Schiit KARA Preamp and Headphone Amp Review

[HoweSound]

Can you comment on performance and measurements of Kara compared to the Freya S?

 

[pablolie]

The preamp is great.

Kara eating a carrot completely steals the show, though.

PS: My cat likes sliced grape tomato.

 

[amirm]

I know Doodski published the specs and for quick reference as Balanced XLR preamp it has 3 modes: Passive, Low gain (buffered 0db) and High gain (12db).

Shoot. I thought that was low, mid and high gain. I will have to re-test in low gain then. .

Will close this thread and think about re-measuring.

 

[amirm]

Thread back open with new measurements in Active Low Gain mode. Told you those symbols were confusing! Performance of the preamp is still excellent. Feel free to change your vote if you think otherwise.

 

[SCG]

That was Fast!

Hopefully that RCA measure is out of spec and Schitt will comment, but still disconcerting again; and I wish they didn't use the hieroglyphics either.

 

[peniku8]

View attachment 313456

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 set it 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.

There is no THD vs frequency graph, but judging by the impedance graph, audible distortion at the impedance of the Stealth sets in at around 8-10Vrms, which would be like 116dB(?), at which point the headphones distort in the bass too and I'm pretty sure that's not "very early" for you, so it seems like the amp distorts unusually early at low frequencies. Do you happen to have a THD vs Frequency plot at a low example impedance at hand?

 

[restorer-john]

It's not easy to find a conventional(ish) preamp with killer performance like this. To me $699 is a fair price.

I agree. It's a bit of a bargain in this day and age to get all that performance, loads of inputs/outputs, a remote and made in the USA.

@amirm very extensive review.

 

[Hart]

BTW Schiit has an AI informational text on their website. It's scary good. It instantaneously answers questions and understands slang, nuance, everything. It even understands sense of humor. I asked it to hold off on Skynet and it answered: "Go ahead. Ask me something, I won't use it to take over the planet. (At least not yet)". I had no idea AI was this far along, there are going to be some huge changes in the next decade...

Try it: https://www.schiit.com/contact

 

[Hart]

A very nice little preamp for $700. 25 years ago they could gouge us 5x for something that doesn’t measure as well. Plus a nice Schiit guarantee. Thanks for measuring it.

I am still amazed that we had to depend on magazine reviews/stereo salespeople to some degree to buy stuff that was expensive and had a highly respected name and now finding out it was actually not much good at all. Companies like Schiit are exactly what we need.

 

[MacClintock]

So after all it is possible to built a cheapish pre-amp with no noise and distortion issues if you get rid of tubes...

 

[Steven Holt]

If Schiit would have only wired in a DAC and a Phono Preamp, it would be damned near perfect....and well, well worth the price.

 

[Kevinfc]

I’d like to see a volume remote control to use as a preamp.

 

[SCG]

it comes with a remote

 

[SoundsGood2Me]

Thank You Amirm! Always a learning experience!
I still think the Benchmark HPA4 takes best-of-show tho.
But this thing is half the price!!!
Good Times People....

 

[Dougey_Jones]

Does it have balance control in active mode? If so, is it controllable from the remote?

 

[audiotron]

Very cool performance.

 

[SCG]

No balance control but with the relays for attenuation, channels matching response should be excellent like the Freya S.

Amir are you going to also measure channel balance to confirm?

 

[amirm]

Amir are you going to also measure channel balance to confirm?

I could but they are always perfect.

 

[Billy Budapest]

That distortion imbalance between the channels for low gain RCA in/out is a bit disconcerting. I wonder what is amiss. Still voted “great.”

 

[Sal1950]

Oh wait... that is the picture of our dog, Kara

Samoyed I believe, beautiful dogs.
But that hair! Glad I don't have to keep your house clean. LOL