This is a review and detailed measurements of Klipsch PowerGate Multifunction streaming power amplifier, DAC, Bluetooth and phono preamplifier. It normally costs USD $499 but for some reason it is on Amazon for USD $150 including Prime shipping! This puts the PowerGate in direct competition to SMSL AD18 and Topping MX3 The front panel of the PowerGate is plastic and not all that nice looking:The buttons and rotary control have good feel though. Strangely the LED bar showing the level only goes 2/3 of the way up on the left and not all the way around.There is a headphone jack which I will be testing in the review.The back panel shows a very feature rich set of options:For this testing I focused on USB and analog input. I did not test streaming functionality in the interest of time.AC power supply is built-in which is very nice.RCA input is shared between phono and regular input so not controllable with remote. There is however an AUX input with 3.5 mm which can be selected independently (I did not test this input).Speaker terminals are decidedly nicer than the bargain units in $150 price range. Overall, it is clear that the PowerGate is designed to be a $500 and not the clearance price of $150.I was pleased that I could use the PowerGate as a DAC by leaving the speaker jacks disconnected and the unit operating up to max volume. Others often shut down due to the amplifier going into protection mode. Sadly the performance of the DAC is quite poor:Output level of 1.8 volt is shy of 2 volts we like to see. The much bigger issue is high levels of distortion which cause the SINAD (signal over noise and distortion) to just 77 dB (averaged across both channels). This puts the PowerGate squarely in the fourth quadrant of all DACs tested:That is worse than all of our multifunction devices I have measured.Frequency response test shows that despite advertising playback of up to 192 kHz, the DAC filters its output to just 38 kHz:Very odd.For grins, I ran the linearity test:The "good" channel loses accuracy starting at -60 dB (10 bits). Being generous we can allow some error up to -75 dB which translates into just 12 bits of resolution.The red channel is even worse in the way it reverses direction in its error amount.Testing for proper RIAA equalization shows a very slight error in mid to high frequencies:The dashboard response is good:It puts the PowerGate ahead of a number of dedicates phono stages:Notice how the SINAD is better than the DAC performance!!!Signal to noise ratio is good too:Let's look how power versus distortion at 300 ohm:Not good for a desktop product. Output level is the same as Topping DX3 Pro in low gain. Good news is that it doesn't clip so you can use the full volume out of the unit.Clipping comes with 33 ohm load which emphasizes current delivery:This is not good with distortion setting in at just 5 milliwatts and getting worse progressively until large clipping.Output impedance is just "OK" at 12 ohm:This is much worse than Topping MX3 and SMSL AD18 which were around 1 ohm.As with the DAC, the headphone out seems to be a checklist item than one where attention was put for great performance.This is the key area for these multifunction devices as our other desktop products usually don't have power amplifiers. So let's see our dashboard at 5 watt:This is middle of the road performance losing to likes of Amazon Link Amp but bettering the Topping MX3 and SMSL AD18 by a good bit.Measuring full performance shows quite a bit of power available:At 112 watts, the PowerGate exceeds its specification by 20% which is nice. Even better, it does so at less distortion than stated. At this level, it matches the Amazon Link Amp with even distortion in each channel (unlike Link Amp which was worse in one channel).Above was with analog input. Switching to digital input we can compare available power against Topping MX3:On top of having less noise, the PowerGate pulls way ahead of the Topping MX3, delivering nearly four times more power. And this is end-to-end performance including its DAC.Signal to Noise ratio likewise is decent:Sorry, I have a cold so skipped this.There are two weak subsystems in Klipsch PowerGate: the DAC and headphone amplifiers. The phono preamplifier is very good however as is the power amp. As a $500 device, the PowerGate would have gotten a thumb down from me. But at $150, it is a great value that will far outperform other multifunction devices at this price range when driving speakers. So run, run fast and buy one from Amazon before the supply runs out!------------As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.They say you should be nice to your neighbors. So I thought I throw a big party with free food and drinks for the entire neighborhood. Problem is, I am short of cash so please donate generously using: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview ), or https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054 ).