AONIC 5
headphones
$499
Used market: $390*
Specifications
3 of 6 values have a recorded sourceExpert Audio Engineering Commentary
Tonal Profile
Triple balanced armature, successor to the SE535. 119 dB SPL/mW at 36 Ω works out to about 133 dB/V — one of the most efficient loads any manufacturer publishes.
Amplification Warning
Two volts of output — an ordinary line-level DAC — would put roughly 139 dB SPL in the ear. You will be listening at a few tens of millivolts, which is where an amplifier's own hiss lives. Three armatures on a passive crossover also mean the impedance curve is uneven: keep source output impedance under about 4 Ω or the tonal balance moves.
What the datasheet actually says
Quoted verbatim from the manufacturer’s own page, with the date we checked it. We state what is printed, not what anyone intended by it.
«Sensitivity at 1 kHz — 119 dB SPL/MW»
«MW» is megawatt in SI notation; the intended unit is «mW», milliwatt. The same upper-case form appears in the Aonic 3 and Aonic 4 guides, while the SE215 and SE846 guides on the same server use the correct lower case. We record milliwatts.
checked 8/5/2026* Estimated with the depreciation fallback (~78% retained value). · checked on 8/5/2026