Fosi Audio Box X2 vs Ifi Zen

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

It still has a lot of details, but that's its character. If you expect upfront jumping at you sound, you will not get that, at least out of the box. B...

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

Not so good - wall wart power supply. My Parasound had a built in supply. The Zen has one of those junky wall warts. Even worse, the wall wart blocks two outlets when you plug it in

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...

The reason I gave it only 4 stars is because the moving magnet cartridge setting of only 36db gain is too low, IMO. The only time that it matters is when you want to crank up the volume. I have to turn my amp up to at least 90% which is a bit much. I tried the MC high setting of 48db with my 4mv output cartridge and got popping and distortion during hot sections of the recordings

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!

.night and day. The sound was open, crisp and detailed with a bigger soundstage and firm, quick bottom end, and sounded so much cleaner and clear

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

First off, I am blown away by the features and sound quality of this little bugger. A nice alternative to a Schiit Mani- it certainly doesn't keep up with my Musical Fidelity MX-VYnL, but I'm kinda glad it doesn't..

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

So finally settled on the much more affordable Ifi Zen phono. I was blown away. Great sound, no distortion, clean spectral, Extremely flat frequency response. Everything youd want in your signal path

This is probably the biggest bang for your buck. If you’re just starting out you can’t go wrong here. Just upgrade your tubes and you’ll be really pleased.

The price is phenomenal for the performance, versatility, and build quality. If you're trying to build a moonshot audiophile system, you're probably going to have to up the price and get something more powerful, but for $149 you're going to listen to this thing and wish you had bought it sooner, trust me.