Full disclosure. I acquired the FOSI Box X4 directly from FOSI as a tester, no charge and am writing my review of it. It is being played through a Yaqin MC10T tube amp, which does not have a phono preamp. I am using a Numark TT-1910 turntable with a Audio-Technical AT-VM95C cartridge and listening through a vintage pair of Radio Shack Nova 7B 3-way speakers.
The packing on the product is excellent, shipped from China with no issues. It came with 2 GE 5654W tubes. They are a premium tube and actually cost about $15 each, so that’s $30 of the value right there. No much to figure out plugging it in, although nearly everyone seems to struggle getting the tubes installed, as the pin sockets are not particularly friendly. I’ve had a lot of experience with tubes and tube amps and what I’m seeing is that recent quality of newly manufactured tube sockets is pretty bad compared to days gone by. That said, the unit is well constructed overall and includes a nice grounding
I’m very happy with the performance of this little guy and find for the money it’s hard to beat. This model does include bass and treble and I’m quite happy with that as my amp does not have any equalization. There is also a volume, which I find needs to be turned about 3/4 the way up. I have not utilized the line in as I’m only interested utilizing the phono preamp feature, remaining fully analog. The unit does also connect to active speakers via the headphone out.
I was not impressed with the headphone amplification quality. The sound was thin to my ears. I’m using a pair of Audio Technica studio monitor closed ear headphones. I compared the sound with my digital receiver, a Panasonic SA-HE 200, a noticeable difference between the two, with the Panasonic sounding appreciably better. So I wouldn’t buy this unit for the headphone amplification.
Overall, a great product for what it is designed to do, phono preamplification for moving magnetic cartridges. I would not think twice about spending the $80 for this product.
The packing on the product is excellent, shipped from China with no issues. It came with 2 GE 5654W tubes. They are a premium tube and actually cost about $15 each, so that’s $30 of the value right there. No much to figure out plugging it in, although nearly everyone seems to struggle getting the tubes installed, as the pin sockets are not particularly friendly. I’ve had a lot of experience with tubes and tube amps and what I’m seeing is that recent quality of newly manufactured tube sockets is pretty bad compared to days gone by. That said, the unit is well constructed overall and includes a nice grounding
I’m very happy with the performance of this little guy and find for the money it’s hard to beat. This model does include bass and treble and I’m quite happy with that as my amp does not have any equalization. There is also a volume, which I find needs to be turned about 3/4 the way up. I have not utilized the line in as I’m only interested utilizing the phono preamp feature, remaining fully analog. The unit does also connect to active speakers via the headphone out.
I was not impressed with the headphone amplification quality. The sound was thin to my ears. I’m using a pair of Audio Technica studio monitor closed ear headphones. I compared the sound with my digital receiver, a Panasonic SA-HE 200, a noticeable difference between the two, with the Panasonic sounding appreciably better. So I wouldn’t buy this unit for the headphone amplification.
Overall, a great product for what it is designed to do, phono preamplification for moving magnetic cartridges. I would not think twice about spending the $80 for this product.
