Schiit Kara - Impressions Thread

[Bowmoreman]

More of a natural sound. Musician is in the room. When piano keys and guitar strings sound realistic. When going to the high-end audio shows with a group of friends, it does not take long to separate the sound rooms from the music rooms. Anything overly-precise, or oversampled, we are headed for the EXIT door.

For example, I was in the Non-Oversampling NOS filter mode camp when evaluating a Schiit Bifrost 2/64 dac. Nice for the $. On this forum, the other camp preferred the Mega Combo Burrito (MCB) filter mode. MCB filter mode had extra detail, more bass boom, less natural sounding, a little over-processed sounding to me for my system, speakers, and room. And yet could be the best for someone else's system, with less efficient speakers, or a dead sounding room.
As I recall, there was me and only one other guy on this forum in a thread who liked NOS mode more. All of the rest preferred MCB filter mode. Interesting.

Visited with my local area audio dealer this weekend. He's been in business since 1967, close to 57 years in operation. You go into this place, open 2-3 days a week, and what you see is people sitting and listening to music, up to 4-5 hours at a time. Truly natural sounding. Clearly a formula for success after 57 years.

So if you REALLY want “musicians in the room” you need far more than just a great pre-amp. May I (as someone like you from the “golden era”) suggest that you think first/foremost about speakers, and then work back?

For the true “absolute sound” (live, acoustic music in real-space, with real timbre, staging, etc.) I’m “team planar”, and in particular “team ribbons”. I’m harkening back to my earlier days, with SP3A/SP6 (toobs, natch) drove my SS amps and (first, BA400’s and then Vandersteen IIc’s, and then the sheer next-level ness when I moved to the Apogees (which I auditioned fully over many months in my home with ARC Tubes pre/power, CJ Tube pre/power, as well as Threshold, Krell, and Classe’ (SS). First, selected the speakers, then the best amp for them, then the best preamp for the combo… the exact opposite of the Linnie “start at the source” (which I had followed and still believe has merit; remember back then digital DID sound like azzz, and only the Linnie philosophy could help in chasing down the solutions to that problem space… but now? Most digital front ends (of quality build, not ChiFi spec-clones) are of sufficient quality to find/implement the best speakers for the sound one wants…

Radical conclusion? You don’t NEED tubes to get real-sounding, acoustic music. I *love* their “color” sometimes, but prefer accuracy, as measured by known awesome music and as heard by my ears.

Kara rocks on the quality of what it is FED, in my experience to-date. The plangency of Mile’s trumpet on Kind of Blue, the sheer reality of things like Chet Atkins’ guitar, or Art Pepper, or MJQ (or frankly pick ANY quality jazz from 50’s to 70’s)…

All, natch, IMO, YMMV.

 

[decooney]

@Bowmoreman Thanks, and have the box checked well enough with speakers for what Im doing. Having grown up designing and building speakers past 45 years. Built my last set I'll ever do for me with MTM AMTs with air motion transformers, and helped a few buddies on the efficiency side with their last sets, large Altec Onken horn replicas. All done with that stuff too. I use to build speakers professionally years back, and still did it for a hobby for a while. I was simply nudging to see if any folks would share a lot more about Schiit Kara. Thanks though.

 

[leafy7382]

Tyrs are VERY CAPABLE monoblocks. I did some back-and-forth between Freya-S (about 4 yrs old) and Kara (new) and I felt that Freya is holding back the Tyrs and Kara was more like "just go with whatever you can". As for tone/music etc, I played acoustic instrument for >10years as an amateur and when I built my system, I ended up preferring the LIM over Yggdrasil 1/GS because it sounds a lot closer to the real thing.

One day I was playing Lalaland OST track 12 where Emma Stone started the track with a monologue about her aunt and I turned the volume up a bit. My wife was cooking in the kitchen (mid sized apartment) and she raced out and asked me "Who is that woman speaking in the living room? Do we have a visitor?"

It's as close as it gets for me and it's a bliss.

 

[Adam Balm]

Tyrs are VERY CAPABLE monoblocks. I did some back-and-forth between Freya-S (about 4 yrs old) and Kara (new) and I felt that Freya is holding back the Tyrs and Kara was more like "just go with whatever you can". As for tone/music etc, I played acoustic instrument for >10years as an amateur and when I built my system, I ended up preferring the LIM over Yggdrasil 1/GS because it sounds a lot closer to the real thing.

One day I was playing Lalaland OST track 12 where Emma Stone started the track with a monologue about her aunt and I turned the volume up a bit. My wife was cooking in the kitchen (mid sized apartment) and she raced out and asked me "Who is that woman speaking in the living room? Do we have a visitor?"

It's as close as it gets for me and it's a bliss.

Well put. That's one reason why I up-graded from a Freya S to a Kara.

 

[adias]

I had used passive preamps with very satisfactory results for many years. I was running power amps that had an input impedance over 50k, most of these amps were tubed.

I find that with amps that have a lower Zin, like Vidar at 20k Ohms, I prefer the added grunt that a buffered output provides. Especially with vinyl sources.

Tyr, with a Zin of 47k, should be a fine candidate for passive, but I think that passive preamps work especially well with tubed amps.

If one connects Kara to Tyr via XLR, passive may not work so well. There’s actually a gain difference between passive and x1 due to the balanced topology.

I go back and forth between x1 and x4. x1 may indeed be the most neutral and realistic for playback of orchestral ensembles.

 

[decooney]

To @Bowmoreman one last recap note for us both, I guess my original question, design thoughts, and inquiry about Kara was not so lame and stupid after all. LOL

Well, as it turns out, sometimes designs of the past DO repeat or resurface. As you may recall I/we got teased (razzed) here on head-fi regarding my comments about wanting a preamp that sounded more like it was designed from the "golden era", i.e from the past 80s/90s.
Where do we think the higher voltage rails concept came from. The golden era. i.e. go back and copy what was good back then. A different definition of neutral sound too. Something us old-schoolers can share with the new era of audiophiles perhaps. They seem to believe what he writes vs old timer thoughts from folks like us, here ya go, so There! Just this morning I retraced all the original threads, and found this from Jason himself:

Quote, here, Jason writes: "in many ways, Kara is a return to the great solid-state preamps of the past....Let’s take a look back at preamps past. "The Golden Age of Solid State"... and the starts right off referencing and measuring the golden era preamps for starters..."That’s a Sumo Athena from 1990".

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...bable-start-up.701900/page-8254#post-17692451

 

[33na3rd]

If one connects Kara to Tyr via XLR, passive may not work so well. There’s actually a gain difference between passive and x1 due to the balanced topology.

I go back and forth between x1 and x4. x1 may indeed be the most neutral and realistic for playback of orchestral ensembles.

I think that Kara's 4x is vastly improved over that of Freya S, but Kara's 1x is still sweeter than 4x. I wouldn't hesitate to use 4x if I needed the extra gain. I think that I might prefer 4x for headphone use, but I'm not really a headphone guy, so my opinion is suspect at best on that matter.

 

[adias]

To @Bowmoreman one last recap note for us both, I guess my original question, design thoughts, and inquiry about Kara was not so lame and stupid after all. LOL

Well, as it turns out, sometimes designs of the past DO repeat or resurface. As you may recall I/we got teased (razzed) here on head-fi regarding my comments about wanting a preamp that sounded more like it was designed from the "golden era", i.e from the past 80s/90s.
Where do we think the higher voltage rails concept came from. The golden era. i.e. go back and copy what was good back then. A different definition of neutral sound too. Something us old-schoolers can share with the new era of audiophiles perhaps. They seem to believe what he writes vs old timer thoughts from folks like us, here ya go, so There! Just this morning I retraced all the original threads, and found this from Jason himself:

Quote, here, Jason writes: "in many ways, Kara is a return to the great solid-state preamps of the past....Let’s take a look back at preamps past. "The Golden Age of Solid State"... and the starts right off referencing and measuring the golden era preamps for starters..."That’s a Sumo Athena from 1990".

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...bable-start-up.701900/page-8254#post-17692451

The higher voltage rails is a known design element from day one when Kara was first announced. That design, if anything, aims at linearizing the gain stage and making the amplifier more neutral.

 

[Bowmoreman]

The higher voltage rails is a known design element from day one when Kara was first announced. That design, if anything, aims at linearizing the gain stage and making the amplifier more neutral.

Worked then.

Works now.

I like.

 

[decooney]

The higher voltage rails is a known design element from day one when Kara was first announced. That design, if anything, aims at linearizing the gain stage and making the amplifier more neutral.

"more neutral" as compared to what, is the question.

Just came across a group of familiar folks on another forum who run similar preamps as I do in my main speaker system setup. They characterize the new Schiit Kara as being "less neutral", "having more weight & body" compared to other preamps they've all used, -and- including tests of both versions of Freya SS & Tube. Looks like Schiit moved the needle on what their own new definition of neutral is.

The definition of what neutral is seems to vary by individual's preference, in their own A/B comparisons. Ones hearing, and room setup in an in-room speaker setup varies too. afaik the is no industry best practice reference standard of what neutral really is.

Definitely worth a try though, and direct comparison of Kara to ones other preamps in their own room, system, speakers and setup, fwtw.

 

[33na3rd]

"more neutral" as compared to what, is the question.

Just came across a group of familiar folks on another forum who run similar preamps as I do in my main speaker system setup. They characterize the new Schiit Kara as being "less neutral", "having more weight & body" compared to other preamps they've all used, -and- including tests of both versions of Freya SS & Tube. Looks like Schiit moved the needle on what their own new definition of neutral is.

The definition of what neutral is seems to vary by individual's preference, in their own A/B comparisons. Ones hearing, and room setup in an in-room speaker setup varies too. afaik the is no industry best practice reference standard of what neutral really is.

Definitely worth a try though, and direct comparison of Kara to ones other preamps in their own room, system, speakers and setup, fwtw.

You bring up a good point, Kara may indeed be less neutral than Freya S, but I enjoy Kara's presentation so much more.

Kara sounds more natural than neutral.

And while it might sound/appear like I'm joking, the longer I think about it, the truer this becomes for me.

 

[adias]

"more neutral" as compared to what, is the question.

Just came across a group of familiar folks on another forum who run similar preamps as I do in my main speaker system setup. They characterize the new Schiit Kara as being "less neutral", "having more weight & body" compared to other preamps they've all used, -and- including tests of both versions of Freya SS & Tube. Looks like Schiit moved the needle on what their own new definition of neutral is.

The definition of what neutral is seems to vary by individual's preference, in their own A/B comparisons. Ones hearing, and room setup in an in-room speaker setup varies too. afaik the is no industry best practice reference standard of what neutral really is.

Definitely worth a try though, and direct comparison of Kara to ones other preamps in their own room, system, speakers and setup, fwtw.

Neutral as in not adding color especially on 1x gain stage.

You asked for opinions of Kara owners. You seem to have yours and doubt/counter ours as you seem to know what you know and that’s fine.

 

[adias]

You bring up a good point, Kara may indeed be less neutral than Freya S, but I enjoy Kara's presentation so much more.

Kara sounds more natural than neutral.

And while it might sound/appear like I'm joking, the longer I think about it, the truer this becomes for me.

What’s ‘natural’ if not neutral as in not adding color?

For terminology calibration… triodes add color, significant color. Not neutral, not natural. At least not natural as in live sound in a concert hall.

 

[33na3rd]

What’s ‘natural’ if not neutral as in not adding color?

For terminology calibration… triodes add color, significant color. Not neutral, not natural. At least not natural as in live sound in a concert hall.

But all concert halls sound different from one another. Different seats in the same hall will sound different.

My neutral/natural will invariably be someone else's dark/bright.

I think that we both can agree that Kara is special.

 

[adias]

But all concert halls sound different from one another. Different seats in the same hall will sound different.

My neutral/natural will invariably be someone else's dark/bright.

Sure. But instrument timbre is readily recognized in live settings. So does the playback timbre sound real or colored?

In any case… this is a futile discussion. People should listen to whatever stuff they are considering. Others’ opinions are just that.

I have both Freya S and Kara. Freya S is neutral but a smidgen less dynamic in 1x gain. Quite full and more colored in 4x gain. Experience with large planar speakers as well as smaller horn speakers.