This is a review and detailed measurements of the Klipsch Heritage DAC and headphone amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. The Heritage costs US $499.
The Heritage is part of their new speaker line, celebrating their X number of years in business. As such, it has quite a retro look:
I must say, from pictures I had seen the top and bottom seemed to be made out of plastic or that cheap fiberboard covered with the same that used to be sold by low-end audio companies back in 1970s. In person though, they look better because they are actually real hardwood with a matt finish.
The real jewel here are the controls. The flip switches are what I remember from wonderful electronic controls of audio gear in 1970s and 1980s. The flip with buttery feel that is hard to describe if you are too young to have had such gear. You want to sit there and just flip them up and down! Likewise, the volume control has an excellent, smooth feel to it. It even includes that nostalgic feature of being able to shut the unit off when you turn it all the way left with a nice detent. That said, I kept turning the thing off when I wanted to quickly turn the volume down to zero.
I am a big fan of information panel on DACs as that allows you to figure what you are sending to the DAC. Here, we have nice labels with a very bright LED that indicates the format. It is much better than colored LEDs some DACs use where you have to remember morse code to know what format is being played. I wish the LEDs were not white though. And orange glow may have been more fitting.
The selector switch attempts to replicate the feel of the rest of the controls but fails. It is just too loose to be like the controls we used to have on audio gear. It is not bad mind you, but it is there more in looks than feel for a retro product.
I am not a fan of the labeling for the gain switch. Instead of saying that, it has "HI-Z" and "LO-Z." At first I thought this just set the output impedance as "Z" in electronics means just that: impedance. Turns out this is just a gain switch.
The back panel is as you would expect:
Power is provided through an external 5 volt supply that clocks at 4 amps. So don't be tempted to use your phone charger.
Audio DAC Measurements
Since there are convenient RCA outputs, I started my testing by measuring the DAC performance alone. USB input was used and testing was done using "fixed" line out although variable seemed to provide the same with volume set to max:
Output falls a bit short of nominal 2 volts I like to see. I was relieved to see good SINAD (signal over noise and distortion), putting the Heritage solidly in our second tier of all DACs tested:
Dynamic range was excellent at full output:
Intermodulation distortion versus level showed engineering competence just as well:
Matching the Topping DX3 Pro is hard but Klipsch almost manages to get there. Its ESS ES9018 DAC chip shows some "ESS IMD Hump" in mid levels but it is very slight.
The low noise floor shows more spurious tones than would be visible otherwise:
Fortunately all below -130 dB so no audible concern at all.
Multitone shows more or less what we would predict from SINAD in the dashboard:
Linearity was exceptional showing good attention to detail in design:
Headphone Amplifier Audio Measurements
For these tests, I continued to use USB as input rather than analog in. That is how people use it anyway. Here is our signal to noise ratio both at full output and 50 millivolts:
We can see that the amp is a step down in performance relative to the DAC. 50 millivolt SNR really suffers so this is not a good amp for very sensitive IEMs:
Most important test for any headphone amp is power versus THD+N so here it is at 300 ohm:
Noise level is not a match for Topping DX3 Pro but power level almost mirrors it whis is to say is very good. I like to see 100 milliwatts of power and the Klipsch Heritage gets there in high gain.
33 ohm at the other extreme tests the ability of the amp to deliver current:
Noise and distortion suffer fair bit here but overall output level is quite healthy.
Since the Heritage has an XLR headphone out (so called "balanced") I tested that at 50 ohm and compared it to 1/4 inch ("unbalanced") output:
I was pleased to not only see almost double the output power, but also lower noise levels too compared to unbalanced.
Headphone Amp Listening Tests
Listening to my Sennheiser HD650 headphones in low gain was underwhelming. But switch to high gain and it comes to life with thundering bass, detail and dynamic range. And with power left for music that is produced at lower levels.
I then switched to DROP + MRSPEAKERS ETHER CX using its XLR connection and the same experience as above repeated in high gain. Performance was excellent with ear damaging levels possible.
I could not get the amp to distort with either headphone no matter how loud I listened.
Conclusions
Going into this review I was worried this was a "phoned in design" inside a case Klipsch had designed. That is not the case. A competent and properly engineered DAC and headphone amplifier power the Heritage. No, it is not state-of-the-art but nothing to worry about either.
Overall, given the combination of looks, feel, and audio performance, I am going to put Klipsch Heritage DAC and Headphone Amplifier on my recommended list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Whoever says money doesn't buy happiness was not at the post office yesterday paying nearly $105 to ship an AVR to its owner. So please consider donating using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The Heritage is part of their new speaker line, celebrating their X number of years in business. As such, it has quite a retro look:
I must say, from pictures I had seen the top and bottom seemed to be made out of plastic or that cheap fiberboard covered with the same that used to be sold by low-end audio companies back in 1970s. In person though, they look better because they are actually real hardwood with a matt finish.
The real jewel here are the controls. The flip switches are what I remember from wonderful electronic controls of audio gear in 1970s and 1980s. The flip with buttery feel that is hard to describe if you are too young to have had such gear. You want to sit there and just flip them up and down! Likewise, the volume control has an excellent, smooth feel to it. It even includes that nostalgic feature of being able to shut the unit off when you turn it all the way left with a nice detent. That said, I kept turning the thing off when I wanted to quickly turn the volume down to zero.
I am a big fan of information panel on DACs as that allows you to figure what you are sending to the DAC. Here, we have nice labels with a very bright LED that indicates the format. It is much better than colored LEDs some DACs use where you have to remember morse code to know what format is being played. I wish the LEDs were not white though. And orange glow may have been more fitting.
The selector switch attempts to replicate the feel of the rest of the controls but fails. It is just too loose to be like the controls we used to have on audio gear. It is not bad mind you, but it is there more in looks than feel for a retro product.
I am not a fan of the labeling for the gain switch. Instead of saying that, it has "HI-Z" and "LO-Z." At first I thought this just set the output impedance as "Z" in electronics means just that: impedance. Turns out this is just a gain switch.
The back panel is as you would expect:
Audio DAC Measurements
Since there are convenient RCA outputs, I started my testing by measuring the DAC performance alone. USB input was used and testing was done using "fixed" line out although variable seemed to provide the same with volume set to max:
Output falls a bit short of nominal 2 volts I like to see. I was relieved to see good SINAD (signal over noise and distortion), putting the Heritage solidly in our second tier of all DACs tested:
Dynamic range was excellent at full output:
Intermodulation distortion versus level showed engineering competence just as well:
Matching the Topping DX3 Pro is hard but Klipsch almost manages to get there. Its ESS ES9018 DAC chip shows some "ESS IMD Hump" in mid levels but it is very slight.
The low noise floor shows more spurious tones than would be visible otherwise:
Fortunately all below -130 dB so no audible concern at all.
Multitone shows more or less what we would predict from SINAD in the dashboard:
Linearity was exceptional showing good attention to detail in design:
Headphone Amplifier Audio Measurements
For these tests, I continued to use USB as input rather than analog in. That is how people use it anyway. Here is our signal to noise ratio both at full output and 50 millivolts:
We can see that the amp is a step down in performance relative to the DAC. 50 millivolt SNR really suffers so this is not a good amp for very sensitive IEMs:
Most important test for any headphone amp is power versus THD+N so here it is at 300 ohm:
Noise level is not a match for Topping DX3 Pro but power level almost mirrors it whis is to say is very good. I like to see 100 milliwatts of power and the Klipsch Heritage gets there in high gain.
33 ohm at the other extreme tests the ability of the amp to deliver current:
Noise and distortion suffer fair bit here but overall output level is quite healthy.
Since the Heritage has an XLR headphone out (so called "balanced") I tested that at 50 ohm and compared it to 1/4 inch ("unbalanced") output:
I was pleased to not only see almost double the output power, but also lower noise levels too compared to unbalanced.
Headphone Amp Listening Tests
Listening to my Sennheiser HD650 headphones in low gain was underwhelming. But switch to high gain and it comes to life with thundering bass, detail and dynamic range. And with power left for music that is produced at lower levels.
I then switched to DROP + MRSPEAKERS ETHER CX using its XLR connection and the same experience as above repeated in high gain. Performance was excellent with ear damaging levels possible.
I could not get the amp to distort with either headphone no matter how loud I listened.
Conclusions
Going into this review I was worried this was a "phoned in design" inside a case Klipsch had designed. That is not the case. A competent and properly engineered DAC and headphone amplifier power the Heritage. No, it is not state-of-the-art but nothing to worry about either.
Overall, given the combination of looks, feel, and audio performance, I am going to put Klipsch Heritage DAC and Headphone Amplifier on my recommended list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Whoever says money doesn't buy happiness was not at the post office yesterday paying nearly $105 to ship an AVR to its owner. So please consider donating using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
