Fosi Audio V3 Mono Amplifier Review

[Sokel]

If I was doing an actual blind ABX test and hear a difference I would rush to measure it and see what's wrong with one of them.
Is that simple.

 

[Talisman]

Don't be silly, people here don't actually listen to their equipment, they just measure it

Here we have another phenomenon, convinced that we just measure and that music disgusts us.

 

[antcollinet]

Don't be silly, people here don't actually listen to their equipment, they just measure it

You are correct, we dont listen to the equipment. We listen to the music, after we have measured the gear (and the room) to be sure it won't mess up the music.

I'm not remotely interested in what the gear sounds like except that I don't want it to have a sound. It is the music that is important : I want to hear that unadulterated.

 

[rvsixer]

...We listen to the music, after we have measured the gear (and the room) to be sure it won't mess up the music.... It is the music that is important : I want to hear that unadulterated.

Getting OT, but in all my acoustic study/observations/measurements of several rooms over the last 20 years, this is just plain not possible.

Live music out in the great wide open outdoors is the only way to achieve unadulterated. Anything else passes through lots of equipment, lots of other human ears (that don't hear the same as our own ears do) and other human biases/mix decisions, etc. And then there is "the" absolutely biggest factor that is the room (of which each and every one imparts its own unique distortion signature to whatever version of "unadulterated" output finally comes out of the speakers).

Thankfully psychoacoustics, evolution, and proper setup make a passing and enjoyable resemblance of it all possible in a room, and among a wide range of ears.

 

[Talisman]

Getting OT, but in all my acoustic study/observations/measurements of several rooms over the last 20 years, this is just plain not possible.

Live music out in the great wide open outdoors is the only way to achieve unadulterated. Anything else passes through lots of equipment, lots of other human ears (that don't hear the same as our own ears do) and other human biases/mix decisions, etc. And then there is "the" absolutely biggest factor that is the room (of which each and every one imparts its own unique distortion signature to whatever version of "unadulterated" output finally comes out of the speakers).

Thankfully psychoacoustics, evolution, and proper setup make a passing and enjoyable resemblance of it all possible in a room, and among a wide range of ears.

Our reference is not and cannot be live music, the starting point of any discussion on reproduction quality is the recording, everything that comes before the recording is not in our power to manage

 

[Down South]

You are correct, we dont listen to the equipment. We listen to the music, after we have measured the gear (and the room) to be sure it won't mess up the music.

I'm not remotely interested in what the gear sounds like except that I don't want it to have a sound. It is the music that is important : I want to hear that unadulterated.

Your boat doesn't float, your post is irrational. You've pre-programmed what you are going to hear. First put a piece of music on - it doesn't matter what medium you are using to listen to music. Put the music on, stop thinking, which is projection, listen to the music, that is - input only. Then measure the equipment you are using. What material is the listening room constructed of - no one ever mentions this very important fact. The odds are it is a very reflective environment or very absorbent sucking the life out of the music. It is perfectly possible to build a music room that is neither reflective or absorbent.

Sadly a lot of people only 'think about what they are hearing' so, in reality they are only hearing a reflection of what they are thinking which is not 'listening' at all. Then they make 'pronouncements' which have no value at all. Talisman has nailed this very well.

There are very few pieces of music that have 'for me' come close to a live performance. One such was an LP which I heard performed live in 1978 by a reggae band called Third World, the engineer that night was a zen master, it was incredible and that was not only my opinion but lots of others as well. The LP was very, very close.

I have to repeat here my post from years ago on Headfi. Someone posted that 'he didn't trust his ears, he only trusted the measuring equipment'. So I asked the question ' who was it who actually listened to the music, him or his measuring equipment' - he never came back with answer.

 

[Kayshot]

I recently routed my AVR via pre-outs to an external 2-channel amp for my L/R channels.

The max volume of my external amp is 60, however I set it to 55 because otherwise the sweeps that Audyssey used were just way too loud (I was worried for the speakers).

I'm pretty scared that the sweeps will be way too loud when I eventually get my hands on my V3 mono amps. Is this something I should be concerned about?

If it is, I assume I'd need something with volume control placed between the pre-outs on my AVR, and the inputs of my mono amps.

 

[Sokel]

I recently routed my AVR via pre-outs to an external 2-channel amp for my L/R channels.

The max volume of my external amp is 60, however I set it to 55 because otherwise the sweeps that Audyssey used were just way too loud (I was worried for the speakers).

I'm pretty scared that the sweeps will be way too loud when I eventually get my hands on my V3 mono amps. Is this something I should be concerned about?

If it is, I assume I'd need something with volume control placed between the pre-outs on my AVR, and the inputs of my mono amps.

Why is that?
What's the gain of the amps you are now using?

 

[Kayshot]

Why is that?
What's the gain of the amps you are now using?

Why is what?

-The gain of the AVR is controlled by Audyssey during the room calibration process.

-The gain on my external amp was set to 55, with the max being 60 (I assume 60 is 0dB)

-Since the mono V3 has no gain controls, I assume it will be at 0dB (which was way too loud during my last room calibration, hence why I turned my external amp down a bit)

 

[Zek]

-The gain on my external amp was set to 55, with the max being 60 (I assume 60 is 0dB)

-Since the mono V3 has no gain controls

You obviously confused the gain control with the volume control.
You set the volume control on your external amplifier to a certain position.
The gain of the amplifier always remains the same and is determined by the construction of the amplifier itself.
Very rarely there is an option to select gain on amplifiers (most often it is a Lo/Hi gain switch).

 

[Sokel]

Why is what?

-The gain of the AVR is controlled by Audyssey during the room calibration process.

-The gain on my external amp was set to 55, with the max being 60 (I assume 60 is 0dB)

-Since the mono V3 has no gain controls, I assume it will be at 0dB (which was way too loud during my last room calibration, hence why I turned my external amp down a bit)

Why your worry.
If your current amps gain is the same or more than the Fosi's,level will be the same.
If it's less,Fosi has a selectable gain of 25 or 31dB on the back for RCA input,just lower it.

(don't confuse level with gain,there's a good chance your current amp to sound louder than the fosi at the same level position if it's a traditional 28-29dB gain one and you use XLR's 20dB gain as the input)

Edit: Proper gain.

 

[DavidM1]

I have to repeat here my post from years ago on Headfi. Someone posted that 'he didn't trust his ears, he only trusted the measuring equipment'. So I asked the question ' who was it who actually listened to the music, him or his measuring equipment' - he never came back with answer.

Yes, obviously the most we can hope to hear is the signal as it last left the hands of the final mastering engineer and, whether that is through IEMs or speakers, it won’t be exactly the same experience as sitting in that studio.

However, it can be close and it is objectively better for there to be minimal distortion and noise when replaying the signal.

I’m a classical musician and I hear a lot of concerts. I’ve yet to hear a recorded sound that I would confuse with live listening but I do hear performances picked up by microphones that allow me to suspend disbelief and feel that I might be in the room with the artist. Hence hifi.

 

[Megaken]

I recently routed my AVR via pre-outs to an external 2-channel amp for my L/R channels.

The max volume of my external amp is 60, however I set it to 55 because otherwise the sweeps that Audyssey used were just way too loud (I was worried for the speakers).

I'm pretty scared that the sweeps will be way too loud when I eventually get my hands on my V3 mono amps. Is this something I should be concerned about?

If it is, I assume I'd need something with volume control placed between the pre-outs on my AVR, and the inputs of my mono amps.

Why are you controlling the volume with the external amp?
You need to set it to max volume, and control the volume with the AVR. This is why the Fosi not having volume control is more of a feature than a bug.

 

[Kayshot]

@Zek @Sokel Thank you for your responses! I now understand the difference between gain and volume when it comes to amplifiers

@Megaken The AVR volume cannot be controlled while running room calibration. I started off with the external amp set to max, but the sweeps that Audyssey were outputting were SCARY loud. This forced me to lower the volume on the external amp a bit. What else could I have done?

 

[Megaken]

@Zek @Sokel Thank you for your responses! I now understand the difference between gain and volume when it comes to amplifiers

@Megaken The AVR volume cannot be controlled while running room calibration. I started off with the external amp set to max, but the sweeps that Audyssey were outputting were SCARY loud. This forced me to lower the volume on the external amp a bit. What else could I have done?

Weird. That makes me think something is wrong with the calibration equipment because audyssey is listening to itself while calibrating and would adjust the volume to whatever it needs it to be. I think. That's why it disables the AVR volume.

 

[Kayshot]

Weird. That makes me think something is wrong with the calibration equipment because audyssey is listening to itself while calibrating and would adjust the volume to whatever it needs it to be. I think. That's why it disables the AVR volume.

It does adjust accordingly after it runs the sweeps, but while the sweeps are initially running it doesn't adjust anything. It has to run those sweeps 8 times, so I didn't want to risk the mega-loud sweeps damaging the speakers.

Granted, I'm a noob and could be wrong.

 

[antcollinet]

Our reference is not and cannot be live music, the starting point of any discussion on reproduction quality is the recording, everything that comes before the recording is not in our power to manage

Exactly

 

[antcollinet]

What material is the listening room constructed of - no one ever mentions this very important fact

Which is why I stated "(and the room)" when referring to measurements.

There are very few pieces of music that have 'for me' come close to a live performance.

Our reference is not and cannot be live music, the starting point of any discussion on reproduction quality is the recording, everything that comes before the recording is not in our power to manage

So:

Your boat doesn't float,

Absolutely it floats. All I require from electronics is inaudible noise and distortion, and flat frequency response. For amps, also sufficient power and low output impedance.. What goes in is what comes out, no adulteration of the music, and all of that is easily measurable. After that we have speakers and room - optimisation of speaker placement and angle, measured and corrected as well as possible using DSP/EQ.

The adjustment for preference applies only in the choice of target curve in the equalisation. And that determining of preference, and subsequent adjustment of the target is the only point at which listening needs to come in.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

I'm not familiar with with the type of XLR connections on the back of the unit. Is it a special type?

 

[HoweSound]

I'm not familiar with with the type of XLR connections on the back of the unit. Is it a special type?

I had the same question several pages back and received the following helpful response:

Dumb question: I have two of these coming. The XLR connector port on the V3 looks different than the standard XLR connectors on my other equipment. Is this some kind of mini XLR? will I need a hybrid cable to plug these into my Freya S pre-amp?

Fosi uses a type of port that accepts BOTH, standard XLR as well as TRS balanced connectors. You’ll be fine with your standard XLR cables.

-Ed