Fosi ZD3 -Balanced DAC (ESS 9039Q2M) - First Look!

[Ricrosar]

Have been testing out mine over the last couple of days - swapping out the RME, not other changes. One disconcerting thing is a quite audible POP at the start of tracks when the source material changes format between tracks. Happens randomly and not every time. Any one else notice this?

Hi, I'm also having this problem. One thing I discovered is that it doesn't make the POP with the display off. Setup is wiim pro plus via optical,zd3 and couple of za3 in mono. I can live with it since I want the display off anyway and it sounds pretty good

 

[CReeDeR]

Hi, I'm also having this problem. One thing I discovered is that it doesn't make the POP with the display off. Setup is wiim pro plus via optical,zd3 and couple of za3 in mono. I can live with it since I want the display off anyway and it sounds pretty good

Same problem here. Setup is WiiM Pro Plus via optical to the ZD3, then XLR to two V3 Monos. I will test it with display off. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Parky]

I did resolve the issue with cec and the zd3 to have it work consistently on my tv I just plugged in a lone hdmi cable and it now works great. Just a bit weird that after 2 days of trouble shooting that's all it took.

 

[Alexandre Delaforetnoire]

The package sent by Fosi Audio took 10 days to leave Shenzen and arrive at home in France. This time, Fosi has evolved in the packaging and offers us a nice package, worthy of the big electronics brands. When opening, the feeling is the same: we feel a quality product, well packaged with the accessories provided. The presence of a minijack/minijack cable to turn on the ZA3 is a plus (Trigger 12v input and output).
The power supply provided is a traditional 12v, ensuring a stable current for the ZD3. The remote control is light and seems low-end but sufficient for its use (be careful, the two batteries are not provided).



The ZD3 is built with the same quality as the ZA3: black anodized aluminum chassis, orange aluminum volume button, rubber feet, impeccable printed circuit and exemplary assembly, we feel that the assembly line is not at its first attempt.
Disassembly for a possible change of the OPAmps chips is easy with the two screws on the back and the volume button to remove, as on the ZA3. Be careful not to tear off the "bypass" connector during this operation!
The connection to the ZA3 amp is made by choice in XLR (5v) or RCA (2.5v) even if this has little impact on listening on short cable lengths. A discreet but present Bluetooth antenna ensures compatibility with the APTX HD codec on my Samsung A52s.
On this side, the sound is powerful, clear and I can't hear any difference to the ear with the same song played from my Android box on the Optical input of the ZD3, it's a good point. The Bluetooth range is respectable, at 5m through light walls of my apartment, the sound plays without interruption.



Listening
I spent two years with my Topping e30 Pro II DAC which remains a quality reference in DACs around €150 and I was very happy with the clear musical result of the two AK4493S chips. The ZD3 tempted me for three main things: Bluetooth (for evenings with friends or to quickly take music to someone's house), XLR outputs (to theoretically optimize the connection to the ZA3) and of course the design, perfectly adapted to the ZA3 for a homogeneous ensemble in my living room.


Once connected to my source in Optical or HDMI Arc to my TV (practical to manage the volume of the DAC with the remote control of your TV), I turned the volume of the ZA3 up to full, and then it was off for a listening experience totally comparable to my Topping E30 Pro II, clean, clinical, detailed, without coloration. Note that the maximum volume of the ZD3 is 80 and not 100.
I didn't find any hiss or background noise even with my 93.5db sensitive speakers.
Using the ZD3 as a preamp and DAC, I have therefore not tested the "bypass" function located under the case.
Through the ZA3 I played music through the ZD3 on my two pairs of fairly similar French speakers: Focal JmLab Profil77 (1996) and JmLab Opium 603 (1988), both pairs renovated with Mundorf MKP capacitors. The titanium (Profil 77) and kevlar (Opium 603) tweeters can be tiring with poor amplification. Here, it is not the case with the ZD3 + ZA3 combo even at high volume where the kevlar tweeter tires faster than the titanium tweeter.


Clear sound on every inputs
Flawless design and good color screen
Improvements ?
For around 200 euros, you can find a lot of decent DACs from the competition but very few with a useful HDMI Arc input even if not essential. On the other hand, if you like the design, it is certainly the one that stands out the most and takes its place in a living room. My wife finds it pretty at home and that is the main thing!

I would nevertheless like to make some improvements that I find important for a future version:

Support for the LDAC codec for even better Bluetooth

The 12v power cable is too short, one more meter would have been perfect

A USB type C input to connect to smartphones without having to find an oldschool adapter

An Android/Os application with equalization management

I didn't find the online manual to be able to safely open the case

Recommandation
I highly recommend the ZD3 with its original LME 49720 chips that have their place in high-end audio equipment.
Easy to use, responsive and well finished, it is the ideal companion for a Fosi ZA3 or a pair of V3 monoblocs.

In France, you can buy it on Audiophonics.fr if you need to be safe with a local seller or on Amazon.fr at the best price.

If you want to listen it live, you are welcome at my home for a free listening session in Besançon, France.

 

[avdoc]

I received my ZD3 a couple days ago. While I love the sound, I'm having occasional "drop-outs". They occur about once per song and are totally random. I would welcome anyone's thoughts on a solution as it's VERY distracting. They've occurred with multiple sources and inputs. I have never had an issue like this with my prior DAC/preamp (Topping E70). Could it be a power supply issue? I would welcome anyone's recommendations for a better power supply that's plug-and-play. For background, I'm using the ZD3 as a DAC/Preamp for both my desktop system with a ZA3 in stereo mode and in my home theater setup with V3 monoblocks. I've been VERY impressed with the sound. The ZD3 is much warmer and fuller sounding than my Topping E70 Sabre. While I love the sound, it's not perfect in operation. There is an audible "pop" when switching inputs. It's not loud, but still disappointing. Also, I have "static" when using the supplied bluetooth antenna. It goes away when I switch to using the E70 antenna, so I assume it's an issue with the supplied antenna. I would welcome any recommendations on a replacement. Thanks.

 

[RScheckmate]

I received my ZD3 a couple days ago. While I love the sound, I'm having occasional "drop-outs". They occur about once per song and are totally random. I would welcome anyone's thoughts on a solution as it's VERY distracting. They've occurred with multiple sources and inputs. I have never had an issue like this with my prior DAC/preamp (Topping E70). Could it be a power supply issue? I would welcome anyone's recommendations for a better power supply that's plug-and-play. For background, I'm using the ZD3 as a DAC/Preamp for both my desktop system with a ZA3 in stereo mode and in my home theater setup with V3 monoblocks. I've been VERY impressed with the sound. The ZD3 is much warmer and fuller sounding than my Topping E70 Sabre. While I love the sound, it's not perfect in operation. There is an audible "pop" when switching inputs. It's not loud, but still disappointing. Also, I have "static" when using the supplied bluetooth antenna. It goes away when I switch to using the E70 antenna, so I assume it's an issue with the supplied antenna. I would welcome any recommendations on a replacement. Thanks.

After a few days I find the same thing occasional drop outs driven from my laptop>roon>ZD3>ZA3 . I thought it was my power management through my laptop (PD power from usbc dongle to laptop with ugreen 100W power adapter that tends to "switch' when new demandsare on it) but now I wonder if its just the base simple ZA3 adapter as you say. I'm going to play around with usbc direct to my ZD3 form laptop (instead of via via shared dongle) to see if that works. The drop outs are rare.

I also here a very very faint pop on switching inputs but rarely do that so I'm ok thus far. It's modest as you said. I have similar soft input or bitrate switch pops even via my expensive AVM70 home theater processor so I've learned to deal with it (not helped by my staticy low humidity city)

I have no bluetooth static.

 

[Ricrosar]

Well, sadly the popping came back even with the display off! Probably just a coincidence. It's mainly from the right channel and it's loud!! I really love how the zd3 sounds but I'm getting worried this will cause damage to the speaker. Strongly thinking taking it out of the system!

 

[CReeDeR]

Well, sadly the popping came back even with the display off! Probably just a coincidence. It's mainly from the right channel and it's loud!! I really love how the zd3 sounds but I'm getting worried this will cause damage to the speaker. Strongly thinking taking it out of the system!

It could be that I have solved the problem with the pop noise, but no guarantee! I replaced the power supply with an iFi Power MK 2 today and haven't had any pop noises since. As I said, I can't say for sure if it's because of that, but everything is currently working perfectly for me.

 

[CReeDeR]

I received my ZD3 a couple days ago. While I love the sound, I'm having occasional "drop-outs". They occur about once per song and are totally random. I would welcome anyone's thoughts on a solution as it's VERY distracting. They've occurred with multiple sources and inputs. I have never had an issue like this with my prior DAC/preamp (Topping E70). Could it be a power supply issue? I would welcome anyone's recommendations for a better power supply that's plug-and-play. For background, I'm using the ZD3 as a DAC/Preamp for both my desktop system with a ZA3 in stereo mode and in my home theater setup with V3 monoblocks. I've been VERY impressed with the sound. The ZD3 is much warmer and fuller sounding than my Topping E70 Sabre. While I love the sound, it's not perfect in operation. There is an audible "pop" when switching inputs. It's not loud, but still disappointing. Also, I have "static" when using the supplied bluetooth antenna. It goes away when I switch to using the E70 antenna, so I assume it's an issue with the supplied antenna. I would welcome any recommendations on a replacement. Thanks.

I sometimes had pop noises when changing the source quality. Since I replaced the power supply unit with an IFi Power MK 2 today, I've had no more problems. It is also plug & play and maybe worth a try.

 

[avdoc]

I sometimes had pop noises when changing the source quality. Since I replaced the power supply unit with an IFi Power MK 2 today, I've had no more problems. It is also plug & play and maybe worth a try.

Can you provide a link to the IFi Power MK 2? Thx.

 

[CReeDeR]

Can you provide a link to the IFi Power MK 2? Thx.

Amazon.com

I'm from germany and bought it on amazon.de.

 

[avdoc]

Amazon.com

I'm from germany and bought it on amazon.de.

The 12 volt version, correct?

 

[CReeDeR]

The 12 volt version, correct?

Yes, that's the correct one!

 

[CReeDeR]

The 12 volt version, correct?

And for your information: You have to use one of the included adapters to plug in the ZD3, even if the standard connection of the power supply looks like it would fit.

 

[Ricrosar]

It could be that I have solved the problem with the pop noise, but no guarantee! I replaced the power supply with an iFi Power MK 2 today and haven't had any pop noises since. As I said, I can't say for sure if it's because of that, but everything is currently working perfectly for me.

Thank you very much for the tip. Glad that's working for you. I'll give that a try

 

[Ricrosar]

Well, just an update on the popping. Since pop only occurs when bit and sampling rates change, I changed opt out resolution to 24/192 fixed on wiim settings. Everything good for hours straight so far. Not sure if technically correct but I can't hear any difference. Zd3 display is obviously locked on 192 even when tracks are 48 etc. Can't tell if Zd3 is up sampling or just bypassing. The thing is no audio quality change and no POP finger crossed!

 

[am_dew]

I am currently using the RCA output from the ZD3 into my Kenwood integrated amp. I was wondering if there would be an audible advantage of using the XLR output with an XLR -> RCA cable into the Kenwood. I understand the XLR output is 5 Vrms vs 2.5 Vrms for RCA. I don't want to overdrive the Kenwood amp. Thanks!

 

[Slave IV]

I am currently using the RCA output from the ZD3 into my Kenwood integrated amp. I was wondering if there would be an audible advantage of using the XLR output with an XLR -> RCA cable into the Kenwood. I understand the XLR output is 5 Vrms vs 2.5 Vrms for RCA. I don't want to overdrive the Kenwood amp. Thanks!

I don't think there is any point in using an XLR to RCA adapter in this case because it will negate the additional output voltage anyways. Even if it didn't, you should be able to compensate by turning the gain down on the amp and in that case, it would mostly be an advantage imo.

 

[rolfrander]

Is this finally a DAC with separate buttons on the remote for each input?

 

[am_dew]

Is this finally a DAC with separate buttons on the remote for each input?

View attachment 403234

Yes