is the honest part, and it is why we ranked one shelf instead of the whole database.
Cheap watts are not good watts. Ranked across everything we hold, a 250 dollar Yamaha receiver beats every high-end amplifier ever made, which is true and tells you nothing. A Class A amplifier throws most of its power away as heat on purpose, to get the linearity, so it will always look terrible here. Comparing inside one type and one price band is the only version of this that is worth reading.
Three amplifiers in this price band are missing from the table: the Bose Music Amplifier, the Marantz M-CR612 and the Denon CEOL RCD-N12. All three publish a 4 ohm rating and no 8 ohm one. A 4 ohm figure is roughly double, so including them would have put them near the top on a technicality rather than on merit.
Does the FiiO's power advantage matter for your speakers, or would you still take the WiiM for the app?