This little thing really packs a punch! I recently got the venerable
Sennheiser HD 650 Open Back Professional Headphone
at a great price and decided to test out a bunch of portable headphone amps to go with it. I couldn't find a satisfactory comparison online between the Cayin C5,
FiiO A5 Portable Headphone Amplifier - Titanium
, and
Aune B1 Class A Portable Phone/Headphone Amplifier
, so I decided to buy all three and compare them myself.
The short version is that the C5 impressed me more than the A5 but less than the B1, so I'd rank them B1 > C5 > A5.
The long version is that as with anything, the best option for you depends on your use case and the sorts of compromises you're willing (and unwilling) to accept. The C5 is an immensely powerful amp, but in the end I found its power overkill for my headphones. With your source volume turned all the way up, the C5 will drive the HD650 to uncomfortable volume at about 3.5 on the volume dial at LOW GAIN. I paused a song, switched the C5 to high gain, and then made the terrible mistake of hitting "play" without lowering the volume first. My eyeballs nearly exploded from the sonic boom that went off in my ears. What this means is that if you have fairly sensitive headphones, you can't use very much of the volume dial because the difference between 3 and 3.5 is massive. This makes fine-tuning your listening volume essentially impossible, so I sent the C5 back. Even so, I can't in good conscience rate it less than 4 stars: it's a pretty amazing achievement that something so thin and light can pump out that kind of brain-rattling, borderline concussive power.
Less impressive is the design, which looks more like some kind of esoteric tobacco accessory than an audio product. The chintzy smoke-colored plastic cap that covers the volume dial and contains the input and output jacks is especially egregious and looks like something you're supposed to remove before use. It's not all bad, though—the aluminum enclosure is attractive and feels nice and cool in the hand, and the C5 has by far the best battery indicator of any of the amps I tested. The switches on the side require just the right amount of force to prevent accidental activation, and they're both useful functions (though I never felt the need to try the bass booster).
The Fiio A5 is the nearest competitor, and while it has a nicer design and much better overall build quality, there's something about the C5's rough-edged Chi-Fi aesthetic that charmed me. The Fiio, by contrast, is an attractive but anonymous metal slab with a volume knob. Functionally, I don't think there's much to separate them. Both deliver comparable power at low impedance, and both refuse to disclose power output above 32 ohms. That said, it seemed to me that the C5 got louder faster than the A5, but the A5 also has an unlabeled volume knob, so that might have been placebo. Despite the persistent subjectivist claims about the Cayin having a "punchier" sound, the sonic difference between the C5 and A5 is about the same as the flavor difference between vanilla and French vanilla ice cream: negligible. To my ears, neither the C5 nor A5 fundamentally change the sound coming out of your headphones—they just make it louder, which is important if your source doesn't get loud enough for you to hear the quietest parts of your music. Waxing lyrical about how either amp changes sound would be both gratuitous and delusional, so I'll refrain.
The Aune B1, however, is a completely different beast. Its sound is noticeably cleaner and more spacious than either the C5 or A5, but it tightens up the bass to a sometimes unwelcome extent. In other words, it changes the sound, and whether that's a good or bad thing will depend on your preferences. While it's impressive that Aune managed to make a portable class-A amplifier, it's arguably more of a proof of concept than a polished product. Battery life is truly awful, and it gets hot enough that you won't want it near you. Despite its technically better sound, it's harder to recommend than the C5 or A5.
Bottom line: if you have low-sensitivity (i.e. power-inefficient) headphones like the
Fostex T50RP MK3 Professional Studio Headphones, Semi-Open
, these will work some real magic because you'll finally have enough oomph to move the drivers properly. If you have efficient headphones, these will just make them loud—maybe too loud!
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This Item  Cayin C5 Portable HIFI Audio Headphone Amplifier |  |  |  |  | |
| Price | Currently unavailable. | -30% $129.00 List: $185.44 | $7.99 | $179.95 | $9.99 |
| Delivery | — | Get it as soon as Tuesday, Apr 30 | Get it as soon as Tuesday, Apr 30 | Get it Apr 29 - May 3 | — |
| Customer Ratings | |||||
| Sold By | — | Kellards | YellowDeal | Ordinary Utopia | Amazon.com |
| connectivity tech | Wired | Bluetooth | Wired | Wired | Wired |
| headphones form factor | In Ear | — | In Ear | In Ear | In Ear |
| connector type | — | 3,mm | 3.5mm aux| | 3.5mm Jack | — |
| headphones jack | — | XLR | 3.5 mm Jack | 3.5 mm Jack | — |
| cable feature | Retractable | Retractable | Tangle Free | Without Cable | Retractable |
| material | Aluminum | — | Metal | Copper | — |
| weight | 1.1 pounds | 1 pounds | 0.03 pounds | 0.66 pounds | — |
