Fosi K7 Gaming DAC and HP Amp Review

[amirm]

This is a review and measurements of the Fosi K7 gaming DAC and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199.

I am very pleased to see the original and attractive design. While you can have it vertical as I posed for the photo, the face is slanted so you can see the display as you put it on its back. Love all the keys to change settings rather than going into menus. Kind of a console if you will. There are tone controls which I bypassed for testing. Otherwise, you can use the right rotary control to change that specific setting (bass, treble, etc.). Here is the connectivity:

Support for gaming is evident in ability to switch to USB Class 1 with the power switch. And microphone input on the other side.

In the interest of time, I have run a subset of my usual measurements.

FOSI Audio K7 Measurements
I measured the RCA Outputs and set the volume to 61 out of 62 to get nominal 2 volt output:

Full transparency is achieved with vanishingly low noise and distortion. This is excellent for a desktop DAC and for a gaming product, a miracle as those usually struggle to clear 100 dB mark.

Noise sets SINAD and we can see that clearly:

Here is IMD vs level:

Finally, wideband distortion+noise vs frequency:

I am assuming some ultrasonic noise is at play to push the lines up some.

The headphone out provides extremely clean, non-clipping output with medium level of power:

Conclusions
Fosi could have produced an ugly black box with SINAD barely reaching 16 bit performance and still be OK in the market. Yet, they reached higher, far higher, producing superbly low noise and distortion DAC with nice headphone amplifier. The look is attractive as well as is ease of use. At this price, they are overachieving.

I am going to recommend the Fosi K7 both as a general DAC+HP amp and a gaming product.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

 

[amirm]

 

[Rja4000]

Nice!
Thanks

It seems they advertize much more power though: 2x600mW 32 ohm or even 2x2.1W on balanced phones output ?
Or is that a different model ?

 

[JSmith]

It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199.

A decent price here for a decent product, thanks for the testing Amir and to @Fosi Audio.

Some pics;

JSmith

 

[amirm]

It seems they advertize much more power though: 2x600mW 32 ohm or even 2x2.1W on balanced phones output ?

I did test the balanced out. It is very common for those power ratings to be inflated. It is 1 in a 10 that has correct specs.

 

[kemmler3D]

Gamers becoming first class citizens in terms of HiFi? Truly we are living in the future. Now if only they would make more "gaming" accessories that don't look like they are off brand Transformers merch. This box is pretty tasteful for the space IMO, but chairs, mice, monitors, etc...

 

[wwenze]

Conclusions
Fosi could have produced an ugly black box with SINAD barely reaching 16 bit performance and still be OK in the market.

We need ideas of what to check with these devices that are more on functionality than audio performance. When reviewing digital equipment which are guaranteed to have perfect data transfer anyway e.g. HDMI capture card I find it's more about "what problems does it have" instead of "how good does it perform", with the best result being "no problem at all" and yet most products usually drop the ball in some places.

What can we check with regards to this Fosi gaming DAC? Latency? DPC latency? Mic performance? ASIO support? Any MIDI support to play the retro games that use MIDI?

 

[jasonhanjk]

The HP amp is above average.

 

[amirm]

What can we check with regards to this Fosi gaming DAC? Latency? DPC latency? Mic performance? ASIO support? Any MIDI support to play the retro games that use MIDI?

It is outside of the scope of my performance review to cover that kind of detail. Best strategy would be to use my review as a jumping point to seek out others. Most reviewers do a decent job of feature coverage.

 

[WondrousHippo]

Wish this had balanced XLR output but honestly, well done Fosi, they've become an interesting name in the space with their products.

 

[Badunn]

The HP amp is above average.

I’d say it’s excellent but each to there own.

 

[beeface]

Pink Panther on holiday? Well deserved

 

[beeface]

Gamers becoming first class citizens in terms of HiFi? Truly we are living in the future. Now if only they would make more "gaming" accessories that don't look like they are off brand Transformers merch. This box is pretty tasteful for the space IMO, but chairs, mice, monitors, etc...

I think the situation is getting a bit better in recent years. Seems like the market is responding to maturing tastes.

See: Herman Miller's "gaming" chairs, Lemokey mice, Samsung OLED gaming monitors, Fractal Design's cases (e.g. Mood), Wooting keyboard (with the RGB lights set to something sensible like white)

 

[Fosi Audio]

Thank Amir so much for the review and recognition — it truly means a lot to us and is incredibly encouraging!

Here is an exclusive 15% discount code for ASR members: FK7ASR15, valid on our official Fosi Audio website.

 

[amirm]

Oops. Seems that I missed the gain setting for hp out. Will test later and update the review.

 

[sssn]

@amirm
Could you test the output impedance? Given that it uses the TPA6120 to drive headphones, I think it's around 10 Ohms.

 

[JSmith]

Here is an exclusive 15% discount code for ASR members: FK7ASR15, valid on our official Fosi Audio website.

Hey, nice one.


JSmith

 

[Multicore]

Truly we are living in the future.

To be sure, only time will tell.

 

[jasonhanjk]

I’d say it’s excellent but each to there own.

6.5uV noise can be heard using IEM.

 

[Curupira]

I'd like to see mic in measurements, or is it just an extension to the motherboard's?