This is a review, detailed measurements and listening test of Fosi ZH3 balanced stereo DAC and headphone amplifier/preamp. It was sent to me by the company. I can't find the price ($200?). It costs US $199.
The ZH3 is attractive and follows the design language of the newer Fosi products. I found the menu navigation with the front panel knob difficult. It would sometimes jump forward/back with little motion, other times it would take a few clicks. It was very frustrating. Fortunately the remote control doesn't have this issue. Back panel shows attractive set of features:
Like the inclusion of trigger and RCA inputs. Alas, I forgot to test that.
Will do so later.
In the interest of time, I skipped over a few tests and focused on front panel headphone outputs only.
FOSI ZH3 Measurements
I started with medium gain and balanced headphone out:
Distortion is well below threshold of hearing. So SINAD is determined by noise alone. 113 dB nicely lands the ZH3 in our very competent bucket:
Here is the dynamic range:
At 4 volt, performance is more than you could ask for in this class. At 50 mv, initial measurements using balanced out was somewhat disappointing. Switching to unbalanced, remedied good bit of that:
Still, highly sensitive IEMs may experience a bit of noise.
IMD test shows the difference between balanced and unbalanced:
Default filter performance is typical and good:
There is almost no frequency dependency which is good:
Now we get to the impressive part which is available power and lack of any distortion/clipping:
It is especially impressive to see no clipping all the way up to 2.5 watts! I don't think I have seen this before. This is very useful for testing limits of headphone distortion. If you hear any distortion, it is the headphone and not the amplifier!
Fosi ZH3 Listening Tests
I chose to test the Dan Clark Audio E3 headphone with the ZH3. I used the high gain and with it, there was incredible fidelity and lots of headroom. I think I had the volume at 75 even at very high loudness. Detail in the music was amazing as was the bass impact. The combination melted my heart in how clean and dynamic the performance was!
Conclusions
If the price is as I expect, the ZH3 is an incredible offering with ultra low distortion yet a ton of power. It is attractive in design and capability. Listening performance was a delight even with my less sensitive headphone, proving the capability of the output stage. Yes, the noise figures could be a bit better but that will impact very few users with ultra sensitive IEMs.
The inclusion of analog input is a major hit for people like me who also need to integrate an analog source. Few DACs sport such a feature.
It is my pleasure to recommend the FOSI ZH3. Company sure has its eye on the ball as far as feature list and performance.
------------
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/
The ZH3 is attractive and follows the design language of the newer Fosi products. I found the menu navigation with the front panel knob difficult. It would sometimes jump forward/back with little motion, other times it would take a few clicks. It was very frustrating. Fortunately the remote control doesn't have this issue. Back panel shows attractive set of features:
Like the inclusion of trigger and RCA inputs. Alas, I forgot to test that.
Will do so later.In the interest of time, I skipped over a few tests and focused on front panel headphone outputs only.
FOSI ZH3 Measurements
I started with medium gain and balanced headphone out:
Distortion is well below threshold of hearing. So SINAD is determined by noise alone. 113 dB nicely lands the ZH3 in our very competent bucket:
Here is the dynamic range:
At 4 volt, performance is more than you could ask for in this class. At 50 mv, initial measurements using balanced out was somewhat disappointing. Switching to unbalanced, remedied good bit of that:
Still, highly sensitive IEMs may experience a bit of noise.
IMD test shows the difference between balanced and unbalanced:
Default filter performance is typical and good:
There is almost no frequency dependency which is good:
Now we get to the impressive part which is available power and lack of any distortion/clipping:
It is especially impressive to see no clipping all the way up to 2.5 watts! I don't think I have seen this before. This is very useful for testing limits of headphone distortion. If you hear any distortion, it is the headphone and not the amplifier!
Fosi ZH3 Listening Tests
I chose to test the Dan Clark Audio E3 headphone with the ZH3. I used the high gain and with it, there was incredible fidelity and lots of headroom. I think I had the volume at 75 even at very high loudness. Detail in the music was amazing as was the bass impact. The combination melted my heart in how clean and dynamic the performance was!
Conclusions
If the price is as I expect, the ZH3 is an incredible offering with ultra low distortion yet a ton of power. It is attractive in design and capability. Listening performance was a delight even with my less sensitive headphone, proving the capability of the output stage. Yes, the noise figures could be a bit better but that will impact very few users with ultra sensitive IEMs.
The inclusion of analog input is a major hit for people like me who also need to integrate an analog source. Few DACs sport such a feature.
It is my pleasure to recommend the FOSI ZH3. Company sure has its eye on the ball as far as feature list and performance.
------------
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/
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Given the extremely low distortion at 1 kHz, I predict it would be excellent anyway.
