This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Schiit KARA balanced preamplifier and headphone amp with stepped relay control. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $699.
Oh wait... that is the picture of our dog, Kara!
Here is the Schiit version:
As I have mentioned before, I am a fan of the elongated Schiit products. It gives them a slick look. Controls are logic controlled and there is a pause as you change gain. As noted, volume knob controls a set of relays for attenuation, producing matching channel response. The relays act very quickly which is good as far as keeping the muting low as you crank the knob. The mechanical sound though is of "bizzing" nature so not very pleasant if you are close to the unit. Labels use mnemonics that are hard to decipher at first but you learn them quickly.
Looking through the vents from above there are red LEDs situated in quadrants, giving you the feeling that there are tubes in there! Don't know if that was intentional or not but a neat touch for people wanting to see signs of life inside their audio gear. Here is the back side:
EDIT: Review updated with Active Gain Mode
Schiit KARA Pre-amp Active Mode
I test preamps by adjusting the volume control to get the same output as input voltage ("unity gain") with the lowest gain where that is possible. So let's start with XLR balanced input set to 4 volts in and out:
This is excellent performance with distortion at -120 dB. Adding a bit of noise and SINAD becomes 117 dB. Here is RCA connection using the same setup:
Strange that one channel has so more distortion (in relative manner) than the other. We have seen this in one other Schiit pre-amp where a second sample cured it.
The noise performance is excellent:
Frequency response is flat and extended:
Intermodulation distortion is basically limited by noise:
Wideband distortion+noise is quite good:
Schiit KARA Passive Pre-amp Measurements
This is the measurements for passive mode which basically conveys the analyzer performance sans impedance loading by the volume control.
FYI, I measured upwards of 27 volts output before the amp shut down in high gain mode! So you have plenty of headroom to drive any amplifier regardless of what gain it has.
Crosstalk is excellent:
Let's test the headphone output now.
Schiit KARA Headphone Amplifier Measurements
EDIT: "Low" gain here means passive. "Medium" means Active Low Gain.
Headphone performance is very good as far as our dashboard. It is only relative to pre-amp output that it shows some weakness:
I was surprised that the noise performance had degraded fair bit compared to pre-amp (right):
Frequency response is still good but again, a step down from pre-amp:
Distortion also sets in at 300 ohm:
But there is a lot of power available.
Distortion gets worse at 32 ohm:
But again, we have a lot of power.
Sweeping impedances, we see that the headphone amp really doesn't like low impedances/delivering current:
Schiit Kara Listening Tests
I tested the Kara's headphone amplifier starting with my Dan Clark Stealth headphone which is an inefficient low impedance headphone.. On bass heavy test tracks, distortion sets in very early, matching the measurements. Switching to Sennheiser HD650 300 ohm impedance, that issue was resolved and I was getting clean sound to skull resonating levels. Unless you listen quietly, the headphone amp is best suited to high impedance headphones.
Conclusions
In passive mode, the preamp naturally reflects the superb performance of the Audio Precision analyzer. Note that it will change the loading impedance so may impact performance of other devices connected to it. To avoid this, you want to use the active mode which still produces excellent performance.
I had high hopes that the same preamp would be driving the headphone output and in differential mode. Neither is the case. It seems a separate design is carrying that duty which can't keep up with the performance of the preamp, or frankly, Schiit's own headphone amplifiers when it comes to lower impedances.
On the basis of the performance of the pre-amp, I am going to give my recommendation to Schiit Kara.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Oh wait... that is the picture of our dog, Kara!
Here is the Schiit version:As I have mentioned before, I am a fan of the elongated Schiit products. It gives them a slick look. Controls are logic controlled and there is a pause as you change gain. As noted, volume knob controls a set of relays for attenuation, producing matching channel response. The relays act very quickly which is good as far as keeping the muting low as you crank the knob. The mechanical sound though is of "bizzing" nature so not very pleasant if you are close to the unit. Labels use mnemonics that are hard to decipher at first but you learn them quickly.
Looking through the vents from above there are red LEDs situated in quadrants, giving you the feeling that there are tubes in there! Don't know if that was intentional or not but a neat touch for people wanting to see signs of life inside their audio gear. Here is the back side:
EDIT: Review updated with Active Gain Mode
Schiit KARA Pre-amp Active Mode
I test preamps by adjusting the volume control to get the same output as input voltage ("unity gain") with the lowest gain where that is possible. So let's start with XLR balanced input set to 4 volts in and out:
This is excellent performance with distortion at -120 dB. Adding a bit of noise and SINAD becomes 117 dB. Here is RCA connection using the same setup:
Strange that one channel has so more distortion (in relative manner) than the other. We have seen this in one other Schiit pre-amp where a second sample cured it.
The noise performance is excellent:
Frequency response is flat and extended:
Intermodulation distortion is basically limited by noise:
Wideband distortion+noise is quite good:
Schiit KARA Passive Pre-amp Measurements
This is the measurements for passive mode which basically conveys the analyzer performance sans impedance loading by the volume control.
FYI, I measured upwards of 27 volts output before the amp shut down in high gain mode! So you have plenty of headroom to drive any amplifier regardless of what gain it has.
Crosstalk is excellent:
Let's test the headphone output now.
Schiit KARA Headphone Amplifier Measurements
EDIT: "Low" gain here means passive. "Medium" means Active Low Gain.
Headphone performance is very good as far as our dashboard. It is only relative to pre-amp output that it shows some weakness:
I was surprised that the noise performance had degraded fair bit compared to pre-amp (right):
Frequency response is still good but again, a step down from pre-amp:
Distortion also sets in at 300 ohm:
But there is a lot of power available.
Distortion gets worse at 32 ohm:
But again, we have a lot of power.
Sweeping impedances, we see that the headphone amp really doesn't like low impedances/delivering current:
Schiit Kara Listening Tests
I tested the Kara's headphone amplifier starting with my Dan Clark Stealth headphone which is an inefficient low impedance headphone.. On bass heavy test tracks, distortion sets in very early, matching the measurements. Switching to Sennheiser HD650 300 ohm impedance, that issue was resolved and I was getting clean sound to skull resonating levels. Unless you listen quietly, the headphone amp is best suited to high impedance headphones.
Conclusions
In passive mode, the preamp naturally reflects the superb performance of the Audio Precision analyzer. Note that it will change the loading impedance so may impact performance of other devices connected to it. To avoid this, you want to use the active mode which still produces excellent performance.
I had high hopes that the same preamp would be driving the headphone output and in differential mode. Neither is the case. It seems a separate design is carrying that duty which can't keep up with the performance of the preamp, or frankly, Schiit's own headphone amplifiers when it comes to lower impedances.
On the basis of the performance of the pre-amp, I am going to give my recommendation to Schiit Kara.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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