Emotiva XPS-1 vs Fosi Audio Box X2

I picked these up local for $1k and they sound amazing. I've been drooling over these speakers for a year and I had set a side enough money to aquire a pair. There's so much clarity and clear subtlety that I've found myself turning down the volume sometimes, and the bass has much more presence and impact than the elac's that im realizing just how bloated they were in the low-end.

most of the recordings from the 70's-80's just stink though. I was hoping the records might do better. They didn't

By "analog" I include such impressions as cymbal sound combining realistic metallic impact followed by a shimmering falloff, relaxed and silky soft passages, weighty and impactful drum strikes, clarity and separation of parts in loud ensemble passages (and I could ramble on). In short, just enjoyable music playback without distortions or distractions. After just a few album sides, I can already tell that the XPS-1 is no compromise, but rather an optimization. To my LP collection of some 50 years, welcome back to regular play!

Sound Quality. I would say Schiit Mani wins a bit on instrument separation and clarity. It's more CD like, picking up more details on high end (as well as pops and clicks) compared to Fosi Audio. Does it mean Mani wins overall? NO! For quite few genres of music I would prefer the analog and full sound of Fosi Audio! I was also surprised by myself and I even doubt it in the first place

Serious midrange suck out. Also had a serious issue blocking RF. Could easily hear a local radio station through it, but I live close to that tower and it did not exhibit that issue at my friends house. Overall the emotiva does so much right I will give up some detail for the incredible things it does to soundstage and fun factor

the soundstage shows a huge improvement as well, with a much grander sound. the bass is kept tight, where you can hear the notes themself, unlike the sloppy sound of the amp's built-in phono. i really enjoy the highs as well, a few times where i thought they'd sound piercing and too overboard, they were still controlled. overall: if you're looking for a starter external phono-preamp, i'd highly recommend this!

It's possible that I just got the two bad units Emotiva made this year, but I suspect this is more a fundamental problem with their wall wart powering system for this unit (Wall warts always a bad idea for any piece of supposedly fine audio gear!) Oh, and by the way, the turntable connected to the units was a Thorens TD 190-2 that works perfectly well with the phono ART preamp I had been using.

Vacuum Tubes 5654W 7-pin Upgrade for 6AK5 6J1 6J1P EF95 Coupling Tubes - 2 Pieces

Plenty of clean gain and more adjustment than anything else in the price range. Wish it had a power switch and the form factor makes placement really awkward, but I'm ok with those compromises considering the sound. I compared it to several other budget stages, I thought the U-turn was just as good for MM cartridges and preference differed based on the specific cartridge pairing, but nothing comes even close for MC cartridges. I think this and a Denon 103 for around $300 total here on Amazon is the best budget combo currently available, certainly that I have heard for a similar price

Let's go ahead and get this open and take a look at it, so like I said it's sealed, so I got my knife here and we got that there, we're going to go ah...

Low output to high output, MC OR MM. And 4 levels of impedance. I usually keep it at 47 kohm. But depending out the compliance of your cartridge the 100 kohm or even higher works well

The lows of the bass and the highs of Brian Johnson’s vocals truly show the difference. Let it play for 2 minutes with digital to get your ears used to it. Then switch to tube. I’ve tried this test with three friends who are not audiophiles, to make sure that I was not just hearing what I wanted to hear