Schiit Audio Kara Preamplifier & Headphone Amplifier

Tubes, schmubes. Who needs tubes when you have an insane, fully discrete, solid state preamp running on 64V rails—something so over the top that the likes of this haven’t been seen for 30 years. Welcome to Kara, the all-new do-all Nexus™ preamp from Schiit Audio. Nexus™, Elevated. Literally. Yes, literally. Our exclusive differential Nexus stage usually runs on /-17V or so. Great stuff. But Kara’s /-32V rails are insanely over the top, giving it the capability of swinging near 100V on the differential output, and contributing to the best-performing, best-measuring preamp we’ve ever made—near -120dB THD N from balanced. Smart Headphone Capability, Standard. A headphone jack? On a Schiit preamp? Yes. Because you shouldn’t have to buy a dedicated headphone amp if you only use headphones occasionally. But that also doesn’t mean a cheapie op-amp headphone amp; it means the same discrete gain stage used for Kara’s outputs, coupled with a smart protection system that guards against headphone mishaps. Still the Best Volume Control Kara, like Freya , includes a 128-step relay-switched attenuator, rather than a traditional potentiometer. This means essentially perfect channel matching and near-unmeasurable distortion. You also have the opportunity to run the relay potentiometer purely as a passive attenuator, with no gain stage at all in the path. It’s your choice. Standard Remote Control Did we forget something? Not at all. Kara comes with a standard remote control that gives you the convenience you want for all of its functionality. What’s more, the volume control syncs with the remote, so there’s no confusion as to what volume you’re at, and no endlessly spinning encoders. Designed and Built in California By “designed and built in California" this is what we mean: the vast majority of the total production cost of Kara—chassis, boards, transformers, assembly, —goes to US companies manufacturing in the US. Our chassis are made minutes from our facility. Kara PCBs are done just over the hill from us.